Email

gtimmer@um.edu.mo

Tel

(853) 8822 8206

Office

E21-4072

Consultation Hours

Mondays 16:15-17:15
Wednesdays 14:00-15:30

Glenn TIMMERMANS

Introduction

Glenn Timmermans joined the Department of English in 2001, after having taught for a number of years as a British Council lecturer at universities in the Czech Republic and in Poland and after a period of studying Law. In 2003 he was appointed MA Coordinator and in 2004 he was appointed to the Faculty Management Committee (until end of 2005) and also to the Headship of the Department of English, a position he held until August 2009. During his seventeen years at the University of Macau, Glenn has served on a large number of committees, including the University Council and Senate and has chaired the University Library Committee, and Faculty Graduate Studies Committee and General Education Committee among others.

After completing his D.Phil. at the University of Oxford in 1994, Glenn travelled extensively in China and it was then that he became interested in this part of the world and he began research on Macao history in the late 1990s.  His particular interest is in the presence of the British in Macao prior to the establishment of Hong Kong as a crown colony.

Research Interests

Glenn’s main research interests are in Holocaust Studies, especially in the teaching of Holocaust History and Literature in China and in Holocaust Education in Asia more widely.  To this end he introduced and teaches the course – The Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights – as part of the University’s General-Education programme and he tries to bring a Holocaust survivor to the University every year so that students might meet and engage with those who endured and survived the greatest crime of modern times while this is still possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4lApJlM5jI

He is a founding director and active board member of the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre (hkhtc.org) and Programme Director of the International Centre for Jewish Studies in London (ICJS.org.uk), founded by previous patrons of the former London Jewish Cultural Centre and dedicated to promoting Holocaust education and Jewish history in Asia.  ICJS organises summer schools at Mainland Chinese universities every July.

https://icjs.org.uk/tag/glenn-timmermans/

Glenn is also the founder and principal organiser of the annual Yad Vashem Holocaust Seminar for Chinese Educators, taking thirty scholars from Greater China to Jerusalem every autumn for a fortnight’s intensive education on the Holocaust, Jewish History and Israel.  This seminar is generously sponsored by the Adelson Family Foundation.

For application to the 2020 Seminar in October, please follow the link here :

For Macao and Hong Kong applicants: YV – HK Macao – 2020 Application Form

For Chinese Mainland applicants: YV – Mainland – 2020 Application Form

https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/yv_magazine64.pdf

https://www.yadvashem.org/sites/default/files/yv_magazine65.pdf

https://www.timesofisrael.com/teaching-the-holocaust-in-hong-kong/

https://www.haaretz.com/1.5121526

Glenn is a Fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar in Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention and is regularly invited to speak on this and related topics at international conferences.

https://www.salzburgglobal.org/news/latest-news/article/the-holocaust-a-distinct-history-a-universal-message.html

https://www.salzburgglobal.org/news/latest-news/article/taking-salzburg-into-the-world.html

Glenn is currently working on a project looking at the use of the Akedah in Holocaust literature and also in Holocaust and post-Holocaust art and this is tied also to his ongoing research on the link between the Akedah and circumcision in Jewish thought and literature.  His particular literary research interest is in the religious aspects of drama, including the links between ritual, blood sacrifice and ideas of atonement.

Glenn is active in trying to raise awareness of the Holocaust and other genocides and is frequently approached for comment on this and related topics by local and international news media.

http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2WwMLsX5f8

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-in-hong-kong-protesters-employ-nazi-imagery-as-demonstrations-erupt/

Glenn’s other research interests are in the history of the British in Macao, from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.

Glenn is interested in supervising MA/PhD theses in the areas of Holocaust Literature and the teaching of Holocaust-related subjects in China and connections between the Holocaust and the Nanjing Massacre; Genocide Studies; Modern Drama, especially its religious dimensions; and various areas of modern British literature.

Courses Regularly Taught

Glenn regularly teaches in the following courses: The Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights; Remembering and Representing the Shoah:  The Holocaust in Literature, Memoir and Film; Theatre and Drama Studies; Modern Drama; Shakespeare; Twentieth-Century and Contemporary Literature in English; Reading Macao.

His other areas of interest, at least as for as teaching and thesis supervision are concerned, include: James Joyce; Macao History, Jewish History, Modern British and Irish Drama.

Glenn is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and has contributed to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the Dictionary of Literary Biography, the Macao Historical Dictionary, and is a  Member of the Modern Language Association.  He is founding Director of the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Centre and is Programme Director of the International Centre for Jewish Studies in London.

Timmermans was the recipient of a major research grant from the University for a project on Contemporary Writing in English [MYRG2015-00083-FAH].  This ran for three years (2015 – 2018) and supported over 12 students through their MA studies.  Over sixteen international writers were brought to the University over the duration of the Project and they were all interviewed by participating students, many of whom went onto write their MA theses on some of these writers.  These interviews were filmed and are now being transcribed and collected into a fully searchable database. With additional funding we hope also to provide subtitles in Chinese for each of the interviews.

The Department of English will host the annual Asian-Pacific Writers and Translators Association Conference in November 2019 and it is hoped many of the participants will also agree to be interviewed and added to this database so that this can be an ongoing collection of contemporary writing.  We have been most fortunate in being able to work also with the Macao Script Road Literary Festival, where many visiting writers have participated in this project.  This has also led to fruitful co-operation within the Department, with Professor Chiu Man Yin, and with the Department of Communication and their film team, especially Professor Ben Hodges.  The support of the University Research Committee with the award of the Multi-Year Research Grant is much appreciated.

  • “Breaking the Silence: Chinese Voices After Atrocity”, Ethics and Challenges of Video Documenting Mass Violence, Comparative Lenses: Video Testimonies of Survivors and Eyewitnesses of Genocide and Mass Violence, Yahad in Unum and George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, American University of Paris, 6 – 7 June 2019, Paris.  http://https://www.aup.edu/sites/default/files/download/Academics/PROGRAM%20COMPARATIVE%20LENSES.pdf
  • “Crimes of War: Trauma and Memory in China’s War with Japan”, Gelman Library, George Washington University, Washington DC, USA, 11th May 2019.
  • “Sites of Memory; Sites of Mourning: Taking Asian Students to Sites of Holocaust Atrocity”, 10th International Conference in Holocaust Education, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, June 2018.
  • Lecture:  “China’s Auschwitz: Using and Abusing the Holocaust”, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Israel, 6th November, 2017.
  • “Preaching to the Gentiles: Developing Holocaust History and Education to China”, British Association of Holocaust Studies Conference 2016, The Presence of the Holocaust in Society, Politics and Culture, c. 1970 – 2015, UCL Institute of Education, London, UK, July 2016.
  • Salzburg Global Seminar on Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention, Salzburg, Austria, July 2016. Invited Speaker.
  • “Is the Holocaust Relevant to Asia?”, Beit Lochamei HaGhetaot, Israel, July 2014.
  • “The Holocaust and other Genocides from an Asian Perspective”, Ninth Yad Vashem International Conference on Holocaust Education, Jerusalem, Israel, July 2014.
  • Salzburg Global Seminar on Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention, Salzburg, Austria, July 2014.  Invited Speaker.
  • “Out of the Ashes:  A Concert of Music Composed in the Camps”, Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts, 27th January 2013.  Director.
  • “Discussion with Chinese Educators – A Presentation”, Lead a panel discussion with three graduates of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Seminar for Chinese Educators.  Invited Speaker.  Eighth Yad Vashem International Conference on Holocaust Education, Jerusalem, Israel, July 2012.
  • Salzburg Global Seminar on Holocaust Education and Genocide Prevention, Salzburg, Austria, July 2012. Invited Speaker.
  • Lecture:  “Using Holocaust Film in the Classroom”, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 30th October 2011.
  • “The Cultural Challenges Inherent in Holocaust Education”, Seventh International Conference on Holocaust Education, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, June 2010.
  • “Teaching the Shoah in a Chinese University”, Sixth International Conference on Holocaust Education, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, July 2008.
  • “Just Another Linguistic Casualty: Language and Violence in Brian Friel’s The Freedom of the City”, Fifth Annual Irish Studies Conference, University of Sunderland, UK, 9 – 11 November 2007.
  • Discussant for Panel on “Healing and Reconciliation” (papers on the Nanjing Massacre, The French Resistance, and the Soweto Uprising of 1976), History and Memory Conference, Macau Ricci Institute, Macao, 1 – 3 December 2005.
  • “Relicts of Abandoned Rituals’: Self-Reflexivity in Contemporary Irish Theatre”, Third Annual Irish Studies Conference, University of Sunderland, UK, 11-13 November 2005.
  • “Songs for Dead Children: Loss and Mourning in Recent Irish Drama”, Eighth Conference on English, American and Canadian Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic, 2 – 4 February 2005.
  • “Sir George Thomas Staunton and the Translation of the Qing Legal Code”, Culture, Law and Order: Western and Chinese Traditions Conference, Macao, November 2004.

  • Timmermans, G.  (2019) . “Preface” to The Archive of Confessions: Bernardo Vasques and Envy by Carlos Morais José, translated by David Brookshaw. Macao: PraiaGrande Edições, 7 – 15.
  • 葛蘭‧蒂默曼斯著 Timmermans G (2018), translated by Deng Wei . «中國的大屠殺教育和研究», 杰瑞德博士紀念文集.  Essays in Memory of Dr Jerold Gotel.  河南大學以色列研究中心文從‧第一輯 University of Henan, Centre for Israel Research, 1st edition.總主編/張倩紅 Chief Editor / 主編: 張禮剛 Chief Editor / 副主編: 盧鎮  胡浩 Deputy editor社會科學文獻出版社 Social Sciences Academic Press (China), 69 – 83
  • Timmermans, G. (2016).  “Holocaust Studies and Holocaust Education in China”, in The Image of Jews in Contemporary China (eds. James Ross and Song Lihong), Boston: Academic Studies Press.
  • Timmermans, G. (2016).  “Holocaust Studies and the Nanjing Massacre”, Points East 26/1.
  • Timmermans, G. (2015). Surviving Evil: The Pictorial Language of Sara Atzmon.  Hong Kong:  University of Hong Kong Gallery and Museum.
  • Timmermans, G. (2005). “Michael Shen Fuzhong’s Journey to the West: A Chinese Christian Painted at the Court of James II”. Culture, Art, Religion: Wu Li and His Inner Journey. Macao: Macau Ricci Institute.
  • Timmermans, G. (2005). “Sir George Thomas Staunton and the Translation of the Qing Legal Code”. Chinese Cross Currents, II (1). This article has also been published in Culture, Law and Order: Western and Chinese Traditions. Macao: Macau Ricci Institute (2005).
  • Timmermans, G.. (2004). “Britain, Macao and Portuguese Maritime Ambitions in the South-China Sea”, in (eds.  R. Harding, A. Jarvis, A. Kennerly), British Shipping in China Seas: 1700 to the Present Day. Liverpool: National Museums Liverpool.
  • Timmermans, G. (2003).  “Discussion Paper”, Religion and Culture: Past Approaches, Present Globalisation, Future Challenges.  Macao:  Macau Ricci Institute (2003).