Musicologist Michael Beckerman explores music on the “outer edges” of the set of Czech Jewish music in order to ask whether such a set actually exists.
Milan Zonca will revisit this question of the possibility of intellectual and religious contacts between the Jews and the Hussites during the Hussite movement at the turn of the 15th century in Bohemia.
Gordon Dale, the Inaugural Dr. Jack Gottlieb Scholar in Jewish Music Studies, will examine the spiritual significance of music according to Jewish mysticism, and present melodies associated with important rabbinic figures.
An intimate evening with Anna and Jordan Rathkopf, an award-winning photography duo who will share their family’s deeply personal story captured in their upcoming book.
Explore the pivotal role of women in Charter 77 and the broader Czech dissent movement. Kamila Bendova and Martin Palous will discuss how the experiences of the past can help us build bridges between our present and future.
A lecture dedicated to the topic of Moravia and Silesia as an unique area of the development of Jewish history. It is a place that gave the foundation to many Austrian, Hungarian and Slovak Jewish communities.
Vit Horejs and his guests will share their memories of Majales, a medieval student tradition celebrating spring, mocking professors, elections and officialdom in 1965 Prague, during which the American poet Allen Ginsberg found himself unexpectedly crowned as the King of May.
Pianist and musicologist Katelyn Bouska offers new insights into Antonin Dvorak in America through a special musical tour focused on his compositions, students and contemporaries in the late 19th century. Featuring works by Dvorak, Burleigh, Beach, Sukova-Dvorakova.
Professor Hynek Wichterle will discuss his stem cell research at Columbia University Medical Center. He developed groundbreaking methods for producing spinal cord neurons from pluripotent embryonic stem cells in a culture dish.
Cantor Matt Austerklein will share new research and musical examples which illuminate a dynamic era in Jewish music history.
Scholars, scientists, artists, and professionals of Czech or Slovak descent to introduce their talent, the subject of their work, project, research, or studies in a short presentation limited to 6 minutes.
Jaroslav Olsa Jr. will discuss the life and work of Miles J. Breuer (1889 –1945), a Czech-American writer who stood at the birth of science fiction literature in the USA.
Researcher Walter Zev Feldman will discuss the history of Jewish musicians’ guild, emanating from Bohemia to Poland-Lithuania in the 16th century.
Designer Oldrich Voyta will discuss the relationship between art, beauty, craftsmanship, modern technology, aesthetics, and comfort in designing shoes.
In this talk, historian Elissa Bemporad will trace the legacies of the two most extreme manifestations of Tsarist antisemitism pogroms and blood libels in the Soviet Union, from 1917 to the early 1960s.
This talk introduces two prominent figures of the Czech 1980s generation – brothers Jachym and Filip Topol. Although both brothers became dissidents and both signed Charter 77, they rejected the notion of a pre-political self and projected an almost nihilistic stance against everything.
Historian Hillel Kieval will introduce his recent book Blood Inscriptions and discuss how educated elites took up the accusations of Jewish ritual murder.
Historian Ladislav Jackson will present the lesser-known facts about the design and construction of the Guggenheim Museum between 1946 and 1949 when a Czech structural engineer, Jaroslav Josef Polivka, invented the iconic spiral diverging ramp without inner supporting pillars.
Historian Magda Teter will discuss blood libel, an anti-Jewish lie that emerged in the Middle Ages but became embedded in European Christian imagination later. The talk will explore how a medieval anti-Jewish lie spread across Europe and continues to persist into the 21st century even in the US.
Rabbi Stephen Menashe Kliment of Brno shares an incredible story behind the 13,000 prayer and religious books confiscated from Jews during World War II throughout the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
The award-winning Czech photographer Marian Benes will present his work, including the fascinating images of the Bohemian National Hall renovation and the portraits of Czech compatriots living in New York City. He will also offer historical insight into the beginnings of digital photography and its specifics in the Czech Republic.
Historian Chad Bryant will share a fascinating story of Egon Erwin Kisch whose literary experimentations suggested ways of thinking about strangers and difference, place and community, in the fin-de-siècle Prague more broadly.
Professor Michael Beckerman hosts a panel discussion about how to conceive of questions of Czech nationality/ethnicity in music from the early Renaissance to the 20th century. Invited panelists include scholars and musicians Erika Honisch, David Hoose, and Carl C. Bettendorf.
Jindrich Toman, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan, will discuss literary and journalistic texts that shed light on relations between Czechs and Jews in Bohemia in the 19th century, reviewing ways in which Jewish emancipation was “happening” in materials that now remain forgotten and appear seemingly inconsequential.
Curator and art history professor Helena Capkova will talk about a rich and diverse design work of architect, stage designer and painter Bedrich Feuerstein (1892-1936), with a focus on his American research trip and its outcomes.
On the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Andrey Kurkov, the 2022 Disturbing the Peace Award recipient, will discuss the humanitarian crisis that the conflict has created and the role of a writer in upholding international law with writer Salil Tripathi, PEN International.
Linguistics professor Lida Cope will talk about her efforts to document a dying dialect of Czech Moravians who started arriving in Texas in the second half of the 19th century.
Czech and Slovak scholars, scientists, artists, and professionals are challenged to introduce the subject of their project, research or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes.
Panel discussion celebrating Lou Reed's famous trip to the Czech Republic to interview Vaclav Havel. Ivan Bierhanzl, Paul Wilson, and Sylvia Reed will shed light on the story of a self-confessed, non-musical Vaclav Havel becoming the rock’n’roll president of his country, befriending Lou Reed, Frank Zappa, Joan Baez, and the Rolling Stones.
Michael Schouten will provide an overview of the fascinating life and times of his ancestor, Vojta Naprstek, a Czech philanthropist, patriot and politician, who is affectionally known as foremost Czech democrat.
Joshua Teplitsky will discuss his book that offers a window into the social life of Jewish books in early modern Europe.
