Prof Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp)

‘Before the Law stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper comes a man…’: Kafka, Narrative and the Law

This lecture is organised in cooperation with the German Historical Institute and the Austrian Cultural Forum.

You can download the leaflet here.

References to the law pervade Kafka’s writings, but their meaning remains elusive. It is precisely because it is uncertain whether the law in Kafka’s work is to be understood in juridical, religious, literary, or more generally ontological terms that it has elicited numerous and often contradictory interpretations. The lecture will explore how this indeterminacy and its effects have inspired concepts of justice in modernist thinkers as well as the relationship between law and narrative and its correlation with Jewish approaches to the interaction between Halacha and Aggadah.

Vivian Liska is Senior Professor of German literature and Director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her research focuses on modernist literature, German-Jewish literature and culture, and literary theory. She is the author of Die Nacht der Hymnen and Das schelmische Erhabene. Her most recent book is Fremde Gemeinschaft. Deutsch-jüdische Literatur der Moderne (2011).

Entry is free but seating is limited. Please book in advance via the Leo Baeck Institute (email info@leobaeck.co.uk or phone 020 7882 5690). This lecture will be held at the German Historical Institute (17 Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A2NJ).

Prof Carrie Tarr (Kingston University, London)

Secularism, difference and the family in Roschdy Zem’s Mauvaise foi/Bad Faith (2006)

This lecture series is organised by the LBI London in cooperation with the Wiener Library.

France has the largest population in Europe of both Jews and Arabs and actor Roschdy Zem’s first film as director tackles the topic of Jewish-Arab relationships against the background of Jewish-Arab hostilities in the Middle East and their repercussions in contemporary France. Mauvaise foi is a comedy that revolves around the consequences of the secular Jewish heroine’s discovery that she is pregnant, and the increasingly problematic decision she and her equally secular Arab-Muslim boyfriend take to keep the baby and tell their not-so-secular families.

Carrie Tarr is Emerita Professor of Film at Kingston University, UK. Her books include Cinema and the Second Sex: Women’s Filmmaking in France in the 1980s and 1990s (2001, with B. Rollet) and Reframing Difference: Beur and banlieue filmmaking in France (2005). She is currently working on the representation of Jews and Arabs in French and Maghrebi cinema(s).

Lectures will begin promptly at 6.30pm. Latecomers may not be admitted. Admission is free but places must be reserved in advance with the Library. email: info@wienerlibrary.co.uk tel: 020 7636 7247

You can download the leaflet here.

Monday, 21 May 2012, 6.45pm in the Gustave Tuck lecture theatre

Henny Brenner and Prof Michael Brenner

Prof Michael Brenner, member of the LBI Year Book Advisory Board, will be taking part in a lecture of the Jewish Studies Public Lecture Series. His mother Henny, born in 1924 in Dresden, will speak about her childhood in Weimar Germany, her adolescence under the Nazis and the subsequent period of Soviet domination.

Please find more information here.

Prof. Gareth Stedman-Jones (Queen Mary, University of London)

Fathers and sons: Heinrich and Karl’s contrasting conceptions of the French Revolution

The European Leo Baeck Lecture Series is organised by the Leo Baeck Institute London, the Jewish Museum and the Fritz Bauer Institut, Frankfurt am Main, in cooperation with the German Historical Institute London.

You can download the leaflet here.

In his lecture Gareth Stedman Jones will discuss the biography of Heinrich Marx, Karl Marx’s father. He will examine his relation with the French Revolution, Napoleon and the Prussian takeover of the Rhineland and then contrast his experience at the end with that of his son. He suggests that father and son represent a contrast between two different views of the French Revolution, that of 1789 (emancipation in a liberal sense) and 1792 (Rousseau, the Republic and the disappearance of all special routes).

Professor Gareth Stedman Jones joined Queen Mary, University of London in 2010; where he is Professor of the History of Ideas. He has been, since 1991, Director of the Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge. His publications include the books An End to Poverty? (2004); Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto (2002); Religion and the Political Imagination, co-edited with Ira Katznelson (2010). He has in addition recently co-edited with Gregory Claeys the Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (2011).

Lectures are held at the German Historical Institute London, 17 Bloomsbury Square, London WC1A 2NJ.

Underground: Holborn, Russell Square; Bus: 1, 7, 8, 19, 25, 38, 55, 59, 68, 91, 98, 134, 168, 171, 188, 242, 243, 521, X68

Lectures will begin promptly at 6.30pm. Admission is free but places are strictly limited and must be reserved in advance by contacting the Leo Baeck Institute, London (email info@leobaeck.co.uk or phone 020 7882 5690).

Berlin, 16-18 April 2012

You can download the leaflet here.

In his famous book, Anti-Semite and Jew (1946), the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) described anti-Semitism as “something quite other than an idea”: as a “passion”. Indeed, on many different levels, anti-Semitism is an emotionally laden phenomenon. Anti-Semitic forms of communication (i.e. in texts, speeches, slogans, films, images etc.) rely on various emotions like hatred, anger, fear, disgust, resentment, envy, pride etc. The cohesive value of anti-Semitism for processes of group formation rests upon shared emotionality among its members. In cases of anti-Semitic violence, emotions also play a major role: particularly in pogroms, an emotional orchestration and escalation of the violent masses takes place. Frequently, anti-Semitism includes the condemnation of (allegedly Jewish) behavior as immoral. Thus, anti-Semites often employ moral emotions like indignation or resentment. Jewish reactions to anti-Semitism also display a variety of emotions as well: among them moral ones, but also fear, anger, pride etc.

In spite of these obvious links, only very few historians have systematically investigated the connections between the history of emotions and the history of anti-Semitism. Historians of emotions, on the one hand, have studied the history of specific adverse feelings, such as hatred, resentment or disgust, but have isolated them from other emotions as well as from specific social contexts. Much work remains to be done with regard to social phenomena of hostility that, in real life, are often combinations of different emotions. In this regard, the history of emotions would benefit greatly from the analysis of a highly complex and historically enduring case like anti-Semitism. On the other hand, historians of anti-Semitism often rely on the implicit assumption that their task is to examine the ideological and cognitive elements in anti-Semitism, that is, the prejudices against Jews. The emotional and, as is often assumed as well, irrational aspects of anti-Semitism can either be neglected all together as a mere epiphenomena or relegated to the field of psychology. Apart from producing somewhat flat histories of anti-Semitism, such a treatment reproduces the view that emotions have no history and, as essentialized bodily components, only accompany the “real” history of cognitive notions against Jews. However, since the inseparability of emotion and cognition is, by now, a widely accepted finding in the interdisciplinary study of emotions, the cognitive bias in this historiography no longer makes sense.

The conference will therefore focus on the emotions involved in the history of anti-Semitism in modern Europe. It will raise various questions on heuristically different levels:

• Emotions and anti-Semitic communication: This set of questions concerns the characteristic emotions of modern anti-Semitism in different forms of communication. What different emotions are used in anti-Semitic communication? Are these emotions always hostile or does emotional ambivalence structure anti-Semitic communication? How are the emotions presented by the “author” related to the intended emotions of the audience? Moreover, is it possible to discern specific emotional styles of anti-Semitism, that is, a specific mode of communicating emotionally? Additionally, the effects of emotions in anti-Semitic communication need to be explored. What role do emotions play for the reception of anti-Semitism? Is it possible to describe a specific mobilization and orchestration of anti-Semitism with the help of emotions? How do the opponents of anti-Semitism react emotionally to anti-Semitic communication? How do Jews react and use emotions in their counter-communication?
• Emotions and anti-Semitic practices: This series of questions is devoted to the role of emotions in the emergence of anti-Semitic actions, i.e. in verbal attacks, demonstrations, violent confrontations, organization of petitions, formation of associations etc. What anti-Semitic practices are generated by emotions? How are practices against anti-Semitism organized emotionally? What processes of group formation are visible through emotional mobilization? Is it, finally, possible to describe an emotional profile, a habitus of anti-Semites and their opponents?
• Concepts of moral self and anti-Semitism: Anti-Semitism is crucially concerned with issues of morality. Thus, relevant questions need to be explored in this regard: What notions of moral selfhood against an immoral Jewish selfhood are discussed in the emotional communication of anti-Semitism? In what way does anti-Semitism change emotional selfhood? Does i.e. hatred, resentment, or disgust of Jews alter other aspects of the moral self? What notions of moral economy are present in anti-Semitism?
• Changes in emotional history of anti-Semitism: The enduring and transnational history of anti-Semitism makes it possible to raise specific questions about its emotional development. Did the emotional composition of modern anti-Semitism change over time? How does it differ in different societies? Does the transnational dissemination and organization of modern anti-Semitism and its counter-movements create a shared emotional repertoire across borders?

Programme

Montag 16th April

3-3.30 p.m.

Welcome
Ute Frevert (Berlin)
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Berlin)
Raphael Gross (Frankfurt a.M./London)
Daniel Wildmann (London)
3:30-4.15 p.m.

Introduction
Uffa Jensen (Berlin), The History of Emotions: A New Perspective on
Modern Anti-Semitism?

4:30-6.30 p.m.

Panel 1: Writing Emotions into the History of Anti-Semitism
Jonathan Judaken (Memphis), Anxiety and Modernity: Talcott
Parsons, Sartre, and the Frankfurt School on Modern Anti-Semitism
Julijana Ranc (Hamburg), Anti-Jewish Ressentiment and Awareness
of Injustice
Comment: Detlev Claussen (Hannover)
Chair: Ute Frevert (Berlin)

Tuesday, 17th April

9-11 a.m.

Panel 2: Emotions and Anti-Semitic Violence
Russell Spinney (Santa Fe), Expanding the Emotional Economy of
Anti-Semitism in the Weimar Republic
Stefan Wiese (Berlin), Hatred, Fear, and Joy – The Emotional
Dimension of Pogrom Violence in Late Imperial Russia
Comment: Christhard Hoffmann (Bergen)
Chair: Pascal Eitler (Berlin)

11:15-1:15 p.m.

Panel 3: Anti-Semitism – Rational  or Irrational?
Werner Bergmann (Berlin), The Negation of Emotions in Modern
Anti-Semitism
Anthony Kauders (Keele/Munich), Good Feelings, Bad Rationality:
The Problem with Jewish Reason
Comment: Robert S. Wistrich (Jerusalem)
Chair: Benno Gammerl (Berlin)

2:15-5 p.m.

Panel 4: Emotions, Anti-Semitism and Media
Nathan D. Abrams (Bangor), Reverse Stereotypes: Anti-Anti-Semitic
Counter-Communication in Contemporary Cinema
Daniel Wildmann (London), German TV Crime Series and German
Emotions – Jews in “Tatort“
Remco Ensel (Nijmegen), Singing about Muhamad Al- Durra and the
Articulation of an Emotional Conflict
Comment: Darcy Buerkle (Northampton/Berlin)
Chair: Raphael Gross (Frankfurt a.M./London)

5:15-7:15 p.m.

Panel 5: Anti-Semitism and Emotions across Europe
Ulrich Wyrwa (Berlin)
+ Tim Buchen, Maciej Moszyński, Klaus Richter, Miloslav Szabó
und Marija Vulesica (Berlin)
Anti-Semitic Emotions in European Empires. Similarities and
Differences of Anti-Semitic Feelings in Various Czarist- and Habsburg
Regions
Comment: Andrea Hopp (Berlin)
Chair: Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Berlin)

Wednesday, 18th April

9-11 a.m.

Panel 6: Emotions, Anti-Semitismand National Socialism
Alexandra Przyrembel (Berlin), Mixed Feelings. “Race Defilement”
and Anti-Semitic Violence, 1933-1938
Werner Konitzer (Frankfurt a. M.), Anger, Hatred, Revulsion -
Thoughts about the Emotional Structure of Nazi Anti-Semitism
Comment: Michael Wildt (Berlin)
Chair: Jan Plamper (Berlin)

11:15-1:15 p.m.

Panel  7: Emotions and Postwar Anti-Semitism
Anna Parkinson (Chicago), “Death of the Adversary”. Emotions and
the Affective Structure of Anti-Semitism in Postwar Psychoanalysis and
Literature
Katharina Obens (Berlin), Emotional Ambivalence and Conflicting
Images of the Jews – Young Germans’ Impressions and Perceptions
after Meeting a Survivor of the Holocaust
Comment: Susan Neiman (Potsdam/Berlin)
Chair: Anja Laukötter (Berlin)

2:30-3 p.m.

Final Discussion
Chair: Uffa Jensen (Berlin)

Please find more information on the website of the MPIB.