Julia Creet
Professor
Office: Atkinson Building, 604
Phone: (416)736-5166 Ext: 30439
Email: creet@yorku.ca
Primary website: juliacreet.com
Secondary website: Academia.edu/JuliaCreet
Attached CV
Media Requests Welcome
JULIA CREET, B.A., History, University of Victoria, M.A. History and Philosophy of Education, University of Toronto, Ph.D., History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz. Prof. Julia Creet is a leading international scholar in Cultural Memory Studies having been involved in the development of the field since the 1990s. Prof. Creet’s research projects are broadly interdisciplinary spanning the Humanities and the Social Sciences including the history of the Holocaust, literary studies, film studies, archival studies, public history, data privacy and direct-to-consumer genetics.
Memory and Migration: Multidisciplinary approaches to memory studies, co-edited with Andreas Kitzmann (UTP 2010, reissued in paper in 2014) is held by 925 libraries worldwide (Worldcat) making it one of the foundational texts in the field of Memory Studies. H.G. Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy, (Northwestern UP 2016) co-edited with Sara Horowitz and Amira Dan, won the Jewish Thought And Culture Award from the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards. Her forthcoming The Genealogical Sublime (University of Massachusetts Press, 2019) is a crossover academic/trade book that traces the cultural, historical and corporate histories of the longest, largest, and most profitable genealogy databases in the world.
In 2017, Julia Creet received a York Research Leader Award in part for her leadership in public engagement. In addition to her scholarship, Creet has also produced and directed two documentary films. MUM: A Story of Silence (38 min 2008) is a personal documentary about a Holocaust survivor who tried to forget. That engagement with family history led to a documentary investigating the cultural and technological zeitgeist of genealogy itself. Data Mining the Deceased: Ancestry and the Business of Family (56 mins 2017, HD) has aired multiple times on TVO to over 300,000 viewers and is now streaming on demand in Canada, the UK, the US, India and Australia. Creet’s nonfiction and journalism has featured in The Conversation, The National Post, Reader’s Digest, Toronto Life, Exile, Border/Lines and West Coast Line.
Degrees
Ph.D. History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa CruzM.A. History and Philosophy of Education, University of Toronto
B.A. Honours History, University of Victoria
Professional Leadership
Research Leader Award, York University 2017 Jewish Thought And Culture Award, Canadian Jewish Literary Awards 2016 for H.G Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy. Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, Research Leave 2015, 2013 Tziporah Weisel Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Feb-June 2014 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. Scholar-in-Residence, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University 2010-11
Research Interests
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Theory and Criticism, 1995-1996 - 1995-96
- Scholar-in-Residence, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University 2010 (Fall) - 2010
- Faculty of Arts Fellowship, York University 2001 - 2001
- U.W.O. Gold Medal (1985) - 1986
- Gregory Heitzmann Prize in Japanese Studies, University of Victoria 1985 - 1985
- Leonard Prize for Highest Standards of Character and Performance in Campus Life, Wesleyan Univ., 1985. - 1985
- University of Western Ontario -
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands -
Julia Creet, Sara Horowitz and Amira Dan, eds. H.G. Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy. Evanston: NorthWestern UP, 2016. 417 pp. Winner of the 2016 Jewish Thought and Culture Award from the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards.
Julia Creet and Andreas Kitzmann, eds. Memory and Migration–interdisciplinary approaches to memory studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
“Introduction.” In Memory and Migration. Ed. Creet and Kitzmann. 3-26.
“The Archive as Temporary Abode.” In Memory and Migration. Ed. Creet and Kitzmann. 280-298.
“On the Sidewalk: Testimony and the Gesture.” Eds. Maria Holmgren Troy and Elisabeth Wennö. Memory, Haunting, Discourse. Karlstad: Karlstad UP, 2005. 139-159. Reprinted “Na poboczu: ?wiadectwo i gest.” Trans. Tomaz Mazur. Ed. Zofia Rosi?ska. Pamiec w filozofii XX wieku. Warsaw: Warsaw UP, 2007. 137-157.
“Manufacturing Memory” an Afterward for Memory Work: The Theory and Practice of Memory. Eds. Andreas Kitszman, Conny Mitlander and John Sundholm. Peter Lang, 2005. Frankfurt and Main: Peter Lang, 2005. 157-165.
“Hypermnesia and the Genealogical Archive.” Travelling Concepts: Memory. Ed. Nancy Pedri. Amsterdam: Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis Press (2003): 59-72.
Encyclopedia Entry on “Monique Wittig.” Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage. Ed. Claude J. Summers. Chester, Conn: New England Publishing Associates, 1995. 759-761. Reprinted, on-line, http://www.glbtq.com/literature/wittig_m,2.html. New England Publishing Associates, 2002.
Encyclopedia Entries on “Judith Butler” (450 wds); “Lesbian Autobiography” (450 wds); ”Lesbian Continuum” (150 wds); “Lesbian Literature” (1000 wds); “Queer Theory “ (1750 wds); “Monique Wittig” (450 wds). Routledge Encyclopedia of Femininst Theories. Ed. Lorraine Code. London: Routledge, 2000. 69-70; 294; 294-5; 301-303; 413-416; 492.
“Anxieties of Identity: Coming Out and Coming Undone.” Negotiating Lesbian and Gay Subjects. Eds. Richard Henke and Monica Dorenkamp. New York: Routledge, 1994. 179-99.
“A Test of Unity: Lesbian Visibility in the British Columbia Federation of Women.” Lesbians in Canada. Ed. Sharon Stone. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 1990. 183-197.
Creet, Julia. "Calling on Witnesses: testimony and the deictic" Journal of Aesthetics & Culture [Online], 1 28 Dec 2009
“Semiotics of Gesture in Witnesses of Holocaust Deportations from Hungary” Applied Semiotics 15 (April 2005): 31-45. www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/ASSA-No15/index.html
“Az Eredet Archívuma.” (in Hungarian) Trans. Agnes Roman Argus 5.6-7 (May 2003):2-8.
“Voyage From Lesbos: Aggression, Ambivalence and Psychoanalysis in the Fifties” Eds. Samuel Delaney and Josh Lukin. Fifties Fictions: Paradoxa 18 (2003): 251-278.
“The Archive and the Uncanny: Danilo Kis’s ‘Encyclopedia of the Dead’ and the Fantasy of Hypermnesia.” Ed. Rebecca Comay. Lost in the Archives: Alphabet City 8 (2002): 265-276.
“Fantasies of Identities Refused.” Tessera 17 (Winter 1994): 30-37.
“Anxiety and Repetition: Coming Out and Lesbian Identity.” Resources For Feminist Research 20:3-4 (Winter 1991): 82-87.
“Daughter of the Movement: The Psychodynamics of Lesbian S/M Fantasy.” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 3:2 (Summer 1991):135-159.
“Lesbian/Gay Sex: What’s the Difference?” OUT/LOOK: National Lesbian and Gay Quarterly 11 (Winter 1991): 29-34.
“Speaking in Lesbian Tongues: Monique Wittig and the Universal Point of View.” Resources for Feminist Research 16.4 (Feb. 1987):16-20.
“The Luminosity of Ordinary Things.” http://www.circuitgallery.com/ (August 2009)
Excerpt from “Our Private Dead.” Exile: The Literary Quarterly 32.1 (Spring 2008): 95-110.
“Narrative Paralysis.” English Studies in Canada 32.2-3 (June/Sept 2006): 24-27.
“The Archive of Origins.” Ghostworks: West Coast Line 37 (Spring 2002): 43-48.
“Treasure Island.” Toronto Life (December 2001): 53-64.
“Technobodies” Border/Lines 46 (Jan 1998): 18-23.
Introduction. Homo Eroticus. Films of Wrik Mead. Toronto: Pleasure Dome, 1997. 3-4.
“What you see when Shonagh Adelman examines your body.” Border/Lines 44 (September 1997): 16-20.
“Sleeping With Eli.” Border/Lines 40 (April 1996): 10-14. Reprinted on Slowburn: Canadian On-line Site for Contemporary Art. http://www.baritone.net/slowburn (1996).
“PagliAttack.” Border/Lines. 37 (August 1995): 5-8.
“Watching the Women’s Television Network.” Border/Lines 38/39 (Dec 1995): 37-41.
Refereed conference papers are marked with an asterisk
“The House of Terror and the Holocaust Memorial Centre: Resentment and Melancholia in Post-89 Hungary” European Studies 30, February 2013
* “Migrations of the Arborescent: Digital Genealogy and the Aesthetics of the Family Tree” Articulations. Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. March 2010.
* “Testimony and the Deictic” ACCUTE, Congress, Montreal, June 2010.
* “The aesthetic roots of the family tree.” The Archive and Everyday Life, McMaster, May 2010.
“Ethics and the Archive.” Workshop of the Culture Memory Group, University of Karlstad, Sweden, May 2009.
“Artur Zmijewski: A Discussion Based Screening.” Gallery TPW, Toronto, May 2008.
“Giorgio Spiller’s grotesques on the streets of Venice Carnival” Carnival Conference, York University, Toronto, July 2008.
* “Locking up Letters” ACCUTE, UBC, Vancouver, June 2008
* “The Voice of Fact” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Long Beach, CA, April, 2008.
“Designing Degree level Outcomes and Expectations,” Canadian Association of Chairs of English, ACCUTE, May 2007.
* “Human, Too Human: Translating Judaism.” Memory and Cultural Translation, Queen’s University, Belfast, April 2006
“Memory and Secrecy,” Temple Emanuel,” Toronto, November 2005
“MUM: a story about silence.” Invited talk to the Open Society Archives, Budapest, Hungary. February 2004.
* “On the Sidewalk: Tourism, Testimony and the Gesture.” Keynote Address. “Memory, Haunting, Discourse” Conference, University of Karlstad, Sweden, June 2004.
* “On the Sidewalk: Tourism, Testimony and the Gesture.” “The Phenomenon of Memory” Conference. University of Warsaw, Poland, April 2004.
* “MUM: a story about silence” (documentary video presentation). Autobiografictions, British Comparative Literature Association, Goldsmiths College, London, September 2003.
“A Brief History of the Gyorgy Family.” Presented in Hungarian. Gyorgy Oszkár Emlékkonferenciára. Székesfehérvár, Hungary. December 12, 2002
* “Hypermensia and the Genealogical Archive.” Traveling Concepts III, Amersterdam Society for Cultural Analysis, Amsterdam, March 2002
“Tourism and Testimony.” Testimony and Historical memory Project Research Seminar, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, November 1, 2002
“The Archive and the Uncanny: Danilo Kis’s ‘Encyclopedia of the Dead’ and the Fantasy of Hypermnesia.” York University, Department of English Lecture Series, May, 2001
* “The Archive and the Uncanny I: Eros in the Archive” American Comparative Literature Association. Yale University, February 2000.
* “The Archive and the Uncanny II: Origins and Secrecy” North Eastern Modern Languages Association. SUNY Buffalo, April 2000.
* “The Archive and the Uncanny III: History and Horror” “Historians and Their Audiences Conference.” York University, April 2000.
Documentary. Director and Producer. "Data Mining the Deceased: Ancestry and the Business of Family" (HD 56 mins).
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2024 | GS/EN6150 3.0 | A | Satire: Twisting World Literature | SEMR |
| Fall 2024 | AP/EN4161 3.0 | A | The Theory and Practice of Autobiography | SEMR |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2025 | GS/EN6965 3.0 | M | Theorizing Memory | SEMR |
JULIA CREET, B.A., History, University of Victoria, M.A. History and Philosophy of Education, University of Toronto, Ph.D., History of Consciousness, UC Santa Cruz. Prof. Julia Creet is a leading international scholar in Cultural Memory Studies having been involved in the development of the field since the 1990s. Prof. Creet’s research projects are broadly interdisciplinary spanning the Humanities and the Social Sciences including the history of the Holocaust, literary studies, film studies, archival studies, public history, data privacy and direct-to-consumer genetics.
Memory and Migration: Multidisciplinary approaches to memory studies, co-edited with Andreas Kitzmann (UTP 2010, reissued in paper in 2014) is held by 925 libraries worldwide (Worldcat) making it one of the foundational texts in the field of Memory Studies. H.G. Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy, (Northwestern UP 2016) co-edited with Sara Horowitz and Amira Dan, won the Jewish Thought And Culture Award from the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards. Her forthcoming The Genealogical Sublime (University of Massachusetts Press, 2019) is a crossover academic/trade book that traces the cultural, historical and corporate histories of the longest, largest, and most profitable genealogy databases in the world.
In 2017, Julia Creet received a York Research Leader Award in part for her leadership in public engagement. In addition to her scholarship, Creet has also produced and directed two documentary films. MUM: A Story of Silence (38 min 2008) is a personal documentary about a Holocaust survivor who tried to forget. That engagement with family history led to a documentary investigating the cultural and technological zeitgeist of genealogy itself. Data Mining the Deceased: Ancestry and the Business of Family (56 mins 2017, HD) has aired multiple times on TVO to over 300,000 viewers and is now streaming on demand in Canada, the UK, the US, India and Australia. Creet’s nonfiction and journalism has featured in The Conversation, The National Post, Reader’s Digest, Toronto Life, Exile, Border/Lines and West Coast Line.
Degrees
Ph.D. History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa CruzM.A. History and Philosophy of Education, University of Toronto
B.A. Honours History, University of Victoria
Professional Leadership
Research Leader Award, York University 2017 Jewish Thought And Culture Award, Canadian Jewish Literary Awards 2016 for H.G Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy. Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies, Research Leave 2015, 2013 Tziporah Weisel Fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Feb-June 2014 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. Scholar-in-Residence, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University 2010-11
Research Interests
Awards
- Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Theory and Criticism, 1995-1996 - 1995-96
- Scholar-in-Residence, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, Brandeis University 2010 (Fall) - 2010
- Faculty of Arts Fellowship, York University 2001 - 2001
- U.W.O. Gold Medal (1985) - 1986
- Gregory Heitzmann Prize in Japanese Studies, University of Victoria 1985 - 1985
- Leonard Prize for Highest Standards of Character and Performance in Campus Life, Wesleyan Univ., 1985. - 1985
- University of Western Ontario -
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands -
All Publications
“Introduction.” In Memory and Migration. Ed. Creet and Kitzmann. 3-26.
“The Archive as Temporary Abode.” In Memory and Migration. Ed. Creet and Kitzmann. 280-298.
“On the Sidewalk: Testimony and the Gesture.” Eds. Maria Holmgren Troy and Elisabeth Wennö. Memory, Haunting, Discourse. Karlstad: Karlstad UP, 2005. 139-159. Reprinted “Na poboczu: ?wiadectwo i gest.” Trans. Tomaz Mazur. Ed. Zofia Rosi?ska. Pamiec w filozofii XX wieku. Warsaw: Warsaw UP, 2007. 137-157.
“Manufacturing Memory” an Afterward for Memory Work: The Theory and Practice of Memory. Eds. Andreas Kitszman, Conny Mitlander and John Sundholm. Peter Lang, 2005. Frankfurt and Main: Peter Lang, 2005. 157-165.
“Hypermnesia and the Genealogical Archive.” Travelling Concepts: Memory. Ed. Nancy Pedri. Amsterdam: Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis Press (2003): 59-72.
Encyclopedia Entry on “Monique Wittig.” Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage. Ed. Claude J. Summers. Chester, Conn: New England Publishing Associates, 1995. 759-761. Reprinted, on-line, http://www.glbtq.com/literature/wittig_m,2.html. New England Publishing Associates, 2002.
Encyclopedia Entries on “Judith Butler” (450 wds); “Lesbian Autobiography” (450 wds); ”Lesbian Continuum” (150 wds); “Lesbian Literature” (1000 wds); “Queer Theory “ (1750 wds); “Monique Wittig” (450 wds). Routledge Encyclopedia of Femininst Theories. Ed. Lorraine Code. London: Routledge, 2000. 69-70; 294; 294-5; 301-303; 413-416; 492.
“Anxieties of Identity: Coming Out and Coming Undone.” Negotiating Lesbian and Gay Subjects. Eds. Richard Henke and Monica Dorenkamp. New York: Routledge, 1994. 179-99.
“A Test of Unity: Lesbian Visibility in the British Columbia Federation of Women.” Lesbians in Canada. Ed. Sharon Stone. Toronto: Between the Lines Press, 1990. 183-197.
Julia Creet, Sara Horowitz and Amira Dan, eds. H.G. Adler: Life, Literature, Legacy. Evanston: NorthWestern UP, 2016. 417 pp. Winner of the 2016 Jewish Thought and Culture Award from the Canadian Jewish Literary Awards.
Julia Creet and Andreas Kitzmann, eds. Memory and Migration–interdisciplinary approaches to memory studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010.
Creet, Julia. "Calling on Witnesses: testimony and the deictic" Journal of Aesthetics & Culture [Online], 1 28 Dec 2009
“Semiotics of Gesture in Witnesses of Holocaust Deportations from Hungary” Applied Semiotics 15 (April 2005): 31-45. www.chass.utoronto.ca/french/as-sa/ASSA-No15/index.html
“Az Eredet Archívuma.” (in Hungarian) Trans. Agnes Roman Argus 5.6-7 (May 2003):2-8.
“Voyage From Lesbos: Aggression, Ambivalence and Psychoanalysis in the Fifties” Eds. Samuel Delaney and Josh Lukin. Fifties Fictions: Paradoxa 18 (2003): 251-278.
“The Archive and the Uncanny: Danilo Kis’s ‘Encyclopedia of the Dead’ and the Fantasy of Hypermnesia.” Ed. Rebecca Comay. Lost in the Archives: Alphabet City 8 (2002): 265-276.
“Fantasies of Identities Refused.” Tessera 17 (Winter 1994): 30-37.
“Anxiety and Repetition: Coming Out and Lesbian Identity.” Resources For Feminist Research 20:3-4 (Winter 1991): 82-87.
“Daughter of the Movement: The Psychodynamics of Lesbian S/M Fantasy.” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 3:2 (Summer 1991):135-159.
“Lesbian/Gay Sex: What’s the Difference?” OUT/LOOK: National Lesbian and Gay Quarterly 11 (Winter 1991): 29-34.
“Speaking in Lesbian Tongues: Monique Wittig and the Universal Point of View.” Resources for Feminist Research 16.4 (Feb. 1987):16-20.
“The Luminosity of Ordinary Things.” http://www.circuitgallery.com/ (August 2009)
Excerpt from “Our Private Dead.” Exile: The Literary Quarterly 32.1 (Spring 2008): 95-110.
“Narrative Paralysis.” English Studies in Canada 32.2-3 (June/Sept 2006): 24-27.
“The Archive of Origins.” Ghostworks: West Coast Line 37 (Spring 2002): 43-48.
“Treasure Island.” Toronto Life (December 2001): 53-64.
“Technobodies” Border/Lines 46 (Jan 1998): 18-23.
Introduction. Homo Eroticus. Films of Wrik Mead. Toronto: Pleasure Dome, 1997. 3-4.
“What you see when Shonagh Adelman examines your body.” Border/Lines 44 (September 1997): 16-20.
“Sleeping With Eli.” Border/Lines 40 (April 1996): 10-14. Reprinted on Slowburn: Canadian On-line Site for Contemporary Art. http://www.baritone.net/slowburn (1996).
“PagliAttack.” Border/Lines. 37 (August 1995): 5-8.
“Watching the Women’s Television Network.” Border/Lines 38/39 (Dec 1995): 37-41.
Refereed conference papers are marked with an asterisk
“The House of Terror and the Holocaust Memorial Centre: Resentment and Melancholia in Post-89 Hungary” European Studies 30, February 2013
* “Migrations of the Arborescent: Digital Genealogy and the Aesthetics of the Family Tree” Articulations. Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. March 2010.
* “Testimony and the Deictic” ACCUTE, Congress, Montreal, June 2010.
* “The aesthetic roots of the family tree.” The Archive and Everyday Life, McMaster, May 2010.
“Ethics and the Archive.” Workshop of the Culture Memory Group, University of Karlstad, Sweden, May 2009.
“Artur Zmijewski: A Discussion Based Screening.” Gallery TPW, Toronto, May 2008.
“Giorgio Spiller’s grotesques on the streets of Venice Carnival” Carnival Conference, York University, Toronto, July 2008.
* “Locking up Letters” ACCUTE, UBC, Vancouver, June 2008
* “The Voice of Fact” American Comparative Literature Association Conference, Long Beach, CA, April, 2008.
“Designing Degree level Outcomes and Expectations,” Canadian Association of Chairs of English, ACCUTE, May 2007.
* “Human, Too Human: Translating Judaism.” Memory and Cultural Translation, Queen’s University, Belfast, April 2006
“Memory and Secrecy,” Temple Emanuel,” Toronto, November 2005
“MUM: a story about silence.” Invited talk to the Open Society Archives, Budapest, Hungary. February 2004.
* “On the Sidewalk: Tourism, Testimony and the Gesture.” Keynote Address. “Memory, Haunting, Discourse” Conference, University of Karlstad, Sweden, June 2004.
* “On the Sidewalk: Tourism, Testimony and the Gesture.” “The Phenomenon of Memory” Conference. University of Warsaw, Poland, April 2004.
* “MUM: a story about silence” (documentary video presentation). Autobiografictions, British Comparative Literature Association, Goldsmiths College, London, September 2003.
“A Brief History of the Gyorgy Family.” Presented in Hungarian. Gyorgy Oszkár Emlékkonferenciára. Székesfehérvár, Hungary. December 12, 2002
* “Hypermensia and the Genealogical Archive.” Traveling Concepts III, Amersterdam Society for Cultural Analysis, Amsterdam, March 2002
“Tourism and Testimony.” Testimony and Historical memory Project Research Seminar, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, November 1, 2002
“The Archive and the Uncanny: Danilo Kis’s ‘Encyclopedia of the Dead’ and the Fantasy of Hypermnesia.” York University, Department of English Lecture Series, May, 2001
* “The Archive and the Uncanny I: Eros in the Archive” American Comparative Literature Association. Yale University, February 2000.
* “The Archive and the Uncanny II: Origins and Secrecy” North Eastern Modern Languages Association. SUNY Buffalo, April 2000.
* “The Archive and the Uncanny III: History and Horror” “Historians and Their Audiences Conference.” York University, April 2000.
Documentary. Director and Producer. "Data Mining the Deceased: Ancestry and the Business of Family" (HD 56 mins).
Current Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2024 | GS/EN6150 3.0 | A | Satire: Twisting World Literature | SEMR |
| Fall 2024 | AP/EN4161 3.0 | A | The Theory and Practice of Autobiography | SEMR |
Upcoming Courses
| Term | Course Number | Section | Title | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winter 2025 | GS/EN6965 3.0 | M | Theorizing Memory | SEMR |
