Stacy Veeder, PhD Candidate- History and Genocide Studies, University of New York at Albany
Stacy Veeder’s dissertation project, The Republican Race: Assimilation, Persecution and Race in France, 1933-1945, focuses on ideas of integration and assimilation within French national life during the interwar period and the Second World War as those ideas underwent radical reconstructions. Crucial to this project is an analysis of how the ideals and language of universal rights and citizenship transformed in the lead up to the Second World War due to processes of social and political marginalization and the development of an environment of increased anti-Semitism and xenophobia. Her research concentrates on how members of the Jewish community, Jewish leaders, and French officials were engaged in a multifarious discourse concerning national identity and assimilation, frequently utilizing the same lexicon of republicanism to disparate ends. She specifically analyzes the correspondence and memoirs of marginalized, ostracized and interned Jewish refugees and citizens from the concentration camps of France, highlighting their fervent attempts to advocate for the restoration of the rights and voice of themselves and their community.
Ms. Veeder studied Human Rights and Genocide studies at the London School of Economics and New York University, and recently completed a position within the United Nations Security Council at UN Headquarters where she was responsible for researching and drafting reports regarding human rights, atrocities, and humanitarian law violations within conflict zones. She has received support to perform research on the Holocaust and genocide through the Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University, the Auschwitz Jewish Center Fellows Program, the Center for Jewish History, and the American Academy of Jewish Research. Her supervisors are Dr. Barry Trachtenberg and Dr. Richard Fogarty.