Zionism in Translation: Encounters in the German-Hebrew Archive with Na’ama Rokem (University of Chicago)
Na'ama Rokem (University of Chicago) will present her book, Zionism in Translation, which concerns exchanges—primarily of letters but also drafts, reviews, and other ephemera—sent to or from Jerusalem in the decades after 1948. All were written in German and Hebrew by a fascinating range of literary figures, including Hannah Arendt, Gershom Scholem, Yehuda Amichai, Ludwig Strauss, Erich Auerbach, Walter Benjamin, Leah Goldberg, Peter Szondi, Paul Celan, and Tuvia Ruebner. Na’ama Rokem illuminates the complexities that emerge as the two languages mix in this extraordinary epistolary network.
The writers that Rokem studies here contend with the genocidal violence that brought the rich historical relation between German and Hebrew to a seeming end. They also grapple, in different ways, with the new reality in Israel/Palestine in the wake of the founding of the State of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba. The bilingual conversation that crosses over between German and Hebrew in these letters thus centers around the question of Jewish fate in the twentieth century and is immersed in negotiations about Jewish nationalism, the Zionist movement, and the possibilities of Jewish poetry. In the space between German and Hebrew, Rokem argues, the protagonists of her story voice ambivalences and hesitancies not found elsewhere.
Zionism in Translation joins a growing body of scholarship that uncovers the complex modes of belonging and resistance that unfold around the Zionist movement in the twentieth century. It will interest all readers concerned with modern Jewish intellectual, cultural, and literary history, the history of Zionism, and writers such as Arendt or Celan.
This event is co-sponsored by the German Department and organized by Professor of German; Program Director, German Studies and Research Director, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, Thomas Wild.
Powers of Judgment: Hannah Arendt’s Moral and Legal Philosophy with David Luban
Our inaugural guest in the new Hannah Arendt Lecture Series was David Luban, a philosopher by training, who discussed his latest book, Powers of Judgment: Hannah Arendt’s Moral and Legal Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2026), which grows from a career-long engagement with Arendt’s thought. His talk will be featured on the Reading Hannah Arendt podcast.
David Luban is Distinguished University Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. His books include Lawyers and Justice: An Ethical Study, Legal Modernism, Legal Ethics and Human Dignity, and the award-winning Torture, Power, and Law. From 2013 to 2025, he held the Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership, United States Naval Academy. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Guggenheim Fellow, a Distinguished Fellow of the National Institute for Military Justice, and recipient of the 2022 M.C. Bassiouni Justice Award for contributions to the study of core international crimes.
This event was co-sponsored by the German Department and organized by Professor of German; Program Director, German Studies; Research Director, Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, Thomas Wild.