LION FEUCHTWANGER AND JUDAISM

The seventh biennial conference of the International Feuchtwanger Society (IFS) will take place at the University of Southern California on 17-19 September 2015 in Los Angeles, California.

Hosted by the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library of the USC Libraries, the conference will also feature programs and events developed in collaboration with USC’s Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies, USC’s Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life, Villa Aurora, and other institutions in the Los Angeles area. The conference will explore Lion Feuchtwanger’s Jewish identity, his family background, and the Jewish milieus he belonged to in Germany, France, and Southern California. We will emphasize the intersections of German and Jewish identities and ask how they changed with the rise of the Nazis and the experience of living in exile. We will also devote attention to Feuchtwanger’s knowledge of Jewish sources and the connections to Judaism that ran through his life and work. A particular focus will be on new research concerning Jewish themes in Feuchtwanger’s works (and in the works of his brothers and other emigrants).

Preliminary Program and Time Schedule

Thursday, September 17, 2015

9:30AM Participants will be picked up from hotel and shuttled to Villa Aurora, Pacific Palisades

11-11.30AM Welcome address

11:30AM-1:00PM PANEL 1: Setting the Stage: Lion Feuchtwanger and Judaism Chair: TBD
Jonathan Skolnik: Judaism and Exile in the 1930s: Lion Feuchtwanger in Comparative Context
Anne Hartmann: Lion Feuchtwanger and the Question of (his) Jewish identity in Stalinist Russia
Margrit Frolich: Lion Feuchtwanger’s Jewish Historical Consciousness in America

1:00-2:30PM Lunch break

3:30-5PM IFS Member-Meeting & Dinner
5PM Shuttle buses leave for Santa Monica/Aero Theater

6:00PM Frank Stern Introduction to Jud Suess (1934)

Friday, September 18, 2015

9:30-11:00AM PANEL 4: Other Writers And Judaism II
Chair: Joerg Thunecke
Sven Steinberg: Edgar Hahnewalds Roman “Karl Herschowitz kehrt heim”
Michaela Enderle-Ristori: Umwertung aller Werte? Heinrich Mann und das Judentum
Doris Berger: Light & Noir. The Light & Noir exhibit at the Skirball Cultural Center and audience
reactions to it

11:00-11:15AM Coffee Break

11:15AM-12:15PM PANEL 5: Feuchtwanger and Israel
Chair: TBD
Yael Feldman: “The Old man has Returned to his People”: The Reception of Feuchtwanger’s
Josephus Trilogy in Pre-state Israel
Paul Lerner: Feuchtwanger and Arnold Zweig on the Nature and Challenge of the Jewish People

12:15-1:45PM Lunch Break

1:45-2:45PM PANEL 6: TBD
Chair: TBD
Sean Nye: From Sepp Trautwein to Bertram de Born: Feuchtwanger on Music, Exile, and Religion
Marje Schuetze-Coburn: Aufbau & Lion Feuchtwanger: Perspectives on News and Culture as Exiles

2:45-3:00PM Coffee Break

3.00-4.30PM PANEL 7: TBD
Chair: TBD
Galit Hasan-Rokem: Sources of Complexity: Biblical, Rabbinical, and Mystical Elements in Jud Suess
Ian Wallace: Jued Suess (1934): The British Dimension
Adrian Feuchtwanger: A Post-Nationalist Weimar Novel? A Third Generation View of Der Juedische
Krieg (1932)

4:30-4:45PM Coffee Break

September 19, 2015

9:30-10:30AM PANEL 8: Judaism & Christianity in Feuchtwanger’s Work Chair: TBD
Detlef Blasche: Das Christentum in Feuchtwangers Werk (in German) Romana Trefil: Das Judentum Feuchtwangers und seine literarische Reflexion vor dem Hintergrund historischer Aspekte und unter Beruecksichtigung seiner im US Exil enstandenen Romane Die Juedin von Toledo und Jefta und seine Tocher

10:30-10:45AM Coffee Break

10:45-12:00PM 20 years of the Feuchtwanger Memorial Library at USC - a tour & exhibit

12:00-1:00PM Lunch Break

1:00-2:00PM PANEL 9: Graduate Student Papers I Chair: TBD
Marlene Danzinger: “Wie Punkersdorf unter Palmen” The Voices of Uncredited Viennese Exile Actresses
Sarah Kaufmann: “Die Zweite Reihe” Viennese Exile Filmmakers Behind the Screen

2:00-2:15PM Coffee Break

2:15-3:45PM PANEL 10: Graduate Student Papers II Chair: Michaela Ullmann
Adi Nester: German and Jewish Identity in the Works of Erich Zeisl and Paul Ben-Haim
Sebastian Musch: Feuchtwanger between Judaism and Buddhism Laura Marie Reiling: „Exilwirrwarr“ – Heimat, Haus und jüdische Identität in Volker H. Altwassers Bruno Frank-Roman Glückliches Sterben