The bilateral Frankfurt-Tel Aviv Masterclass Language and Trauma in German-Jewish Thought I (1945-1975) aims at studying the effects of trauma on the way language is imagined, described, or conceptualized in the writings of post-Shoah German-Jewish thinkers.
The two parts of the seminar series work through different German-Jewish conceptions of language historically, before and after the Shoah. The first part (1895-1945) featured thinkers such as Freud, Benjamin, Scholem, or Rosenzweig who have dealt with the problem of language and identity in religious, psychoanalytic and philosophical terms; the second part (1945-1975) will continue with German Jews, who moved to Israel in the post-war era (Scholem, Buber), but also German Jews returning to Germany (Theodor W. Adorno, Peter Szondi) as well as thinkers and poets, such as Hannah Arendt, Paul Celan, and Jean Améry who have continued to grapple with these questions from other parts of the world. During the seminar, we will focus on close readings and discuss the different ways in which trauma not only poses a threat to language and community but also has the power to constitute it.
Following monthly online meetings and student working groups throughout the semester, the culmination point of the Masterclass will be an intensive, one-week, in-person block seminar in Frankfurt from 3-7 July 2023.
- Trainer/in: Charlotte Birkner-Behlen
- Trainer/in: Ilit Ferber
- Trainer/in: Judith Kasper
- Trainer/in: Caroline Sauter