Monday, September 22
4:00 p.m.
1210 Heller Hall
Edgar Reitz's groundbreaking TV drama "Heimat" aired 30 years ago in an attempt to 'take back" German history from the American entertainment industry. Going back to this drama -- and to the sequel and prequel Reitz directed during the past decades -- I will suggest that "Heimat" subtly provided a revolutionary portrayal of World War II as a framework in which "German" and "Jewish" categories have been melded together to create a new nation (or a genuine alternative to "American" imperialism). In emphasizing this process, I will look at more recent productions, such as "Generation War," to argue that Reitz's implicit notion of German-Jewish symbiosis has been replicated in later mainstream TV dramas. The transformation of this image, however, replaced the self-criticism (or self-mockery) of "Heimat" with a melodramatic affirmation of Germany's "cure" from its violent past.
Ofer Ashkenazi, Department of History Koebner-Minerva Center for German History
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Ashkenazi received his PhD in History from the Hebrew University in 2006 and conducted his post-doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, was a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota returning to Jerusalem, in the summer of 2013. During 2013-2014 he taught classes on the 'visual turn' in the study of history; cultural aspects of the Great War; film and history; and Nazism. His research interests include Central European cultural and intellectual history, modern visual culture, and Jewish urban experience in twentieth-century Europe. He is currently working on a research project that examines the works of filmmakers and photographers who emigrated from Germany during the 1930s. It explores the influence of the experiences, the intellectual paradigms, and the artistic imagination of the Weimar era on the development of various national cultures in post-1933 Europe, the United States and Israel.
Presented by the Department of German,Scandinavian& Dutch. Sponsored by: The Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, The Center for German & European Studies, The Department of History and the Center for Jewish Studies
