Program Leaders
Dr. Helga Thorson, MA, Ph.D.
Helga Thorson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1996, Dr. Thorson was employed for nine years in the Division of International and Second Language Studies at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Since arriving at the University of Victoria, Dr. Thorson has taught a variety of courses, including German as a foreign language, early twentieth-century literature, Weimar and Nazi cinema, and Holocaust literature and film. Currently she is teaching two courses on the Holocaust: GERS 333 entitled The Power of Propaganda and the Politics of Persecution: Literature and Film of the Holocaust and Third Reich and GERS 550 (also cross-listed with ENGL 503) Memory Matters Eyewitness (I-Witness) Accounts of the Holocaust and WWII.
Dr. Thorson is active in Holocaust education and is currently serving as Vice-President of the Victoria Holocaust Remembrance and Education Society. Since 2008 she has volunteered as registration coordinator for the annual Holocaust Symposium sponsored by the Victoria Holocaust Remembrance and Education Society.
Committed to promoting, providing, and protecting a positive, supportive, and safe learning environment, Dr. Thorson strives to make her courses relevant and meaningful to all participants and makes every effort to include a hands-on and experiential-learning dimension in her courses. Students in her graduate course on Memory Studies, for example, are engaged in documenting local stories of the Holocaust and WWII. The I-witness Field School Project is a natural extension of this experiential-learning component. Participants will not only examine the memorials, museums, and projects up-close, but will also have the opportunity to engage in cross-cultural dialogues about the topics under discussion.
Dr. Thorson has won several teaching awards and honours. As a graduate student she was chosen to be featured in the Good Teacher Video Project at the University of Minnesota a project that interviewed exemplary teachers and highlighted their best practices in teaching. She was also twice awarded the Residence Hall Association Teaching Award at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
For more information about Helga Thorson http://web.uvic.ca/geru/thorson.html
Course (GERS 333).
MA (History, Jewish Studies), MS (Tourism and Hospitality Management), MSW (Social Work)
Michael Gans is a sessional instructor and graduate student in the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Victoria, specializing in antisemitism, Holocaust Studies and Yiddish language and culture.
After a 25-year, international career in Tourism and Hospitality Sales and Marketing, Michael began a full-time course of study of the Holocaust, the “Homocaust” (the gay Holocaust) and the “new” anti-Semitism. In 2005, Michael was invited by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem, Israel to present a paper on the development and social impact of Holocaust Tourism in the Baltic States at the Fourth International Conference on Teaching the Holocaust to Future Generations.
In 2010, as a self-taught filmmaker working from independent research, Michael completed a short film, Zydu Gatve - Jew Street, his personal journey, as a Holocaust survivor's son who returns to Lithuania and has an unexpected encounter with his grandmother's ghost . Zydu Gatve - Jew Street won two major awards at the 2010 University of Victoria Sunscreen Film Festival.
As the Associate Program Director and co-creator of the University of Victoria’s I-witness Holocaust Field School Project, Michael continues to explore expanding traditional pedagogical methods when teaching about the genocide of "stigmatized" peoples.
To gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the complexity and scope of Yiddish (Eastern European, Jewish) culture prior to the Holocaust, Michael incorporates Yiddish film, literature and music in the GERS 438B - Introduction to Yiddish Language and Culture course he will be teaching, the Winter Session of 2012.
He also teaches MGB 580 Language Skills I – German in the Master of Global Business Program in the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business.
As a Clinical Social Worker, Michael helps people find long-term solutions to stress, grief, loss and illness, depression, trauma, sexual identity, alcohol and drug misuse, violence, isolation, compelling thoughts and anxiety.
Michael speaks German, Yiddish and Hebrew.
