März 2024

Die Veranstaltung erinnert an drei Künstlerinnen und Künstler, die gewaltsam verstummt sind. Der Komponist, Korrepetitor und Dirigent Viktor Ullmann wurde 1942 in das Ghetto Theresienstadt deportiert und am 18. Oktober 1944 im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau ermordet. Auch Gideon Klein, Komponist und Pianist, wurde 1941 nach Theresienstadt gebracht; 1944 wurde er in Auschwitz-Birkenau ermordet. Beide Komponisten schufen in Theresienstadt eine Vielzahl an Musik, unter anderem eine Oper. Die tschechoslowakische deutschsprachige Schriftstellerin Ilse Weber wurde nach ihrer Internierung in Theresienstadt weiter nach Auschwitz gebracht. Vor Kriegsausbruch war sie eine erfolgreich arbeitende Künstlerin, wurde mehrfach veröffentlicht. Im Lager arbeitete Weber als Krankenschwester im Kinderkrankenhaus, las und sang für die Kleinen und versuchte, mit ihren Texten Hoffnung zu geben. Ihre Texte und Lieder waren im Lager vermutlich weit verbreitet, wurden aus dem Ghetto geschmuggelt und im Nachhinein von Überlebenden aus dem Gedächtnis notiert. Einige wurden wohl von Weber selbst auf der Gitarre begleitet. Ilse Weber wurde 1944 mit ihrem Sohn und weiteren Kindern, die sie pflegte, in der Gaskammer getötet.

In zwei Gesprächen werden ausgehend von den Klängen der Werke die Biografien und Umstände in Theresienstadt genauer beleuchtet. Diskutiert wird außerdem, was wir als Gesellschaft im 21. Jahrhundert dafür tun können, verstummte Stimmen hörbar zu machen, wo das demokratische Potenzial von Musik und der Oper zu verorten ist und welchen Beitrag sie zu einem vielfältigen und inklusiven Miteinander leisten können. Christopher Warmuth

*Diese Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt*

Published in Germany in 1924, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain tells the story of Hans Castorp, an ordinary young man who goes to visit his cousin Joachim in a Swiss tuberculosis sanatorium for three weeks and ends up staying for seven years. Set on the precipice of World War One, the novel captures the spirit of prewar Europe and the ailments of the modern world: isolation, mass epidemics, the plight of progress and industrial alienation. Mann’s ever-timely novel offers meditations on love, loss, time, what it means to become a person in the world, and what it means to face death.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Mann’s modernist masterpiece, we cordially invite you to the living room of the writer's home in exile for a conversation on pilgrimage between author and scholar Samantha Rose Hill and curator and interviewer Paul Holdengräber. What does it mean to leave the world of everyday life and undertake a journey? How does travel inform one’s perception of text, artwork, love, loss? In what ways does one’s experience of time change when one finds oneself perpetually caught in between the longing for home and flight of adventure? Can Mann’s work help us to think about our world today, a world defined by a sense of displacement, longing, loneliness, and war? Is it the x-ray we need to help us see more clearly right now?

Before and after the conversation, acclaimed pianist David Kaplan and students from the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music will perform pieces by Claude Debussy and Franz Schubert on Thomas Mann’s historical piano: Singer Andres Delgado accompanies Kaplan in Die Post, Einsamkeit, and Der Lindenbaum from Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise; and pianists Alexandre Tchaykov and Biguo Xing will play Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d’un faune, a favorite piece of music of Hans Castorp in the novel.

This event is part of a seminar on The Magic Mountain offered by the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research & the Japanese American Cultural & Community Center. Led by Samantha Rose Hill, this course reads the entirety of The Magic Mountain alongside short selections from medical journals, critical reviews, Mann’s correspondence, and lectures, while asking: What does it mean to be healthy? How does modernity change our conception of time? How might we think about enchantment in the modern world? Learn more here.

Samantha Rose Hill is the author of the critically acclaimed book Hannah Arendt (2021) and the editor and translator of What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt (2017). She is associate faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research in New York City. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, LitHub, OpenDemocracy, and the journals Public Seminar, Contemporary Political Theory, and Theory & Event.

Paul Holdengräber is an interviewer, curator of public curiosity, and was the Founding Executive Director of Onassis Los Angeles (OLA). Prior he was Founder and Director of The New York Public Library’s LIVE from the NYPL cultural series where he interviewed and hosted over 600 events, including interviews with Patti Smith, Wes Anderson, Mike Tyson, Werner Herzog and many more. Before his tenure at the library, he was the Founder and Director of The Institute for Art & Cultures at the LACMA. He holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Princeton University. In 2003, the French Government named him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, and then promoted him in 2012 to the rank of Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres. In 2010, The President of Austria awarded him the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.

David Kaplan, pianist, has been called “excellent and adventurous” by The New York Times, and praised by the Boston Globe for “grace and fire” at the keyboard. He has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras, including the Britten Sinfonia and Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. Known for diverse and creative recital programs, he has appeared at the Ravinia Festival, Washington’s National Gallery, Strathmore, and Bargemusic. Kaplan’s New Dances of the League of David, mixing Schumann with 16 new works, was cited in the “Best Classical Music of 2015” by The New York Times.

*Diese Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt*

Andrea Römmele, Professor of Political Communication, Dean and Vice President at the Hertie School in Berlin, researches the impact that major societal 'megatrends' –such as technology and AI, urbanization, demographic and social change, climate change and resource scarcity, or global growth markets – have on Western democracies.

How do different systemic and societal structures in Germany and the U.S. affect these developments? She is currently a Fellow at the Thomas Mann House in Los Angeles, a residency center and space for transatlantic debate in the former exile home of the German Nobel-laureate Thomas Mann. During her residency in Los Angeles, she explores the consequences of these megatrends for democracy from a transatlantic perspective: How can democratic systems shape these consequences? How can we overthink traditional political approaches and implement political systems that not only administer but lead the way into a visionary future?

Andrea Römmele hat einen Master-Abschluss der San Francisco State University, wurde in Heidelberg promoviert und an der Freien Universität Berlin habilitiert. Ihre Forschungsinteressen liegen im Bereich der digitalen Demokratie, Wahlen sowie Wahlkämpfe und Parteien. Eines ihrer zentralen Anliegen ist die Vermittlung zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis. Eines ihrer aktuellen Projekte hierzu ist die gemeinsam mit der ARD entwickelte „Demokratie-Reportage”, die sie selbst moderiert.

*Diese Veranstaltung findet in englischer Sprache statt*

The Student Council consists of a team of highly engaged, talented, and diverse high school, undergraduate, and graduate students who invite prominent guest speakers to discuss topics relating to art, culture, politics, and society. In conversation with academics, journalists, politicians, and artists, the students will explore the various threats to democratic institutions and principles worldwide, as well as strategies to potentially overcome these threats. The series focuses on the new annual topic of the Thomas Mann House, “Democracy & Vulnerability:" Democratic processes are dynamic, inclusive, and human-centered but at times also messy, arbitrary, and even contrary to democracy itself. How should a democracy deal with its own vulnerabilities? What are the responsibilities of a democracy toward the most vulnerable in its populace? How do democracies need to evolve to deal successfully with increasing global levels of ecological, geo-political, and economic precarity? How much vulnerability can a democracy endure?

At 19 years old, Board Member Triston Ezidore made history as the youngest elected official in the history of Los Angeles County and the first black male to serve on Culver City Unified Board of Education. As a recent high school graduate, Board Member Ezidore is a staunch advocate in building a school district in which all students can thrive. He currently works as a Youth Employment Manager with the Housing Authority of the City of LA, and has served his community as an Equity Specialist, Legislative Organizer, and committee member on the District’s Equity Advisory Committee, Restorative Practice’s Committee, Positive Behavior and Intervention’s Support Committee, and the Sexual Assault and Misconduct Reform Committee.