Thomas Mann House Events Archive
July 2023
Student Council on the "Political Mandate of the Arts" - With Cauleen Smith (New Date!)
Online
**Due to scheduling conflicts, this event will now take place on July 5 at 4.15 p.m. (PT) ** Join the Wende Museum, dublab and the Thomas Mann House for this new monthly virtual program series on art and politics in times of crises. High school, undergraduate and graduate students invite prominent guest speakers to discuss topics relating to art, culture, politics and society. Every last Wednesday of the month, they will discuss different aspects of the topic with another expert and/or practitioner in the field. The interviews will be conducted online and are open to the public.
The freedom of art is one of the imperatives of every democracy. But does this freedom make art inconsequential? Does art have a role in addressing social issues, promoting social justice, or in defending democracy when it comes under pressure? In short: does art have a political mandate and what is the role of art in weakened democracies?
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 visual artists, musicians, dancers, writers, theater and filmmakers, cultural critics, curators and others, the students will explore how the arts can make a difference in times of social and political crisis; on what social issues they can give new impulses; how they can help shape local communities; and how the alleged freedom and autonomy of the arts might impede or help the arts in terms of social and political significance.
This event will take place online.
Please register here.
Participant
The guest speaker for our June program is interdisciplinary artist Cauleen Smith. Raised in Sacramento, California, and now based in Los Angeles, Cauleen Smith is a prolific and critically acclaimed artist specializing in film, installation, and object art. Currently a faculty member at the UCLA School of Arts and Architecture, Smith’s work disrupts traditional representations of image and language, inviting contemplative engagement from her audience. Her work has been showcased in esteemed institutions like The Whitney Museum of American Art, MassMoCA, and LACMA, and she has received numerous awards, including the 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship and the inaugural Ellsworth Kelly Award in 2016. Smith’s innovative practice underscores the transformative potential of art, as she continuously pushes boundaries and invites audiences to consider new perspectives.
Watch our latest episode with Steven D. Lavine, former President of CalArts here:
Previous Episodes and Guests
Meet the Student Council
Amy Cabrales is a First-Generation third-year undergraduate student at UCLA, studying Sociology, Anthropology, and the Russian Language. She is a Mexican-American, Los Angeles native born in Lynwood, California. Her career interests include museum work, social science research, and teaching English abroad in a Russian-speaking country.
Meghana Halbe is a first-year student at the University of Chicago studying Public Policy. She is from Los Angeles, California and her interests include politics, music, and history. She plans to pursue law school in the future and work in government.
Emma Larson graduated from Williams College in 2021 with degrees in History and Russian, and is currently teaching English in Kazakhstan with the Fulbright Program. Emma hopes to use the future of her professional and academic career to answer important questions about the entirety of the post-Soviet world.
Gianna Machera is currently a junior at Culver City High School. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, however she spends most of her holidays and summer traveling various places. She joined the council in 2022 and has absolutely loved the experience and growth she has had so far. She is very excited to see what the next year entails and feels privileged to be part of the council once again.
Natalie McDonald, a 2019 graduate of Pomona College (Claremont, CA), is currently pursuing her Master of Arts in History at California State University, Northridge. Her academic work focuses on migration, citizenship, empire & memory in twentieth-century Europe. Natalie plans to undertake doctoral studies in International/Global History within the next couple years.
Zora Nelson is a current second year undergraduate student at New York University, where she is studying Harp Performance and plans to also pursue Media, Culture, and Communications and Public Policy. As an east coaster, born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she discovered the Wende Museum in the summer of 2022 and is honored to be a part of the council. With a passion for writing, Zora sees a future in storytelling to promote social justice.
Anya Nyman is a current sophomore at Scripps College (Claremont, CA), currently studying History and Africana Studies. She joined the Wende student council in 2023 and is excited to add to the work the council has already done. Her academic interests include anticolonialism, twentieth-century West and Central African history, and international histories of and from the Global South.
Lexi Tooley is a current freshman at Howard University majoring in Art History and Political Science, and minoring in Chinese Language and Culture. She is originally from Los Angeles, California, and has been working with the Wende museum for the past year. She looks forward to continuing the search for truth through these student panels, as well as through learning about and from the curated art currently on display at the Wende.
The event series is a collaboration with the Wende Museum Culver City, dublab and the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.
"Künstlers in Paradise" – Reading and Conversation with Cathleen Schine & Donna Rifkind
Thomas Mann House (1550 N San Remo Dr, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272)
Cathleen Schine, author of the internationally best-selling novel The Love Letter, recently published her new novel Künstlers in Paradise: the critically acclaimed book portrays the life of an Austrian-Jewish family who escaped from Europe in 1939 and migrated to Los Angeles, where they mingle with artists such as Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood and Thomas Mann. Schine will read from her book and engage in a conversation with Donna Rifkind, author of The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood.
For years Mamie Künstler, ninety-three-years-old, as clever and glamorous as ever, has lived happily in her bungalow in Venice, California with her inscrutable housekeeper and her gigantic St. Bernard dog. Their tranquility is upended when Mamie’s grandson, Julian, arrives from New York City. Like many a twenty-something, he has come to seek his fortune in Hollywood. But it is 2020, the global pandemic sweeps in, and Julian’s short visit suddenly has no end in sight. Mamie was only eleven when the Künstlers escaped Vienna in 1939. They made their way, stunned and overwhelmed, to sunny, surreal Los Angeles where they joined a colony of distinguished Jewish musicians, writers and intellectuals also escaping Hitler. Now, faced with months of lockdown and a willing listener, Mamie begins to tell Julian the buried stories of her early years in Los Angeles: her escapades with eminent émigrés like Arnold Schoenberg, Christopher Isherwood, Thomas Mann, and Greta Garbo. While the pandemic cuts Julian off from the life he knows, Mamie’s tales open up a world of lives that came before him. They reveal to him just how much the past holds of the future.
After the reading, author Cathleen Shine & Donna Rifkind will get into a conversation about the 1940s émigré community Los Angeles.
Praise for Künstlers in Paradise
"Schine’s delight in language is contagious—she offers up words like baubles, turning them this way and that to catch the light. . . . A paean to the regenerative power of storytelling and to Los Angeles itself."
—The New York Times
"A moving and entertaining novel about how we revisit memories to make meaning for ourselves and others. . . . Ms. Schine has a wonderful ability to weave research and substantive ideas into her novels without weighing them down. Her buoyant dialogue has the zip of great comedy routines."
—Wall Street Journal
"Künstlers in Paradise is a tender family story, but it is also a profound meditation on the nature and power of storytelling, inheritance, and legacy, the malleability and perdurability of memory."
—Boston Globe
"Dreamy, drifty, and droll, studded with lush botanical description and historical gems. Schine’s many fans will enjoy."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Reading like a cross between Leopoldstadt and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, this does the trick as an emotionally resonant meditation on family, memory, and the need for stories."
—Publishers Weekly
Participants
Cathleen Schine is the author of the internationally best-selling novels The Love Letter, which was made into a movie starring Kate Capshaw, and Rameau’s Niece, which was also made into a movie (The Misadventures of Margaret), starring Parker Posey. Schine’s other novels are Alice in Bed, To the Bird House, The Evolution of Jane, She is Me, The New Yorkers, The Three Weissmanns of Westport, Fin & Lady, They May Not Mean To, But They Do, and The Grammarians. Her new novel, Künstlers in Paradise, will be published on March 14. In addition to novels she has written articles for The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. Her essays have been included in Best American Essays 2005, Fierce Pajamas, an Anthology of New Yorker Humor, and The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs. She grew up in Westport, Ct. And lives in Venice, California.
Donna Rifkind is a book critic and author. She has published reviews in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. Her critically acclaimed book The Sun and Her Stars: Salka Viertel and Hitler's Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood tells the little-known story of screenwriter Salka Viertel and was a National Jewish Book Award Finalist. Her reviews appear frequently in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times Book Review. She has also been a contributor to The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Times Literary Supplement, The American Scholar, and many other publications. In 2006 she was a finalist for the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle.
Attendance Information:
By invitation only.
Location:
Thomas Mann House
1550 N San Remo Dr
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
"Exiled Joy" – Reading and Conversation with Randa Jarrar, Ghayath Almadhoun & Sarah Yanni
Beyond Baroque (681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291)
Join Thomas Mann Fellow Ghayath Almadhoun and author Randa Jarrar for a reading and conversation with scholar and writer Sarah Yanni.
Join us for the event Exiled Joy at Beyond Baroque: an evening with authors Randa Jarrar and Ghayath Almadhoun in conversation with scholar and editor Sarah Yanni. After the readings, authors will engage in a brief Q&A led by scholar and Mexican-Egyptian writer Sarah Yanni. The conversation will expand on how Arab diasporas experience joy in a position where their identity and culture is antagonized in the Western world and prosecuted in their homelands. These topics, and more, will be discussed in-depth from the perspective of writers living in exile in the aftermath of political conflicts in the Middle East.
Participants
Ghayath Almadhoun is a Palestinian poet born in Damascus, Syria, who emigrated to Sweden in 2008 and now lives in Berlin. He published four poetry collections in Arabic, and his work has been translated into dozens of languages. Ghayath Almadhoun collaborated with other poets and artists, and his poetry has been part of the work of U.S. artist Jenny Holzer, German musician Blixa Bargeld, and others. His latest collection Adrenalin, published in English by Action Books 2017, was among the SPD Poetry Bestsellers in the U.S. and nominated for the 2018 Best Translated Book Award. His selected poems Ein Raubtier namens Mittelmeer ("Predator called the Mediterranean") ranked top of the Litprom-Bestenliste 2018 of best books translated into German.
Randa Jarrar is a celebrated author and translator who grew up in Egypt and moved back to the U.S. at thirteen. Her latest memoir, Love is an Ex-Country, recollects a life lived with daring autonomy and survival. From surviving domestic assault as a child and later as a wife, as well as threats and doxxing after her viral tweet about Barbara Bush, Jarrar offers a bold look at domestic violence, single motherhood, and sexuality through the lens of the punished-yet-triumphant body.
Sarah Sophia Yanni is a Mexican-Egyptian writer, researcher & educator in Los Angeles. She was a Finalist for BOMB Magazine’s Poetry Contest, Poetry Online’s Launch Prize, the Hayden’s Ferry Review Inaugural Poetry Contest, & the Letras Latinas Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize. A Best of the Net nominee, she is the author of the chapbook ternura / tenderness (Bottlecap Press) and her work can be found in SPECTRA Poets, Mizna, Pom Pom Lit, feelings, and others. She currently serves as Managing Editor of TQR, Poetry Editor of The Dry River, and hosts a monthly radio show called Portals.
Attendance Information:
RSVP here
The admission is free.
This event will also be live-streamed on the YouTube channel of Beyond Baroque.
Location:
Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
681 Venice Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
This program is presented by Beyond Baroque in collaboration with The Thomas Mann House, Mizna, and the Radius of Arab American Writers.
Student Council on the "Political Mandate of the Arts" - With Sonali Kolhatkar
Online
Join the Wende Museum, dublab, and the Thomas Mann House for a monthly virtual program series on art and politics in times of crises. The guest speaker for the July program is award-winning journalist, Sonali Kolhatkar. High school, undergraduate, and graduate students invite prominent guest speakers to discuss topics relating to art, culture, politics, and society. Every last Wednesday of the month, they will discuss different aspects of the topic with another expert and/or practitioner in the field. The interviews will be conducted online and are open to the public.
The freedom of art is one of the imperatives of every democracy. But does this freedom make art inconsequential? Does art have a role in addressing social issues, promoting social justice, or in defending democracy when it comes under pressure? In short: does art have a political mandate and what is the role of art in weakened democracies?
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 visual artists, musicians, dancers, writers, theater and filmmakers, cultural critics, curators and others, the students will explore how the arts can make a difference in times of social and political crisis; on what social issues they can give new impulses; how they can help shape local communities; and how the alleged freedom and autonomy of the arts might impede or help the arts in terms of social and political significance.
Register here.
This event will take place online and is open to the public.
Participant
Sonali Kolhatkar is an award winning journalist and host and executive producer of "Rising Up With Sonali", a weekly radio and television program syndicated to dozens of radio stations and available on Free Speech TV. She is the racial justice and civil liberties editor at YES! Magazine and Senior Correspondent of the "Economy For All project" at the Independent Media Institute. Her new book is called Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights, 2023).
Watch our latest episode's here:
Previous Episodes and Guests
Meet the Student Council
Amy Cabrales is a First-Generation third-year undergraduate student at UCLA, studying Sociology, Anthropology, and the Russian Language. She is a Mexican-American, Los Angeles native born in Lynwood, California. Her career interests include museum work, social science research, and teaching English abroad in a Russian-speaking country.
Meghana Halbe is a first-year student at the University of Chicago studying Public Policy. She is from Los Angeles, California and her interests include politics, music, and history. She plans to pursue law school in the future and work in government.
Emma Larson graduated from Williams College in 2021 with degrees in History and Russian, and is currently teaching English in Kazakhstan with the Fulbright Program. Emma hopes to use the future of her professional and academic career to answer important questions about the entirety of the post-Soviet world.
Gianna Machera is currently a junior at Culver City High School. She was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, however she spends most of her holidays and summer traveling various places. She joined the council in 2022 and has absolutely loved the experience and growth she has had so far. She is very excited to see what the next year entails and feels privileged to be part of the council once again.
Natalie McDonald, a 2019 graduate of Pomona College (Claremont, CA), is currently pursuing her Master of Arts in History at California State University, Northridge. Her academic work focuses on migration, citizenship, empire & memory in twentieth-century Europe. Natalie plans to undertake doctoral studies in International/Global History within the next couple years.
Zora Nelson is a current second year undergraduate student at New York University, where she is studying Harp Performance and plans to also pursue Media, Culture, and Communications and Public Policy. As an east coaster, born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she discovered the Wende Museum in the summer of 2022 and is honored to be a part of the council. With a passion for writing, Zora sees a future in storytelling to promote social justice.
Anya Nyman is a current sophomore at Scripps College (Claremont, CA), currently studying History and Africana Studies. She joined the Wende student council in 2023 and is excited to add to the work the council has already done. Her academic interests include anticolonialism, twentieth-century West and Central African history, and international histories of and from the Global South.
Lexi Tooley is a current freshman at Howard University majoring in Art History and Political Science, and minoring in Chinese Language and Culture. She is originally from Los Angeles, California, and has been working with the Wende museum for the past year. She looks forward to continuing the search for truth through these student panels, as well as through learning about and from the curated art currently on display at the Wende.
The event series is a collaboration with the Wende Museum Culver City, dublab and the Thomas Mann House Los Angeles.
"Martha Liebermann: A Stolen Life" (Online Screening & Conversation)
Online
Join the Holocaust Museum LA for a special screening of Martha Liebermann: A Stolen Life, a film about a woman's courageous escape from Nazi Germany. The screening is part of the Teicholz Film Series.
Berlin, 1943. Martha Liebermann could have never imagined being forced to leave her beloved homeland at the age of 85. As a Jewish woman, however, she is faced with the decision of her life: should the bourgeois widow of the world-famous and highly revered painter Max Liebermann continue to hope for an exit permit from the Nazis, or flee to Switzerland with the help of Hanna Solf and her resistance group? Martha knows that her previous fame and fortune will not protect her from deportation to the concentration camp for much longer. With a heavy heart, she decides to leave her beloved homeland illegally and thus leave her deceased husband’s works to the Nazis.
While Hanna and her friends are preparing to flee, Gestapo commissioner Rudolf Teubner sets a deceitful trap for the Solf group, which also puts Martha’s housekeeper Luise Wagner in serious danger. In order to save Luise and her other helpers, Martha makes an extremely courageous decision…
Journalist Tom Teicholz is joined by Jordanna Gessler, Vice President of Education and Exhibits at Holocaust Museum LA, Professor Helga Schrekenberger, Holocaust scholar and Chair of the German and Russian Department at the University of Vermont, and Dr. Holli Levitsky, Director of Jewish Studies at Loyola Marymount University, in a conversation about the film.
This film is provided by Menemsha Films and directed by Stefan Bühling, with a screenplay from Marco Rossi, and produced by Regina Ziegler and Tillman Geithe. The film will be released in theaters in the US and Canada in early 2024.
Attendance Information:
Register Here.
The film will be sent to all registered guests three days prior to the discussion.
This event will take place online and is open to the public.
An event by the Holocaust Museum LA, co-presented by Villa Aurora and Thomas Mann House.
