German-Jewish Writer Esther Dischereit to visit the University

"Racist Killings and Mourning Songs"
Reading and Discussion with German-Jewish Writer Esther Dischereit
Tuesday, October 8
11:30 a.m.
125 Nolte Centre

Recently, the discovery of 10 years of racist killings by the "National Socialist Underground" (NSU), a neo-Nazi underground guerrilla organization, has shocked the German public. Dischereit has since become the most important independent voice for the public, extensively covering the legal and political investigations of this unprecedented crime in post-war Germany involving police, secret service, politicians and state officials. Unlike standard media coverage Dischereit wants to let the voices of the victims and their families be heard. The Mourning Songs tell each story of a murder from the families' unique and painful perspective and memory, and challenge racism and xenophobia wherever it is to be found; out on the streets or inside official state institutions. Dischereit, who conducted countless interviews with the victims' families, voices her perspective of telling and mourning for the victims of various ethnic backgrounds. The Mourning Songs is one part of Dischereits' unique libretto project "Mourning Songs - Flowers for Otello: On the Crime of Jena" which has just been produced for the German radio by Deutschlandradio Kultur.

Esther Dischereit is one of the most exciting writers and thought-provoking public intellectuals in Germany today. Her poems, novels, essays, films, plays, and radio plays, and her opera libretti and sound installations offer unique insights into Jewish life in contemporary Europe. Dischereit, who was born into a survivor's family, is an artist of the Second Generation, who analyzes power relationships surrounding the body, femininity, expressions of minorities, and the different functions and forms of remembrance, ritual, and memory. Dischereit often initiates cross art projects for which she collaborates with composers, musicians, dancers and graphic art designers.

Please join us for the reading (in German, English, and Turkish) and discussion (English) of this unique, critical, and contemporary work, and meet Esther Dischereit and the translator Iain Galbraith.
Sponsored by: German, Scandinavian & Dutch, Center for Jewish Studies, Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Center for Austrian Studies, Center for German and European Studies.
For more information: Amanda Haugen, E-mail: gsd@umn.edu, Phone: 612-625-2080

Scholar to speak on Jewish life in Germany after the Shoah

Rebuilding the Community: Jewish Life in Germany after the Shoah
Jay H. Geller, Professor of Judaic Studies, Case Western Reserve University
Sunday, October 28, 2012
7:30 p.m.
Beth El Synagogue
26th St., St. Louis Park, MN 55416

Even after the Shoah, Jews chose to settle in Germany. Who were these Jews, and why did they decide to remain in a country that had been hostile to their very existence only a few years earlier? How did they deal with antagonism by German neighbors and isolation by Jewish groups abroad? This talk explores the circumstances that led to a renewed Jewish community in post-Holocaust Germany and the alliances that permitted it to flourish.

Jay H. Geller is the Samuel Rosenthal Professor of Judaic Studies and Associate Professor of History at Case Western Reserve University. He specializes in Jewish history and modern European history, with a focus on Germany. He is the author of Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, and co-editor of Three-Way Street: Germans, Jews, and the Transnational with Leslie Morris. He is currently writing a biography of Gershom Scholem and his family.
This event is free and open to the public.
For more information, please contact Center for Jewish Studies at jwst@umn.edu or by phone at 612-624-4914.
Sponsored by: Center for Jewish Studies, Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Department of German, Scandinavian & Dutch, Department of History and Beth El Synagogue.