The Impossible and the Necessary: Jewish Life in Germany from the Middle Ages to the Present
8:00 a.m., Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008
Webster Hall Auditorium
Admission: free

Jewish life in Germany has existed at both extremes: times of unspeakable suffering, but also times of singular prosperity and intellectual blossom, though this is often overlooked. How and why has the perception of Jewish German life been formed over the years? How is that perception changing today?

Jennifer Hoyer is an assistant professor of German at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She has a Ph.D. in German literature from the University of Minnesota. She has presented and
published on German Jewish poet Nelly Sachs and second language acquisition. Dr. Hoyer is the recipient of a Fulbright research fellowship, Hadassah International Research grant, numerous
travel grants, and many pedagogy and technology grants. Research interests include Jewish studies, poetry, German and American pop culture of the 1980s, and film. She is currently working on a project that examines 20th-century poetic interpretations of ancient and classical poetic genres, in particular epigraphy, and a study of the Jewish press in Germany during the 1930s.