George L. Mosse Program in History
Department of History

Mosse’s Europe conference

Organizational Committee:

Steven Aschheim
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ofer Ashkenazi
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Skye Doney
George L. Mosse Program in History

Atina Grossmann
The Cooper Union

Mary Louise Roberts
The University of Wisconsin-Madison

Anson Rabinbach
Princeton University

Moshe Sluhovsky
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

David Sorkin
Yale University

John Tortorice
George L. Mosse Program in History

Read Heinrich Bleicher-Nagelsmann, “Hans Mayer als Schirmherr der ‘New German Critique’” which includes a conversation with Andreas Huyssen.

Read Andreas Huyssen’s essay, “Behemoth Rises Again: Not an Analogy!” which is based on the lecture he gave at the “Mosse’s Europe” conference.

Read the UW News report on the “Mosse’s Europe” conference, “Berlin conference explores influence of UW-Madison’s Professor Mosse.”

Read Jonathon Catlin and Lotte Houwink ten Cate’s report on the “Mosse’s Europe” conference on the Journal of the History of Ideas Blog, “George L. Mosse at One Hundred: A Child of His Century.”

Listen to Andreas Beckmann’s report on the “Mosse’s Europe” conference for Deutschlandfunk, “Kongress zum 100. Geburtstag von George Mosse:
Wie die Kulturwissenschaft europäischen Faschismus erklärt.”

Read Torsten Flüh’s review of the “Mosse’s Europe” conference, “George L. Mosses Erinnerung an den Klippen Europas und 50 Jahre Stonewall,” on Night Out @ Berlin.

Conference Description:

On the occasion of the 100th birthday of Professor George L. Mosse three generations of historians will gather to commemorate and analyze his ongoing influence in European, Jewish, and Gender history, as well as the continued resonance of the Mosse family legacy in Berlin. Scholars from Germany, Israel, and the United States will meet in Mosse’s childhood city of Berlin to discuss the questions that continue to emerge from his research, including: How does gender as a category of analysis continue to modify our understanding of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Europe? What are the limits of liberalism? What role do racial stereotypes play in political culture before and after 1945? And how have historians expanded Mosse’s analysis of Nazi ideology to better understand the Holocaust and the history of twentieth-century Europe?

Thursday, 6 June, 13:00-19:00 - Deutsches Historisches Museum

13:00   Registration

14:00   Panel I: Mossestadt: The Mosse Family in Berlin

Meike Hoffmann, “In Search of Lost Art: MARI, the Mosse Art Research Initiative”

Frank Mecklenburg, “The Mosse Family in Berlin, Cultural Capital for Subsequent Generations”

Roger Strauch, “The Mosse Art Restitution Project: A Personal Perspective”

Elisabeth Wagner, “Absence/Presence: The Berlin Mosse Topography”

Commentator/Chair: Skye Doney, George L. Mosse Program in History

Meike Hoffmann organized the first academic training on provenance research at the Free University of Berlin where she received her PhD and now teaches at the department of history and cultural studies on Degenerate Art, and Nazi art policy during the Third Reich.
Meike Hoffmann organized the first academic training on provenance research at the Free University of Berlin where she received her PhD and now teaches in the department of history and cultural studies.
Frank Mecklenburg is the Director of Research and Chief Archivist of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.
Frank Mecklenburg is the Director of Research and Chief Archivist of the Leo Baeck Institute, New York.
Roger Strauch is Chairman of The Roda Group, a seed stage venture capital company he co-founded in 1997 with Dan Miller.
Roger Strauch is Chairman of the Roda Group, a seed stage venture capital company he co-founded in 1997 with Dan Miller.
Elisabeth Wagner is an art historian, lecturer, and the managing director of the Mosse-Lectures at Humboldt University.
Elisabeth Wagner is an art historian, lecturer, and the managing director of the Mosse-Lectures at Humboldt University.
Skye Doney is Director of the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Skye Doney is the Director of the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Friday, 7 June 9:00-11:30 - Deutsches Historisches Museum

9:00     Registration

10:30   Official Conference Welcome

Raphael Gross, Deutsches Historisches Museum

10:30  Opening Keynote

Steven Aschheim,“George Mosse – the Man and the Legacy”

Commentator/Chair: Raphael Gross, Deutsches Historisches Museum

12:00 Lunch

Raphael Gross, President of the Foundation Deutsches Historisches Museum
Steven Aschheim, Emeritus Professor of History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Steven Aschheim, Emeritus Professor of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Friday, 7 June 13:30-15:00 - Deutsches Historisches Museum

13:30   Panel II: Jews and Germans: Languages of Culture

Darcy Buerkle, “Weimar Imaginaries”

David Sorkin, “Between Emancipation and Bildung: Constructing German Jewry”

Marc Volovici, “German-speaking Jews and German-reading Jews in Early Zionism”

Commentator/Chair: Ofer Ashkenazi, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

15:00 Break

Darcy Buerkle is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of History at Smith College, where she is also an affiliate faculty member in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender.
David Sorkin, Lucy G. Moses Professor of History at Yale, studied with George Mosse as an undergraduate.
David Sorkin, Lucy G. Moses Professor of History at Yale, studied with George Mosse as an undergraduate.
Marc Volovici is an Early Career Fellow at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London.
Marc Volovici is an Early Career Fellow at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London.
Ofer Ashkenazi is an Associate Professor in History and the Director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ofer Ashkenazi is an Associate Professor in History and the Director of the Richard Koebner-Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Friday, 7 June 15:15-16:45 - Deutsches Historisches Museum

15:15   Panel III: Studying Totalitarianism

Udi Greenberg, “Ecumenism and Nazism”

Stefanie Schüler-Springorum, “Sex and Violence: ‘Race Defilement’ in Nazi Germany”

Robert Zwarg, “‘There is Nothing Innocuous Left’: Barbarism and the Everyday”

Commentator/Chair:  David Warren Sabean, UCLA

Udi Greenberg is an associate professor of European history at Dartmouth College.
Udi Greenberg is an associate professor of European history at Dartmouth College.
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum is the Director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism, Berlin.
Stefanie Schüler-Springorum is the Director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism, Berlin.
Robert Zwarg is a research associate at the German Literature Archive Marbach in the project 1968: Conflicting Ideas in Global Archives.
Robert Zwarg is a research associate at the German Literature Archive Marbach in the Project 1968: Conflicting Ideas in Global Archives.
David Warren Sabean is Henry J. Bruman Endowed Professor of German History, emeritus, and Distinguished Research Professor of European History at the University of California, Los Angeles.
David Warren Sabean is Henry J. Bruman Endowed Professor of German History, emeritus, and Distinguished Research Professor of European History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Saturday, 8 June 9:00-11:30 - Deutsches Historisches Museum

9:00     Registration

10:00   Panel IV: Fascism, Populism, Authoritarianism

Andreas Huyssen, “Prophets of Deceit Redivivus”

Mary Nolan, “Is Right-Wing Populism Fascist? Reflections on Economics and Gender”

Enzo Traverso, “Conceptualizing Fascism: The Legacy of George L. Mosse”

Commentator/Chair: Anson Rabinbach, Princeton University

11:30   Coffee Break

Andreas Huyssen is the Villard Professor emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.
Andreas Huyssen is the Villard Professor emeritus of German and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York.
Mary Nolan is Professor of History emerita at New York University.
Mary Nolan is Professor of History emerita at New York University.
Enzo Traverso is Susan and Barton Winokur Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University.
Enzo Traverso is Susan and Barton Winokur Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University.
Anson Rabinbach is Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History at Princeton University and is a founding editor of New German Critique.
Anson Rabinbach is Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History at Princeton University
and is a founding editor of New German Critique.

Saturday, 8 June 11:45-14:45 - Deutsches Historisches Museum

11:45:  Panel V: Nationalism, Violence, Total War

Stefanos Geroulanos, “The Human Body in the Age of Catastrophe: Medical Metaphors in 1920s European Colonial, and International Politics”

Elissa Mailänder, “People Working: Leisure, Love, and Violence in Nazi Concentration Camps”

Mary Louise Roberts, “Race and Sexual Violence in the European Theater of War, 1944-1945”

Commentator/Chair: Atina Grossmann, The Cooper Union

14:30   Lunch Discussion: “Memories of Mosse”

John Tortorice, George L. Mosse Program in History

Stefanos Geroulanos is a Professor of History at New York University.
Stefanos Geroulanos is a Professor of History at New York University.
Elissa Mailänder is an associate professor of contemporary history at Sciences Po, Center for History (CHSP), Paris, France.
Elissa Mailänder is an Associate Professor of contemporary history at Sciences Po, Center for History (CHSP), Paris, France.
Mary Louise Roberts is the WARF Distinguished Lucie Aubrac and Plaenert-Bascom Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Mary Louise Roberts is the WARF Distinguished Lucie Aubrac and Plaenert-Bascom Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Atina Grossmann is Professor of History at the Cooper Union in New York City.
Atina Grossmann is Professor of History at the Cooper Union in New York City.

Saturday, 8 June 15:00-17:00 - Deutsches Historisches Museum

15:30   Panel VI: Gender, Sexuality, and Mass Politics

Anna Hájková, “People Without History Are Dust: Queer Desire in the Holocaust”

Regina Mühlhäuser, “‘One has to Anticipate what Eludes Calculation’: Reconceptualizing Sexual Violence as Weapon during the German War of Annihilation”

Michael P. Steinberg, “Antisemitism and the Politics of Displacement”

Commentator/Chair: Moshe Sluhovsky, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Anna Hájková is associate professor at the University of Warwick.
Anna Hájková is associate professor at the University of Warwick.
Michael P. Steinberg the Barnaby Conrad and Mary Critchfield Keeney Professor of History, and Professor of Music and German Studies at Brown University.
Michael P. Steinberg the Barnaby Conrad and Mary Critchfield Keeney Professor of History, and Professor of Music and German Studies at Brown University.
Moshe Sluhovsky is Paulette and Claude Kelman Professor of French History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem and the head of the Lafer Center for the Study of Women and Gender and of the Institute of History.
Moshe Sluhovsky is Paulette and Claude Kelman Professor of French History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the head of the Lafer Center for the Study of Women and Gender and of the Institute of History.

Sunday, 9 June 9:00-12:15 - Jewish Museum in Berlin

9:00     Registration

10:00   Panel VII: Mosse Fellows Panel I

Adi Armon, “Max Nordau between George L. Mosse and Benzion Netanyahu”

Arie M. Dubnov, “Mosse’s Jerusalem, Mosse in Jerusalem”

Adi Gordon, “Mosse’s Portrait of Nationalism, Preceded by Nationalism’s Portrait of Mosse”

Commentator/Chair:

Doris L. Bergen, University of Toronto

Sunny Yudkoff, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Adi Armon is Visiting Assistant Professor with the George L. Mosse Program in History.
Adi Armon is Visiting Assistant Professor with the George L. Mosse Program in History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Arie M. Dubnov is an associate professor of history and the Max Ticktin Chair of Israel Studies at the George Washington University.
Arie M. Dubnov is an associate professor of history and the Max Ticktin Chair of Israel Studies at the George Washington University.
Adi Gordon is assistant professor of history at Amherst College.
Adi Gordon is assistant professor of history at Amherst College.
Doris Bergen
Doris L. Bergen is the Chancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor of Holocaust Studies. Her research focuses on issues of religion, gender, and ethnicity in the Holocaust and World War II and comparatively in other cases of extreme violence.
Sunny Yudkoff is assistant professor in the Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Sunny Yudkoff is assistant professor in the Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.

Sunday, 9 June 12:00 - Jewish Museum in Berlin

12:00 – Break

Jeffrey Herf, “The Issues of Modernity, and Antisemitism in Mosse’s Work, and in Ours”

Jeffrey Herf
Jeffrey Herf is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland in College Park. In the late 1960s he took courses in modern European history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison with George L. Mosse.

Sunday, 9 June 14:45-16:45 - Jewish Museum in Berlin

14:30   Panel VIII: Mosse Fellows Panel II

Rebekka Grossmann, “South-East of Berlin: A German Jewish Photojournalist in India”

David Harrisville, “Morality, Nazi Ideology, and the Individual in the Third Reich”

Ethan Katz, “Colonialism and the Holocaust in a North African Key: How the Jewish Insurgency in Algiers Reframes the Question”

Sarah Wobick-Segev, “German Jews Beyond Judaism? Secularism and Religious Change”

Commentator/Chair: Isabel V. Hull, Cornell University

Rebekka Grossmann is a PhD-Candidate in History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Rebekka Grossmann is a PhD-Candidate in History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
David Harrisville is Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern European History at Furman University in Greenville, SC.
David Harrisville is Visiting Assistant Professor of Modern European History at Furman University in Greenville, SC.
Ethan Katz is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Ethan Katz is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Sarah Wobick-Segev is a Minerva Postdoctoral Fellow at the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Sarah Wobick-Segev is a Minerva Postdoctoral Fellow at the Richard Koebner Minerva Center for German History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Isabel V. Hull (Ph.D. Yale 1978) is John Stambaugh Professor of History at Cornell University.
Isabel V. Hull (Ph.D. Yale 1978) is John Stambaugh Professor of History at Cornell University.

Sunday, 9 June 17:00 - Jewish Museum in Berlin

17:00   Closing Keynote:

Aleida Assmann, “Mosse’s Europe: Can it be Saved?”

Chair: Peter Schäfer, Jüdisches Museum Berlin

Aleida Assmann
Aleida Assmann studied English Literature and Egyptology at the universities Heidelberg and Tübingen. From 1993 – 2014 she held the chair of English Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Konstanz, Germany.
Peter Schäfer, b. 1943, is currently the Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin. Before this he taught Jewish Studies at the Universities of Tübingen, Cologne, Berlin and Princeton and (as Visiting Professor) at the Universities of Oxford, Jerusalem, Yale, at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York, and at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Peter Schäfer is the Director of the Jewish Museum Berlin and Perelman Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Religion Emeritus at Princeton University.

Conference Sponsors:

Mosse Foundation

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Franz Rosenzweig

ZfA logo

Schwules Museum logoLBI logo

This conference took place in cooperation with the Deutsches Historisches Museum and Jüdisches Museum Berlin.

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