Cian McMahon in conversation with Marcus Rediker Thursday October 28, 2021, 2pm-3.15pm ET THE SLAVE SHIP AND THE COFFIN SHIP: HISTORIES OF LIFE AND DEATH AT SEA. Earlier this year, Cian McMahon published the first full-length scholarly study of the Atlantic and Pacific crossings, The Coffin Ship: Life and Death at Sea during the Great Irish Famine (NYU Press). McMahon’s study was inspired,…
DNA has the potential to be an essential and exciting genealogical tool. But many Eastern European Jewish testers find their DNA results completely overwhelming and unnavigable. In this talk, Jennifer Mendelsohn, an internationally renowned journalist and professional genealogist, will help those with Ashkenazi heritage learn how to make sense of their DNA results. She’ll cover the basics of DNA testing, including…
Historians began writing the history of the Holocaust in Yiddish from a distinctly Jewish perspective in the years immediately after World War II. These Yiddish historians studied the Holocaust from the perspective of its Jewish victims, rather than that of the Nazi perpetrators, examining daily life in the ghettos and camps, and stressing the importance of survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts,…
Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a conversation with Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon, moderated by Sharon Marcus in the context of the recent publication of Reitter and Wellmon’s new book, Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age (The University of Chicago Press, 2021). The humanities, considered by many as irrelevant for modern careers and hopelessly devoid of funding, seem…
Read and discuss Scandinavian literature in translation as part of our Nordic Book Club, now online! Each month we select a novel from some of the best Nordic literary voices. Discussions have typically taken place the last Tuesday of the month at Scandinavia House but will now be taking place bi-weekly as an online meeting. Book club participants will all…
This program will focus on The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings through 332 BCE, edited by Jeffrey H. Tigay and Adele Berlin, and will feature Alison Joseph in conversation with Deborah Dash Moore. For two thousand years, Jews and Christians have been reading the Hebrew Bible. Are there new ways to read…
In English. Brian Russell Roberts reimagines the geography of the United States in his fascinating book Borderwaters: Amid the Archipelagic States of America. Rather than viewing the U.S. as a continental country bordered by Canada and Mexico, Roberts sees the American frontier encompassing broad swaths of water and sharing its border of some twenty-one other countries. He elucidates his theory…
“Where Do We Go from Here?” Revisiting Black Irish Relations and Responding to a Transnational Moment Conveners: Kim McClain DaCosta (NYU) and Miriam Nyhan Grey (NYU) Online Conference at New York University November 5, 12 and 19 People of Irish and African descent have lived in the United States for more than four centuries. Their respective trajectories -- marked by…
Deutsches Haus at NYU presents a conversation among Volker Heins, Nandita Sharma, and Gabriella Etmektsoglou on "A Necessary Utopia: Rethinking Borders" focusing on the recent books by Volker Heins, Offene Grenzen für Alle: Eine notwendige Utopie (Hoffmann und Campe, 2020) and Nandita Sharma, Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants(Duke University Press, 2020). In today’s interconnected…
Giacomo Puccini named three criteria of Italian music: clarity, spontaneity, and simplicity. In this meeting we explore the music of Giuseppe Sarti -- favored in courts from Copenhagen to St Petersburg -- attending particularly to his strong dynamic contrasts. Puccini would have noticed the expressive clarity this creates. "What Makes It Italian?": According to Puccini is a music listening and discussion…
