Geoffrey Tabakin
Lecture: “Cartography and Caring—Tracing the Lines of My Sephardic Ancestry”
Wednesday December 11, 6 pm, Miller Center Library Ringsmuth Auditorium MC122
What I bring to this event:
Dr. Tabakin brings to this discussion a recognition that we ARE the sum total of our ancestry. He is engaged in a search for the story of his Sephardic ancestry that is probably closer to personal mapping than tracking historical or genealogical roots. At the same time there is recognition that the map is not the experiential terrain nor does it explain the story of survival through time.
What brings Dr. Tabakin back to this topic is an affirmation of his Sephardic / Ashkenazi lineage, born of a recent tragedy where genetic testing was done to determine the presence of Tay-Sachs. Again one is reminded that the recognition of identity neither justifies the present nor exonerates the past –
de nobis fabula narratur (of us is the story told).
Titles and entitlement:
Professor Geoffrey Tabakin has been at St. Cloud State University for nigh on 25 years – much to everyone’s surprise including his own. He has been variously titled, but rarely entitled, in a range of positions at St. Cloud State including Kindergarten Educator, Storyteller, Faculty Director for the Division of General Studies, and Director of the Honors Program. Currently he serves in the Department of Academic Support, and as interim Community Anti-Racism Education Initiative organizer. What may be most pertinent to this event is his work offering courses on genocide, his title as plaintiff in the Zmora anti-Semitism case against the University, and the oft-cited title of “troublemaker” and “challenger” to prevailing norms of discrimination including anti-Semitism.
Born, raised, and identified as persona non grata in apartheid South Africa while completing his B.A. at the University of Cape Town, he emigrated to the United States of America where he completed his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin Madison at the same time that he earned his Sho Dan (1st Degree Black Belt) in Shotokan karate, and earlier a certificate as a Class B Industrial Welder from the Milwaukee Area Technical College.
