Publiekslezing eerste MBII-Chair door Prof. Aschheim Empathy, Autobiography and the Tasks and Tensions of the Historian

Responses: Prof. Bernard Wasserstein, Prof. Marjan Schwegman

In this lecture, Steven Aschheim, will search for his personal inspiration as a historian. Referring to his autobiographical background as son of German Jewish refugees, having grown up in South Africa in the era of Apartheid and having immigrated and worked in Israel most of his life, he will trace his personal historical interests. This will lead him to make observations on tasks and tensions of the historian in general, and the specific place empathy occupies therein.

Prof. Steven Aschheim is a leading historian of intellectual and cultural German Jewish and European History. Several of his publications have become classic studies. They include: Beyond the Border: The German-Jewish Legacy Abroad (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Scholem, Arendt, Klemperer: Intimate Chronicles in Turbulent Times (The Efroymson Lectures, 1999); Hannah Arendt in Jerusalem, editor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001); Culture and Catastrophe: German and Jewish Confrontations with National Socialism and Other Crises (London: Macmillan, 1996) and Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German-Jewish Consciousness, 1800-1923 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982).

Prof. Marjan Schwegman is former director of the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD), her fields include Women Studies and Holocaust Studies. Prof. Bernard Wasserstein wrote extensively on Jewish and European Culture and held positions at Oxford University and The University of Chicago.

Place:              Uilenburgersjoel, Nieuwe Uilenburgerstraat 91, A’dam, near Waterlooplein
Date & time:   October 12th 2017; 15:00 – 17:00
entrance:         free
reservations:    mbii@jck.nl

www.mbii.nl