On Monday, October 3rd, CCGES is pleased to present a lecture by Dr. Klaus Hödl, Executive Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria, entitled “Jews in Vienese popular culture around 1900”.
Viennese Jews of the Fin-de-Siècle period are the topic of numerous books in Jewish studies. The overwhelming majority of those books deal with Jews’ contributions to ‘high culture’ and science. A focus on personalities such as Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Arthur Schnitzler, Arnold Schönberg, et.al. has led to the assumption that Jews contributed merely to intellectual cultural trends, and that they had no impact on popular and mass culture.
A closer look at the emergence of mass culture in Austria, however, reveals that Jews were very prominent as organizers, producers, and consumers. In some fields they were even at the forefront of new trends. Against this background, Jews closely interacted with non-Jews in the development of popular and mass culture; the former were not absent from this cultural terrain, but helped significantly in its formation. This presentation focuses on this role of Jews in Austrian popular culture.
Klaus Hoedl is a historian working at the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Graz. He has published six books on East European Jews, the Jewish body, and Jewish identity. He is a Fulbright scholar, has taught at various universities in Europe and in Jerusalem, and is currently working on Jews in popular culture.
This event is being co-presented by the Centre with the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies at York and Hillel Canada.
All are welcome and light refreshments will be provided.
Date: Monday, October 3, 2011
Time: 3-5 pm
Location: 764 York Research Tower(#95 on the map found here. During subway construction at York, the Research Tower is best accessed from the crossover connecting the Tower with the 2nd floor of York Lanes (building #24 on the map).
