Displaced Storytellers from the Places They Carry: Voices from Iraq and Syria

What happens when the stories of war and the people who survive are told through a dress, a song, eggplant seeds, or the memory of a pharmacy? In this Landscapes of Belonging event, Author and journalist Stephanie Saldaña shares the narratives of women and men who escaped war in Iraq and Syria, carrying with them memories that capture the religious and cultural diversity of a region spanning from Mosul to Mount Sinjar to Aleppo. The result is a tribute to the hidden historians of war and the vanishing worlds they keep alive through their storytelling.

What We Remember Will Be Saved is a breathtaking, elegiac odyssey into the heart of the largest refugee crisis in modern history. It reminds us that refugees are storytellers and speakers of vanishing languages, and shows how much history can be distilled into a piece of fabric, or eggplant seeds. What we salvage tells our story. What we remember will be saved.

Stephanie Saldaña is a journalist and religion scholar from San Antonio, Texas, who has spent most of the last twenty years living in the Middle East. Saldaña studied religion at Harvard Divinity School and is the author of A Country Between and The Bread of Angels, hailed by Geraldine Brooks as “a remarkable, wise, and lovely book.” Her work has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, America Magazine, and Plough, and she has been featured on National Public Radio. Saldaña and her family split their time between Bethlehem and France.

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This event is part Lanscapes of Belonging: Refugee Experiences in Nebraska and Beyond (LoB). Sponsored by the Goldstein Family Community Chair in Human Rights, LoB ains to provide scholarly knowledge on refugees in Nebraska and global refugee trends through research, teaching, and community engagement. You can learn more about Landscapes of Belonging at: unomaha.edu/college-of-arts-and-sciences/goldstein-center-for-human-rights/engagement/refugees.php

This event is sponsored by the Goldstein Family Community Chair in Human Rights (GFCCHR). The GFCCHR was established in 2017 through the generosity of Shirley and Leonard Goldstein’s children: Don Goldstein, Kathy Goldstein-Helm, and Gail Raznick. It brings energy and expertise to coordinate and expand on a broad range of human rights initiatives at UNO. The holder of the GFCCHR supports and enhances the work of the GCHR by serving on the executive committee and one of the three standing committees, as well as partnering on events and initiatives. You can learn more about the GFCCHR at: cas.unomaha.edu/gchr.