Hannah Arendt Center presents:
German Jewish Exile and the German Archive of Literature
Panel Discussion with Matthias Bormuth, Jan Berger, and Ulrich von Bulow
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
5:00 pm – 7:30 pm
The experience of exile influences and changes the understanding of history in those who suffer it. This topic has become an essential theme in the study of European and American Intellectual History of the 20th Century. One crucial example are German Jewish scholars who, in the writing their main scholarly works, also reflect on the experience of being expelled from their native culture. This colloquium focuses on the philosopher Karl Löwith (1897–1973) and the philologist Erich Auerbach (1892–1957) who came to America during and after World War II. It will draw on recently transcribed diaries, as well as on their published work, written during the time of exile in Japan and Turkey.
Matthias Bormuth is Heisenberg-Professor for Comparative Intellectual History at the University of Oldenburg, Germany. He taught European Intellectual History at Columbia University (2011) and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (2009/10). Books in English are: Life-Conduct in Modern Times. Karl Jaspers and Psychoanalysis (Springer 2006) and "Truth is what connects us". Philosophy, Art und Illnes in the Works of Karl Jaspers (edited volume, Hauschild 2008).
Dr. Ulrich von Bülow studied German Literature and Linguistics at the Karl Marx University, Leipzig. Since 1992 He joined the German Literature Archive, Marbach, in 1992, and has served as Head of the Archive Department since 2006. Bülow wrote books and essays about Franz Führmann, Arthur Schnitzler, W. G. Sebald, Peter Handke, and others. He is the editor of texts by Rainer Maria Rilke, Erich Kästner, Karl Löwith, Martin Heidegger, and Joachim Ritter.
Dr. Jan Bürger studied German Literature and Political Sciences in Hamburg and worked in Berlin for the journal "Literaturen", before he joined the German Literature Archive Marbach in 2002, where he heads the archives of the Suhrkamp Verlag since 2009. Bürger published Books about Hans Henny Jahnn (2003), Gottfried Benn (2006) an Max Frisch (2011) and edited letters and works by Hans Henny Jahnn, Ernst Kreuder, Jörg Fauser, Hilde Domin, Paul Celan and others.