Urban landscapes are augmented layers of hegemonic power that materializes in buildings, street maps, and monuments in the public space. After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, the removal of white supremacist statues and symbols from cities across the world has become one of the central demands of protesters. While removing monuments to past figures and events can be…
In conversation with Claudie Bernard REGISTRATION INFORMATION TO COME. Balzac, more than anyone, invented the nineteenth-century novel, and Oscar Wilde went so far as to say that Balzac had invented the nineteenth century. But it was above all through the wonderful, unforgettable, extravagant characters that Balzac dreamed up and made flesh—entrepreneurs, bankers, inventors, industrialists, poets, artists, bohemians of both sexes,…
Scandinavia House continues its series, Nordic Authors You Should Know--this time with a focus on literature from the Faroe Islands. Join this lecture and discussion featuring Rakel Helmsdal, Carl Johan Jensen, and Marjun Syberdo Kjaelnes. The event will begin with short readings of each of the author's work in both the original language and in English, followed by interviews with the authors and…
Global Uprising // A year-long series 2020-2021: Global Uprising is a year-long series that revolves around one question: how do we rethink collective action from our present? Taking the current anti-racist uprising in America and the tenth anniversary of the Arab revolts as launching points for a set of workshops this series delves into the global coordinates of uprising today. Read more about…
REGISTRATION INFORMATION TO COME. Organized by François Noudelmann. Sponsored by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Philosophy, in the 21st century, has changed: its practices and languages are no longer those of the previous century. A turning point has been taken by new generations and thinkers from diverse origins who, more than commenting on the old masters, are taking philosophy…
Join best-selling memoirist and critic Daniel Mendelsohn as he presents his latest book Three Rings, just published by University of Virginia Press, over Zoom. Combining memoir, biography, fiction, history, and literary criticism, Three Rings weaves together the stories of three exiled writers who turned to the classics of the past to create masterpieces of their own—works that pondered the very…
Facing an escalating demand for entry into the United States by German-speaking Jews in Shanghai in early 1941, the United States Consulate called the JDC for help. No one forewarned Laura Margolis, a translator for immigration interviews, about the living conditions of 16,000 Jewish refugees from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, all desperate for food and housing. She set up…
At a time when nearly everyone else was writing about nature as something to be conquered, Eisenstein was joining personal experience with Romantic and Indigenous tropes to write about self-immersion in nature as a a source of individual liberation, a model for understanding film reception, and a blueprint for a utopian socialist collective. This presentation will examine his 1945 essay,…
Register here for the Zoom webinar, or tune in on YouTube Live. Please join the Harriman Institute and the Russian Film Club at Columbia University for a discussion with Lilya Kaganovsky, Polina Barskova, and Tony Anemone about the 2019 film Beanpole. This event is part of our Contemporary Culture Series. Beanpole, Kantemir Balagov’s sophomore effort, turned a new leaf in the representations of…
The German Film Office partners with SundanceTV to present a free advance screening of the first two episodes of Deutschland 89 along with a virtual panel discussion with the cast and creators. Season 3 of the critically acclaimed series following superspy Martin Rauch will debut on SundanceTV on October 29. When the “anti-fascist” Berlin Wall falls on November 9, 1989,…
