Gift to USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research will Endow New Academic Research Fellowship

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research has established a new endowed academic research fellowship with a gift from four longtime supporters of the Institute.

Gerald Breslauer, Mickey Rutman, Tammy Anderson and Sharon De Greiff have provided the $100,000 gift to create the Breslauer, Rutman and Anderson Research Fellowship at the Center, the research and scholarship unit of USC Shoah Foundation, which is housed at the University of Southern California. It will enable one young scholar to spend up to one month in residence at the Center every year.

The donation officially came from Breslauer, Rutman and Anderson LLC of Los Angeles.

"We make this gift in honor of our close friend Steven Spielberg, whose dedication to preserving the voices of history through testimonies of survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides couldn't be more relevant in these uncertain times," they said.

The new fellowship will be awarded to advanced-standing Ph.D. candidates with innovative dissertation research projects in Holocaust and genocide studies. The selected fellow will add to the body of testimony-based research using the Visual History Archive, the world's largest collection of video interviews from survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides. The fellowship competition will be open to scholars of all disciplines and from universities worldwide.

Breslauer and Rutman's involvement with USC Shoah Foundation dates all the way back to the Institute's 1994 inception.

Both sat on the three-member founding board of what was then called Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, and both remain on the Institute's governing Board of Councilors.

Wolf Gruner, founding director of the Center for Advanced Genocide Research, said that the fellowship will start in the 2017/2018 academic year. An official call for applications will be issued this fall, and the first recipient will be chosen shortly afterwards, with the first fellow's residency as early as fall 2017.

"This gift will enable important advances in our knowledge and support the development of innovative approaches that help the world understand why crimes against humanity occur, and, more importantly, how to prevent societies from spiraling into mass violence," Gruner said. "Without this generous donation, this important work wouldn't be possible."

About USC Shoah Foundation
USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education is dedicated to making audio- visual interviews with survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, a compelling voice for education and action. The Institute's current collection of more than 53,000 eyewitness testimonies contained within its Visual History Archive preserves history as told by the people who lived it, and lived through it. Housed at the University of Southern California, within the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the Institute works with partners around the world to advance scholarship and research, to provide resources and online tools for educators, and to disseminate the testimonies for educational purposes.

Visual History Archive^® is a registered trademark of USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education Reg. U.S. Pat & Tm. Off.

About Center for Advanced Genocide Research
The USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research is dedicated to advancing new areas of interdisciplinary research on the Holocaust and other genocides. One area of research addresses the fundamental question of what enables people to oppose or resist racist ideologies, state discrimination practices, or the active participation in mass atrocities. Other research interests include Research on Violence, Emotion and Behavioral Change and Digital Genocide Studies.

Contact: Josh Grossberg 213-740-6065
[email protected]
Rob Kuznia 213-740-0965
[email protected]

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SOURCE USC Shoah Foundation