Teil der Reihe Deutsch-Jüdisch-Amerikanische Beziehungen

Online auf Zoom

In this presentation, we will ask the question: is it ever appropriate to engage the Holocaust through comedic film? and use Chris Kraus’ 2016 film Die Blumen von Gestern (The Bloom of Yesterday) as a case study. The film, a romantic comedy about a German historian of the Holocaust wrestling with what his grandfather did during the war, addresses the challenges facing the third generation in preserving the history and memory of the Holocaust. 

Zoom Meeting-ID: 828 2997 3001

Referent: Prof. Dr. Jonathan Friedman, University of West Chester, PA, USA

Professor of History, Director of Graduate Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Professor Friedman's areas of specialization are modern European, modern German, and modern Jewish history, but he has also broadened out from there since finishing his Ph.D. to include LGBT history and the history of music and film. His current research involves a good deal of intersectionality, whether that is the intersection of gay and Jewish identity or the intersection of popular culture and representations of race, religion, class, and gender. He has published numerous books on subjects ranging from the Holocaust to gay and Jewish performance, and is currently working on a monograph entitled Haunted Laughter: Comedic Representations of Adolf Hitler, The Third Reich, and the Holocaust in Film and Television.