Jane Klinger, chief curator of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and a doctoral student at the University of Delaware, will deliver a guest lecture about material culture from 11:15 a.m. to 12:05 p.m., Wednesday, March 14, in room 205 of Gore Hall on the UD campus.

She will speak in the Jewish Studies/History class that covers the Jewish Holocaust from 1933 to 1945 and is taught by Polly Zavadivker, assistant professor of instruction in history and Jewish studies.

Klinger, who is a Coremans Fellow in the Preservation Studies doctoral program at UD, will focus on the material culture of the Holocaust and the conservation and preservation of artifacts and memories.

She will discuss the choices that historian curators make in determining which objects to include in an exhibition and how that reflects the emphasis placed on different aspects of a complex and difficult history. She will also talk about the conservator’s imperative to preserve the collections and provide guidelines for safe and appropriate display.

At the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Klinger is responsible for the conservation and preservation management of the museum collections and the holdings of its archives and library.

Klinger has worked as a paper conservator in Florence, Italy, and other countries, returning to the United States as assistant paper conservator at Winterthur Museum in Delaware and, later, as a conservator at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and for the National Archives and Records Administration.

Her research topic in UD’s Preservation Studies Program is the identification, interpretation, public perception and preservation of the material culture of trauma.