Elizabeth R. Baer

Elizabeth Roberts was born in 1946 in Ithaca, New York,{{sfn|Contemporary Authors|2007}} to Emmie Elizabeth (née Herbermann) and James Herbert Roberts.{{sfn|The Providence Journal|2006}} Her mother attended Manhattanville College and graduated with a double major in biology and chemistry. She became the first woman scientist hired by the Squibb corporation and worked on their penicillin project.{{sfn|The Providence Journal|2006}} Roberts attended her mother's alma mater, graduating in 1968 summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree.{{sfn|Contemporary Authors|2007}} She married Clinton D. Baer Jr., with whom she would have two children, Hester and Nathaniel Baer.{{sfn|The Providence Journal|2006}}{{sfn|The Burlington Free Press|1980|p=42}} Continuing her education, Baer completed a master's degree at New York University in 1970 and her PhD in 1981 from Indiana University.{{sfn|Contemporary Authors|2007}}

During her studies, Baer taught at Indiana University Bloomington between 1972 and 1975 and lectured at Dartmouth College on women's studies between 1977 and 1981.{{sfn|Contemporary Authors|2007}}{{sfn|The Burlington Free Press|1980|p=42}} The National Women's Studies Association was formed in 1977 to advocate for inclusion of women and their accomplishments in academic studies.{{sfn|Gerber|2002|p=1}} At the time there were no national organizations in the United States which advocated for curricula which included women, and few formal advocacy groups pressing for the inclusion of women as a field of study.{{sfn|Gerber|2002|pp=2–3}} The governing body of the organization was a coordinating council,{{sfn|Gerber|2002|pp=10–12}} and Baer served on the council from its founding through 1979.{{sfn|Women's Studies Quarterly|1977|p=9}}{{sfn|Baer|1979|p=15}} In 1981, she was appointed assistant dean at Sweet Briar College in Virginia,{{sfn|Bulletin of Sweet Briar College|1981|p=3}} and became dean of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland in 1985.{{sfn|Contemporary Authors|2007}}{{sfn|York Daily Record|1986|p=15}} At both universities, in addition to her administrative duties, Baer lectured for the English department.{{sfn|Senne|2000}}

Baer left Chestertown in 1992 and accepted two administrative positions at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, as the faculty dean and vice president of academic affairs. She also taught in the English department.{{sfn|Contemporary Authors|2007}}{{sfn|Senne|2000}} In 2000, she stepped away from administration and completed a Fulbright Fellowship studying the Holocaust in Germany.{{sfn|Senne|2000}}{{sfn|Joeres|Gelus|2003|p=251}} Completing her research, later that year, she returned to Minnesota to take up the Florence and Raymond Sponberg Professorship in Ethics and taught both English and ethics courses at Gustavus Adolphus College.{{sfn|Senne|2000}} Her article "A New Algorithm in Evil: Children's Literature in a Post-Holocaust World" won the Virginia Hamilton Prize from the University of Minnesota in 2001, as the best article written in 2000 on "multicultural children's literature".{{sfn|Joeres|Gelus|2003|p=251}}{{sfn|Hoyle|2001}} In 2004, she was designated as the Ida E. King Distinguished Visiting Scholar of Holocaust Studies by Stockton State College in Galloway, New Jersey,{{sfn|The Press of Atlantic City|2004|p=23}} and held the post again between 2016 and 2017, teaching on genocide and gender.{{sfn|Aarons|Lassner|2020|p=806}}

Expanding her research into other conflicts, in 2012, Baer analyzed the Rwandan genocide and organized a class and lecture series about the Dakota War of 1862. She was awarded the Faculty Scholarly Accomplishment Award for this work in 2013.{{sfn|Dugdale|2013|p=15}} Two years later, she was appointed as research professor of English and African Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College,{{sfn|Aarons|Lassner|2020|p=806}}{{sfn|General Catalog|2015|p=256}} and subsequently also became a researcher at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.{{sfn|Aarons|Lassner|2020|p=806}}{{sfn|Miller|2021}}

While she was working at Washington College, Baer was focused on transcribing nineteenth-century women's diaries,{{sfn|York Daily Record|1986|p=15}} to evaluate the experiences of women impacted by war.{{sfn|Contemporary Authors|2007}} She edited Lucy Buck's diary and published the third edition of it in 1997.{{sfn|Weiner|1999|p=237}}{{sfn|Berkowitz|1998}} The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women, edited by Baer and her daughter evaluated the memoir of Nanda Herbermann, which had originally been published in 1946.{{sfn|Aarons|Lassner|2020|p=806}} Herbermann, a distant relative of Baer, was a Catholic with ties to high ranking Nazi officers. Although she was arrested and sent to Ravensbrück for collaborating with the resistance, Hebermann was released on the order of Heinrich Himmler. Baer and her daughter provided context of Herberman's background noting that her privilege as an Aryan with internalized anti-Semitism made her story an unusual Holocaust memoir of life in a concentration camp.{{sfn|Rapaport|2002|p=153}}

Continuing on the theme of the impact of conflict on women, in 2003, Baer and Myrna Goldenberg edited Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust.{{sfn|Doerr|2004|p=11}} The anthology collected and evaluated scholarship on gendered experiences of the Holocaust, examining a wide range of women’s experiences such as how authorities dealt with childbirth and pregnancy; resistance activities; the importance of recipes, writing, and art; survival strategies; and wartime sexual violence.{{sfn|Doerr|2004|pp=11–12}} Karin Doerr, a specialist on the Holocaust teaching at Concordia University in Montreal, noted that despite lacking a bibliography, a section on film and video presentations, an in-depth analysis of art, and other "minor shortcomings", that the volume "fills significant gaps and points clearly to new directions in our comprehension of gendered Holocaust experiences".{{sfn|Doerr|2004|pp=12–13}} Kirsten Krick-Aigner, a professor of German studies and chair of the language, literature and culture department at Wofford College,{{sfn|The Fount|2018|p=4}} noted that the interdisciplinary volume gave views from actors on both sides of the conflict and brought "together some of the finest research and writing in Holocaust studies".{{sfn|Krick-Aigner|2005|p=198}}

Baer's work The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction, published in 2012, examined the legend of the golem, a Jewish folk being, as it appears in contemporary comics, literature, and media.{{sfn|Aarons|Lassner|2020|p=806}}{{sfn|Feiner|2014|p=866}} The book traces the history of the golem's metamorphosis from a Jewish protector to an evil creature,{{sfn|Feiner|2014|pp=866–867}} and analyzes how various interpretations of it have been manipulated to evaluate human nature, what is divine, and even social justice.{{sfn|Feiner|2014|p=869}} In 2017, she published The Genocidal Gaze: From German Southwest Africa to the Third Reich, which evaluated the links between the Herero and Namaqua genocide and the Holocaust.{{sfn|Tenorio|2018}}{{sfn|Miller|2021}} By analyzing literary works, Baer noted the shared characteristics of racism, concentration and death camps, dehumanization, forced labor, medical experimentation, deliberate starvation, and rape, among others in the policies of the administrators of German South West Africa and Nazi Germany.{{sfn|Tenorio|2018}}{{sfn|Miller|2021}} Co-published by Wayne State University Press and the University of Namibia Press, the book has been used as a textbook in Namibia.{{sfn|Tenorio|2018}}

• {{cite book |ref=none |last1=Buck |first1=Lucy Rebecca |editor1-last=Baer |editor1-first=Elizabeth R. |title=Shadows on My Heart: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Rebecca Buck of Virginia |date=1997 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |location=Athens, Georgia |isbn=978-0-8203-1852-3}}
• {{cite book |ref=none |last1=Herbermann |first1=Nanda |translator-last=Baer |translator-first=Hester |editor1-last=Baer |editor1-first=Hester |editor2-last=Baer |editor2-first=Elizabeth R. |title=The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women |date=2000 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit |isbn=978-0-8143-2904-7}}
• {{cite journal |ref=none |last1=Baer |first1=Elizabeth Roberts |title=A New Algorithm in Evil: Children's Literature in a Post-Holocaust World |journal=The Lion and the Unicorn |date=September 2000 |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=378–401 |doi=10.1353/uni.2000.0026 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, Maryland |s2cid=143981474 |issn=1080-6563 |oclc=924120117}}
• {{cite book |ref=none |editor1-last=Baer |editor1-first=Elizabeth R. |editor2-last=Goldenberg |editor2-first=Myrna |title=Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust |date=2003 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit, Michigan |isbn=978-0-8143-3062-3}}
• {{cite book |ref=none |last1=Baer |first1=Elizabeth R. |title=The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction |date=2012 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit, Michigan |isbn=978-0-8143-3626-7}}
• {{cite book |ref=none |last1=Baer |first1=Elizabeth Roberts |title=The Genocidal Gaze: From German Southwest Africa to the Third Reich |date=2017 |publisher=Wayne State University Press |location=Detroit, Michigan |isbn=978-0-8143-4438-5}}

{{reflist|20em}}

{{refbegin|30em}}

• {{cite book |editor1-last=Aarons |editor1-first=Victoria |editor2-last=Lassner |editor2-first=Phyllis |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Holocaust Literature and Culture | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=jSTMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA806 |date=2020 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=Cham, Switzerland |chapter=Contributor's Notes |pages=805–818 |isbn=978-3-03-033428-4}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Baer |first1=Elizabeth |title=NWSA Coordinating Council Meeting Participants, February 1979 |journal=Women's Studies Quarterly |date=Spring 1979 |volume=7 |issue=2 |page=15 |url=https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1535&context=wsq |access-date=March 31, 2023 |publisher=Feminist Press |location=Old Westbury, New York |jstor=25159492 |issn=0363-1133 |oclc=5547032994}}
• {{cite web |last1=Berkowitz |first1=Leah |title=Review of Baer, Elizabeth R., ed., Shadows on My Heart: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Rebecca Buck of Virginia |url=http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2154 |website=H-CivWar |publisher=H-Net Reviews |access-date=March 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210716080721/http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=2154 |archive-date=July 16, 2021 |location=East Lansing, Michigan |date=June 1998 |url-status=live}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Doerr |first1=Karin |title=Review: Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust. Elizabeth R. Baer and Myrna Goldenberg. Eds. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003. 321 pages. Cloth ISBN 0- 8143-3062-2 $39.95. Paper. ISBN 0-8143-3062-2. $24.95. |journal=The Bulletin of the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies |date=Fall 2004 |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=11–13 |url=https://www.uvm.edu/sites/default/files/media/f-bull-04.pdf |access-date=April 1, 2023 |publisher=University of Vermont |location=Burlington, Vermont |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401165623/https://www.uvm.edu/sites/default/files/media/f-bull-04.pdf |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |oclc=60261903 |url-status=live}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Dugdale |first1=Eric |title=Elizabeth Baer, PhD, Recipient of the 2012 Faculty Scholarly Accomplishment Award |journal=Research, Scholarship, and Creativity 2012–2013 |url=https://gustavus.edu/kendallcenter/documents/2013-2014ResearchScholarshipandCreativitypublication.pdf |access-date=April 1, 2023 |date=2013 |publisher=John S. Kendall Center for Engaged Learning, Gustavus Adolphus College |location=St. Peters, Minnesota |page=15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220614234021/https://gustavus.edu/kendallcenter/documents/2013-2014ResearchScholarshipandCreativitypublication.pdf |archive-date=June 14, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Feiner |first1=Karen |title=Reviewed Work: The Golem Redux: From Prague to Post-Holocaust Fiction by Baer Elizabeth R. |journal=Modern Fiction Studies |date=Winter 2014 |volume=60 |issue=4 |pages=866–869 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26421761 |access-date=April 1, 2023 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, Maryland |jstor=26421761 |issn=0026-7724 |oclc=8512565020}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Gerber |first1=Barbara W. |title=NWSA Organizational Development: A View from within, at 25 Years |journal=NWSA Journal |date=Spring 2002 |volume=14 |issue=1 |pages=1–21 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4316866 |access-date=March 31, 2023 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington, Indiana |jstor=4316866 |s2cid=143357009 |issn=1040-0656 |oclc=358655753}}
• {{cite web |last1=Hoyle |first1=Karen Nelson |title=From the Curator |url=https://static.lib.umn.edu/pdf/clrc/newsletters/2001/summer01.htm#2 |website=The Kerlan Collection: Newsletter Archive |publisher=University of Minnesota |access-date=April 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401151022/https://static.lib.umn.edu/pdf/clrc/newsletters/2001/summer01.htm |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |location=South Minneapolis, Minnesota |date=Summer 2001 |url-status=live}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Joeres |first1=Ruth-Ellen Boetcher |last2=Gelus |first2=Marjorie |editor1-last=Joeres |editor1-first=Ruth-Ellen Boetcher |editor2-last=Gelus |editor2-first=Marjorie |title=About the Contributors |journal=Women in German Yearbook |date=2003 |volume=19 |pages=251–254 |doi=10.1353/wgy.2003.0000 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/392632/pdf |access-date=April 1, 2023 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |location=Lincoln, Nebraska |issn=1058-7446|url-access=subscription }}{{subscription required|via=Project MUSE}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Krick-Aigner |first1=Kirsten |title=Review: Experience and Expression: Women, the Nazis, and the Holocaust by Elizabeth R. Baer, Myrna Goldenberg |journal=German Studies Review |date=February 2005 |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=198–200 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30038113 |access-date=April 1, 2023 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore, Maryland |jstor=30038113 |issn=0149-7952 |oclc=5546542076}}
• {{cite web |last1=Miller |first1=Yvette Alt |title=Germany's Other Genocide: Dress Rehearsal for the Holocaust |url=https://aish.com/germanys-other-genocide-dress-rehearsal-for-the-holocaust/ |website=Aish.com |publisher=Aish HaTorah |access-date=April 1, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220821193525/https://aish.com/germanys-other-genocide-dress-rehearsal-for-the-holocaust/ |archive-date=August 21, 2022 |location=Jerusalem |date=June 20, 2021 |url-status=live}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Rapaport |first1=Lynn |title=Reviewed Work: The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women by Nanda Herbermann, Hester Baer, Elizabeth Baer |journal=Central European History |date=March 2002 |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=153–155 |doi=10.1017/S0008938900008426 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4547177 |access-date=April 1, 2023 |publisher=Humanities Press |location=Boston, Massachusetts |jstor=4547177 |s2cid=145133536 |issn=0008-9389 |oclc=8271160869|url-access=subscription }}
• {{cite news |last1=Senne |first1=Stacia |title=Gustavus Adolphus College Dean Appointed to Endowed Chair |url=https://gustavus.edu/news/releases/deanbaer990rls.html |access-date=April 1, 2023 |work=News from Gustavus Adolphus College |publisher=Gustavus Adolphus College |date=April 11, 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401143341/https://gustavus.edu/news/releases/deanbaer990rls.html |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |location=St. Peter, Minnesota |url-status=live}}
• {{cite news |last1=Tenorio |first1=Rich |title=Genocide of African tribes was Germany's Holocaust dress rehearsal, says scholar |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/genocide-of-african-tribes-was-germanys-holocaust-dress-rehearsal-says-scholar/ |access-date=April 1, 2023 |work=The Times of Israel |date=August 29, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221231211213/https://www.timesofisrael.com/genocide-of-african-tribes-was-germanys-holocaust-dress-rehearsal-says-scholar/ |archive-date=December 31, 2022 |location=Jerusalem |url-status=live}}
• {{cite journal|last=Weiner |first=Marli F. |title=Review of Tokens of Affection: The Letters of a Planter's Daughter in the Old South.; The Diary of Dolly Lunt Burge, 1848–1879.; Shadows on My Heart: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Rebecca Buck of Virginia. |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2567460 |doi=10.2307/2567460 |access-date=March 31, 2023 |journal=The Journal of American History |publisher=Organization of American Historians |date=June 1999 |volume=86 |issue=1 |location=Bloomington, Indiana |pages=237–239 |jstor=2567460 |issn=0021-8723 |oclc=5545609474|url-access=subscription }}
• {{cite journal |ref={{harvid|The Fount|2018}}|author= |title=42nd Annual Philological Association of the Carolinas |journal=The Fount |date=Spring 2018 |volume=14 |issue=2 |page=4 |url=https://web.citadel.edu/root/images/shss/newsletter/fount%20v14i2.pdf |access-date=April 1, 2023 |publisher=The Citadel |location=Charleston, South Carolina |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230401195727/https://web.citadel.edu/root/images/shss/newsletter/fount%20v14i2.pdf |archive-date=April 1, 2023 |url-status=live}}
• {{cite news |ref={{harvid|York Daily Record|1986}}|author= |title=Alcott's 'Little Women' Subject of Library Lecture |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/121949518/alcotts-little-women-subject-of/ |access-date=March 31, 2023 |work=York Daily Record |date=April 16, 1986 |location=York, Pennsylvania |page=15 |via=Newspapers.com}}
• {{cite book |ref={{harvid|General Catalog|2015}}|author= |title=General Catalog 2015–2016 |url=https://gustavus.edu/general_catalog/15_16/admin_faculty_trustees_1516.pdf |date=2015 |publisher=Gustavus Adolphus College |location=St. Peter, Minnesota |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220705193302/https://gustavus.edu/general_catalog/15_16/admin_faculty_trustees_1516.pdf |archive-date=July 5, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Press of Atlantic City|2004}}|author= |title=Holocaust Lecture at Stockton Nov. 10 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/121956819/holocaust-lecture-at-stockton-nov-10/ |access-date=April 1, 2023 |work=The Press of Atlantic City |date=November 5, 2004 |location=Atlantic City, New Jersey |page=23 |via=Newspapers.com}}
• {{cite web |ref={{harvid|Contemporary Authors|2007}}|author= |title=Elizabeth Roberts Baer |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1000163661/BIC?u=wikipedia&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=4d51a6bb |access-date=March 31, 2023 |website=Contemporary Authors |date=2007 |publisher=Gale |location=Farmington Hills, Michigan |id={{Gale|H1000163661}}}}{{subscription required|via=Gale Biography}}
• {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Providence Journal|2006}}|author= |title=Emmie Roberts Obituary |url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/providence/name/emmie-roberts-obituary?id=16771460 |access-date=March 31, 2023 |work=The Providence Journal |date=December 8, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230330200130/https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/providence/name/emmie-roberts-obituary?id=16771460 |archive-date=March 30, 2023 |location=Providence, Rhode Island |via=Legacy.com |url-status=live}}
• {{cite journal |ref={{harvid|Bulletin of Sweet Briar College|1981}}|author= |title=New Staff |journal=Bulletin of Sweet Briar College |date=Spring 1981 |issue=3 |page=3 |url=https://archive.org/details/bulletinofsweetb643swee/page/n2/mode/1up |access-date=March 31, 2023 |publisher=Sweet Briar College |location=Sweet Briar, Virginia |oclc=638063180}}
• {{cite journal |ref={{harvid|Women's Studies Quarterly|1977}}|author= |title=NWSA News: Coordinating Council of the NWSA |journal=Women's Studies Quarterly |date=Winter 1977 |volume=5 |issue=1–2 |page=9 |url=https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1469&context=wsq |access-date=March 31, 2023 |publisher=Feminist Press |location=Old Westbury, New York |jstor=40042428 |issn=0363-1133 |oclc=5547220110}}
• {{cite news |ref={{harvid|The Burlington Free Press|1980}}|author= |title=Watching TV May Have Effects |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/121956983/watching-tv-may-have-effects/ |access-date=March 31, 2023 |work=The Burlington Free Press |date=May 29, 1980 |location=Burlington, Vermont |page=42 |via=Newspapers.com}}

{{refend}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Baer, Elizabeth R.}}

Category:1946 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:20th-century American historians

Category:21st-century American historians

Category:People from Ithaca, New York

Category:Manhattanville University alumni

Category:New York University alumni

Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni

Category:Dartmouth College faculty

Category:Washington College faculty

Category:Gustavus Adolphus College faculty

Category:American historians of the Holocaust

Category:American academics of women's studies

Category:American women historians

Category:Historians from New York (state)