Shared History Conference

A conference of Leo Baeck Institute – New York | Berlin in Cooperation with the German Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung) and the Jewish Museum Berlin, supported by the German Federal Foreign Office. Live online, December 7–9, 2020. Attendance via video conference is free with advance registration. The conference languages will be German and English with…

Translating the Hidden Soul: The Discovery and Collaborative Treatment of the Early Work of Mykola Bazhan

This event will be held virtually as a Zoom webinar and streamed via YouTube Live. There will be no in-person event. Click here to purchase Quiet Spiders of the Hidden Soul from Book Culture NYC. Register here for the Zoom webinar, or tune in on YouTube Live. Please join the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute for a presentation of the new…

Loss & Legacy: The Half-Century Quest to Reclaim a Birthright Stolen by the Nazis

By 1929 Helene and Samuel Gronner reach economic success and social prominence in the German town of Ilmenau. But when Nazi ideology grips the community, neighbors begin to shun Jewish-owned businesses like theirs. After near daily antisemitic encounters in school, they resolve to send Jochen, their teen-aged younger son, to Palestine. It's not until the war ends that he discovers that his parents…

Poor Liza and Russia’s Sentimental Marketplace (with Kirill Ospovat)

The talk will investigate links between narrative modes and visions of economy that defined Russian sentimentalism. While in English-language Russianist scholarship social aspects of sentimental fiction have been largely ignored, they occupy a central place both in Soviet-era studies and in contemporary interpretations of English and French sentimentalism. Through a close reading of Karamzin’s classic Poor Liza I will illuminate…

Maria Stepanova: Poetry and Prose

Register here for the Zoom webinar or tune in on YouTube Live. Please join us for an event with poet, essayist, and journalist Maria Stepanova. Moderated by Professor Mark Lipovetsky. This event is part of our Contemporary Culture Series. Maria Stepanova is a poet, essayist, journalist and the author of ten poetry collections and three books of essays. She has received several Russian and international…

Writing Between Tongues: An Exploration of Hebrew and Arabic Calligraphy

In this interactive session and virtual gallery tour, we will dive into the rich visual worlds of Arabic and Hebrew calligraphy. Through historical, spiritual, linguistic and artistic lenses, we will discover the parallels between both languages. Educator, community organizer, and artist Ruben Shimonov will take us on an exploratory journey of his multilingual calligraphy and the ways he has used…

Book Club on Amin Maalouf’s Origins

Join us for a lively Zoom conversation on Origins by Amin Maalouf, translated from the French by Catherine Temerson, FSG. Set during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth, in the mountains of Lebanon and in Havana, Cuba, Origins recounts the family history of the generation of Maalouf’s paternal grandfather, Boutros. Why did…

LBI Book Club, Vol. VI: The Ground Under My Feet

Born in Vienna in the 1920s, Eva Kollisch was sent as a teenager on a 1938 Kindertransport to England. She then was able to come to the United States, where the family was reunited. The author writes about these experiences, as well as growing up in the world of left-wing politics and culture in New York, finding her way as…

Navalny and the Kremlin: Politics and Protest in Russia

Join us for another virtual meeting of the New York-Russia Public Policy Seminar. This panel is co-hosted by Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and the New York University Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. Register for the Zoom webinar: http://bit.ly/3cm5Qsh. The event will also be live-streamed on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3prucEK.  The arrest of opposition politician Alexei Navalny has generated a political crisis in Russia. Upon…

Virtual Book Talk: The Memory Theater with Karin Tidbeck & Sara Lefkowitz

Online

On February 16, Swedish author Karin Tidbeck (of Amatka and Jagannath) joins us for a book talk on The Memory Theater, available beginning today from Pantheon Books. With moderator Sara Lefkowitz, she’ll discuss her new novel, a fantastical tour de force about friendship, interdimensional theater, and a magical place where no one ages — except the young.