The Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies will host a symposium entitled Betrayal of the Humanities: The University During the Third Reich on Sunday April 15 and 16, 2012, to take place at Mondale Hall. In addition to the symposium there will also be a public talk, “Is There Anti-Jewish Bias in today’s University?” by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Irving Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and director of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism at Indiana University.
Under National Socialism in Germany (1933-1945), the universities and the academic disciplines themselves became in many cases all-too-eager accomplices in the perpetration of Nazi ideology. Not only did the normal administrative structure of the university become corrupted, but learning itself betrayed its own mission as prestigious disciplines propagated Nazi racial science and beliefs.
The symposium will examine the moral role of the university in today’s society and the mutation of academic ideals under National Socialism, when the German university system promoted Nazi ideology and helped the state eliminate its diverse community. Thirteen scholars, from across the U.S. and abroad, will examine core academic disciplines, including anthropology, philosophy, classics, Assyriology, theology, law, and music.
In his public address, “Is There an Anti-Jewish Bias in Today’s University?” Professor Alvin Rosenfeld will discuss how many of our campuses have become hospitable to certain political and ideological currents of thought that issue in actions and statements hostile to many Jewish students and professors. A review of contemporary debates about two issues of particular concern to Jews—the Holocaust and the State of Israel—suggests that we may be witnessing the emergence of some new versions of the “Jewish Question.”
Professor Rosenfeld is the author of numerous scholarly and critical articles on American poetry, Jewish writers, and the literature of the Holocaust. His most recent study, TheEnd of the Holocaust, contends that the proliferation of books, films, television programs, museums and public commemorations related to the Holocaust has, perversely, brought about a diminution of its meaning and a denigration of its memory.
The symposium is being co-organized by Bernard Levinson, Berman Family Chair in Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible and Bruno Chaouat, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
For more information please visit the Betrayal of the Humanities website or contact Laura Lechner, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at lech00045@umn.edu, 612-624-0256.
Quick facts:
- What: Symposium: Betrayal of the Humanities: The University During the Third Reich
- When: Sunday, April 15, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Monday, April 16, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
- Where: Mondale Hall (Law School), 229 19th Avenue S, University of Minnesota west bank campus
- Who: Alvin Rosenfeld, renowned scholar of the Holocaust
- When: Sunday, April 15, 7:30 p.m.
- Where: Cowles Auditorium, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 301 19th Ave. S, University of Minnesota west bank campus