Speaker Series: Scholars in the DC Area featuring Dr. Jonathan Skolnik

Author and Associate Professor of German at UMass Amherst Dr. Jonathan Skolnik joined the German Department to talk about his book Jewish Pasts, German Fictions (Stanford, 2014). In his talk he examined popular Jewish-German authors, artists, and directors such as Franz Kafka and Edgar Ulmer and the effects they have had on Jewish-German culture. Particularly, he focused on the period of time leading up to the Holocaust and how Jews in Germany perceived themselves, their religion, and their nationality, as well as how they proceeded to assimilate to German culture and transform stories of their Jewish past into popular German fiction.