[Libri] Where They Burn Books, They Burn People: special events, Nov. 9-11

der Geist, der stets verneint jwald at hampshire.edu
Tue Nov 5 11:25:45 EST 2002


"... WHERE THEY BURN BOOKS, THEY EVENTUALLY ALSO BURN PEOPLE":

Thus wrote the German-Jewish poet Heinrich Heine at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, in a play about the Christian persecution of Muslims in
Spain in the fifteenth century.  His words came to seem eerily prophetic in
the twentieth.



The Hampshire College Center for the Book and First-Year Program invite you
to attend a series of special events on the theme of

CULTURE, PERSECUTION, and EMPATHY

Does difference imply conflict?
How is dialogue between cultures possible?
What literary or emotional tools make it possible for us to "translate"
(literally or figuratively) values and experience from one culture into
another?


Author and translator Peter Wortsman will visit the campus as
Scholar-in-Residence and make three presentations, drawing upon examples
that range from the Renaissance and Reformation to the Holocaust.


SATURDAY, 9 NOVEMBER  7:30 p.m.
Music and Dance Building Recital Hall

­­play-reading:  Mr. Wortsman reads from his "The Tattooed Man
Tells All," based on his interviews with Viennese Holocaust Survivors

­­musical performance: "The Ballad of Crystal Night" (lyrics by Mr.
Wortsman), 
performed by Hampshire Chorus Director Elaine Broad (voice) and Hampshire
alumnus and current Smith College music graduate student Danny Holt (piano)

Continuing a tradition begun by the Five-College German studies departments,
this event is held in commemoration of the "Kristallnacht" ["Crystal
Night"--i.e., "Night of Broken Glass"] attacks on Jewish persons and
property in Nazi Germany, 9 November 1938.



SUNDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2:00 p.m.
Adele Simmons Hall Lounge & Auditorium

Lecture:  "Meditation in Translation: Transcending Ego and Transmitting
Voice" 

This engaging and accessible presentation of both theoretical and practical
matters will offer various examples, including songs from concentration
camps.



MONDAY, 11 NOVEMBER  4:00 p.m.
Franklin Patterson Hall West Lecture Hall

Lecture:  "Don't Burn What You Don't Understand! : How a Christian Scholar
Helped Save the Talmud and Other Hebrew Books from the Flames of the
Inquisition"

At the beginning of the 16th century, a vengeful Jewish convert to
Catholicism (Johannes Pfefferkorn) and the Dominican order in Cologne
charged that all Jewish writings insulted Christianity, an accusation that
moved Emperor Maximilian to order the confiscation and study of these texts.
He solicited legal opinions from Jakob Hoogstraeten, Inquisitor of Cologne,
and Johannes Reuchlin, a jurist, humanist, theologian, and kabbalist.
Reuchlin's response was his _Recommendation Whether to Confiscate, Destroy
and Burn All Jewish Books_ . He published this defense of toleration in his
famous _Augenspiegel_ of 1511.   Mr. Wortsman, who recently translated the
treatise (Paulist Press, 2000), will speak on the history and legacy of the
controversy.



Sponsored by the Hampshire College Center for the Book and First-Year
Program.  With the additional support of the Programs in Law and European
Studies at Hampshire College, the Massachusetts Center for Renaissance
Studies, and the Five-College Departments and Programs in German and Judaic
Studies.


Jim Wald
(for the Hampshire College Center for the Book)





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