Event details
Feb
3
Kwartler Family Lecture – Bruno Schulz and the Hijacking of History
Join the Program in Judaic Studies for this year's Kwartler Family Lecture with Benjamin Balint on Monday, February 3.
Description
The Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz was a master of twentieth-century fiction who mapped the anxious perplexities of his time; Isaac Bashevis Singer called him “one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived.” Schulz was also a brilliant graphic artist whose drawings would catch the eye of a sadistic Nazi officer, with the result that Schulz’s art became the currency in which he bought life. Sixty years after Schulz was murdered, his last murals were miraculously rediscovered, only to be secretly smuggled by Israeli agents to Yad Vashem. In this talk, Benjamin Balint will offer a fascinating portrait of Schulz's life—with all its paradoxes and curtailed possibilities—and discuss how the ensuing international furor summoned perplexities about who has the right to curate orphaned artworks and to construe their meanings.
Open to the public. Refreshments will be available.
More about Benjamin Balint
Benjamin Balint, a fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, is the author of Kafka's Last Trial (winner of the 2020 Sami Rohr Prize and published in twelve languages); and Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History (winner of this year's National Jewish Book Award for Biography). His essays appear in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Jewish Review of Books, and his translations from the Hebrew have appeared in the New Yorker.
Description
The Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz was a master of twentieth-century fiction who mapped the anxious perplexities of his time; Isaac Bashevis Singer called him “one of the most remarkable writers who ever lived.” Schulz was also a brilliant graphic artist whose drawings would catch the eye of a sadistic Nazi officer, with the result that Schulz’s art became the currency in which he bought life. Sixty years after Schulz was murdered, his last murals were miraculously rediscovered, only to be secretly smuggled by Israeli agents to Yad Vashem. In this talk, Benjamin Balint will offer a fascinating portrait of Schulz's life—with all its paradoxes and curtailed possibilities—and discuss how the ensuing international furor summoned perplexities about who has the right to curate orphaned artworks and to construe their meanings.
Open to the public. Refreshments will be available.
More about Benjamin Balint
Benjamin Balint, a fellow at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, is the author of Kafka's Last Trial (winner of the 2020 Sami Rohr Prize and published in twelve languages); and Bruno Schulz: An Artist, a Murder, and the Hijacking of History (winner of this year's National Jewish Book Award for Biography). His essays appear in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Jewish Review of Books, and his translations from the Hebrew have appeared in the New Yorker.
Speakers
Benjamin Balint
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Date
February 3, 2025Time
4:30 p.m.Location
Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building, A17Audience
University Sponsors
Program in Judaic Studies