Dr. Helga Thorson

Biography

Helga Thorson teaches German language courses as well as cultural studies courses focusing on early twentieth-century literature, Nazi cinema, and Holocaust literature and film. In 2012, she received the Faculty of Humanities Teaching Excellence Award, followed by UVic’s Excellence in Teaching for Experiential Learning Award in 2017 and the 3M National Teaching Fellowship in 2019. In 2011, she co-founded and taught the I-witness Holocaust Field School, a four-week course that examines Holocaust memorialization in Central Europe. The course involves intensive study at the University of Victoria followed by weeks in Central Europe, focusing specifically on Holocaust memorial sites such as concentration camps, museums, cemeteries, and monuments. Dr. Thorson is actively engaged in the Holocaust Studies MA stream in the Germanic and Slavic Studies program at the School of Languages, Linguistics, and Cultures at the University of Victoria, which is one of its kind in Canada. Together with her students, she participates in international and local digital memorial projects, including the Servitengasse 1938–1945 digital mapping project and the 'Stories of the Holocaust: Local Memory Transmission' digital exhibit.

Research Interests