In the early 1900s, Germans discovered the richest diamond fields in history in the Protectorate of German Southwest Africa. Namibian diamonds quickly proved more than baubles. These tiny stones made an overlooked impact on the German colonial economy and even on German domestic politics. In addition, Namibian diamonds intersected with what has become a major topic of study: Germany’s genocidal campaign against the Nama and Herero peoples.   Steven Press is an Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University. He received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University. Recently, Steven has worked on two book projects:…

The Program in Critical Theory & City Lights Books, SF, Present a Seminar/Discussion with Howard Eiland on his recently published book: Notes on Literature, Film, and Jazz (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019).   Howard Eiland’s Notes on Literature, Film, and Jazz (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019) is a highly erudite and courageous inquiry into the arts. Weaving through a host of “classic” texts—literary, cinematic, and musical—these notes of a virtouso close reader set up echoes and reflections across signature moments. These “notes” address a dissident force in art while discussing an impressively diverse range of works and ideas in literature, film, and jazz. For instance: Shakespeare, Cervantes, and…

The Eurocrisis after 2010 and the migration crisis of 2015 posed important policy challenges for the European Union and its member states. Both crisis events impacted on EU countries in an asymmetrical manner. The process of taming these problems through policies resulted in political conflicts between voters and governments supporting solidarity with negatively affected countries on the one hand, and those opposing it on the other. Philipp Trein will analyze the political process of making anti-crisis policies in the EU and compare it with the process in federal states and will conclude with a discussion of the implications of EU…

While Americans have been deeply divided over many issues since the country’s creation, no issue has proved more divisive or revealed more about the nation’s character than the way it treats its enemies. One impulse has been to punish perceived enemies as harshly as possible. The other impulse has been to exhibit benevolence through mercy. The conflicts over which path to pursue have caused hundreds of thousands to suffer, and other times uplifted millions from disaster. At no point were these clashes more impactful than during and immediately after the Second World War.   Most of Franklin Roosevelt’s chief advisors…

The Program in Critical Theory & City Lights Books, San Francisco, present a panel-and-audience discussion with Howard Eiland: “On Walter Benjamin’s Origin of the German Trauerspiel.”   A panel of UC Berkeley faculty from the Humanities and Social sciences will speak with Eiland about Benjamin’s book, including issues involving Eiland’s new translation of and introduction to the text, as well as those raised by Eiland’s Monday, February 10 talk, “Hamlet as Trauerspiel?” (see further below for description of the February 10 talk).  The panel will then open things up by inviting questions and discussion from the audience.   For those wishing to attend the…

The Program in Critical Theory & City Lights Books, San Francisco, present a talk by Howard Eiland, “Hamlet as Trauerspiel?” Origin of the German Trauerspiel was Walter Benjamin’s first full, historically-oriented analysis of modernity. Readers of English knew it until last year under the title The Origin of German Tragic Drama, but in fact the subject is something else: the play of mourning. Howard Eiland’s completely new English translation and introduction (Harvard University Press, 2019), the first to appear since 1977, is closer to the German text and more consistent with Benjamin’s philosophical idiom. Focusing on the extravagant and historical seventeenth-century theatrical genre of the…

Hear from fellow students and representatives of UCEAP, the Institute of European Studies, Fulbright, and DAAD about opportunities to study, intern, research, and teach in German-speaking lands! Summer, semester, year-long, and post-graduation opportunities exist for all undergraduates at all language levels. It’s never too early to plan ahead! Kaffee und Kuchen will be served!

Heated debate surrounds the question of the role Christianity and Christian churches played in the Nazi and Italian Fascist demonization of the Jews. This talk brings to light similarities and differences in the Nazi and Italian Fascist uses of Christianity in their efforts to turn their populations against the Jews through examination of two of their most influential popular anti-Semitic propaganda vehicles: La difesa della razza in Italy and Der Stürmer in Germany. Both would mix pseudo-scientific racial theories with arguments based on Christian religious authority, and both would present themselves as defenders of Christianity against the Jewish threat. Yet there were also differences,…

In the second half of Lang’s two-part epic, our German hero tries to escape with his beloved, the temple dancer Seetha, but is captured and imprisoned in a dungeon. Meanwhile, a palace rebellion threatens to depose the maharajah. The film reaches a pinnacle of exoticism with Debra Paget’s eye-popping, censor-defying “snake dance.”   This event is sponsored by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the Institute for South Asia Studies.   For more information please email bampfapress@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642 0808.