UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Liberal Arts community is grieving the loss of Willa Silverman, Malvin E. and Lea P. Bank Professor Emerita of French and Jewish Studies, who passed away on Sunday, Oct. 22.
Silverman was born in New York City to Kenneth and Sharon (Medjuck) Silverman. She attended the Nightingale-Bamford School in New York and then Harvard University, where she graduated magna cum laude with degrees in history and literature (focused on France) in 1981. After teaching high school in Avignon, France, for a year she returned to New York to pursue her master’s and doctoral degrees in French studies from the Institute of French Studies at New York University (NYU).
Silverman joined the Penn State faculty as an assistant professor immediately after graduating from NYU in 1988. She was promoted to full professor in 2008, served as the director of graduate studies for the Department of French and Francophone Studies from 2012 to 2017, and served as head of the department from 2018 until her retirement in 2021.
“I came to Penn State and never left,” she noted in an article at the time of her retirement. “It was a perfect fit for me because it focused on culture and society and gave me the opportunity to help build a graduate program with that emphasis.”
Silverman was a prolific scholar who published three books, dozens of book chapters, and numerous articles in her primary research area, French social and cultural history during the so-called Belle Epoque (1880-1914). She received numerous accolades for her work, including receiving the Modern Language Association’s Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for French and Francophone Studies for her book, “The New Bibliopolis: French Book Collectors and the Culture of Print, 1880-1914” (2008, University of Toronto Press); and serving as a Visiting Fellow at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2017.
“Willa was a prolific scholar with an international reputation for excellence in the Francophone world,” said Adlai Murdoch, professor and current head of the Department of French and Francophone Studies. “As a faculty member and ultimately as department head, her research and writing brought recognition to French and Francophone Studies at Penn State, even as her devotion to her students was the energizing focus of her work as a scholar. On both the personal and professional levels, she will be sorely missed.”
As a teacher, Silverman developed and taught courses ranging from “French Grammar and Composition” to “Cultural Traditions in French Cuisine,” and from the “Dreyfus Affair in History and Memory” to “France and the Holocaust in Film and Literature.” As a specialist in France's experience of the Holocaust as well, she developed and led four embedded trips to Paris that introduced students to French Holocaust sites and survivors. She also taught and mentored numerous undergraduate and graduate students who eventually became faculty members themselves.
“Willa’s extraordinary scholarly and professional accomplishments leave a lasting impact on the lives and minds of the many undergraduate and graduate students with whom she shared her commitments and passions: to honor survivors of the Holocaust, to make history matter in the present, to bring to life the ‘fin de siècle’ France she was so passionate about (including through infamous decadent Belle Époque dinner parties),” said Bénédicte Monicat, professor of French and women’s studies. “Willa was also a skilled administrator who worked tirelessly to further enhance the department’s excellence and visibility. Her life force never abated and is a source of inspiration.”
In addition to her mother, Silverman is survived by her son, Benjamin J. Berkman, and his partner, Samantha J. Pitz; brother, Ethan L. Silverman, and his wife, Ronit Silverman; niece, Eve K. Silverman; nephew, Isaac G. Silverman; former spouse and Ben's father, Michael B. Berkman; and many other relatives and friends.
Donations in Silverman’s memory can be made to The Kelly Gynecologic Oncology Service of Johns Hopkins Medicine; Congregation Brit Shalom, 620 E. Hamilton Ave., State College, PA; or the Gene and Roz Chaiken Endowment for the Study of the Holocaust, with checks made payable to The Pennsylvania State University and mailed to Annual Giving, 2583 Gateway Drive, Bristol Place One, Suite 200, State College, PA 16801. Gifts also can be made online at raise.psu.edu/ChaikenEndowment.