Description:
On March 13th, at 5:30 pm in Fulton Hall, the University will host W. Michael Blumenthal, who came of age in Japanese-occupied Shanghai and then went on to become President Carter’s Secretary of the Treasury. Following his keynote conversation with Creative Writing faculty member and novelist Rachel DeWoskin, there will be a concert of war-time classical music, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's assistant concertmaster, violinist Yuan-Qing Yu, and her quartet, Civitas Ensemble. On March 14th, a day-long symposium will be held at the Franke Institute, featuring conversations between University of Chicago faculty and invited guests on topics including the experience of the Shanghai Jews; Iraqi Jewish business networks and the financial history of the Jewish elites in China; the literature of war-time childhood and adolescence; the role of fiction in creating and remembering history; the musical and artistic history and legacy of the Shanghai Jews; and readings of both Holocaust-era and contemporary poetry and prose. This series was made possible by support from the Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies; The Franke Institute; The Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS); the Departments of Anthropology, East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC), and History; the Program on Creative Writing; and a Title VI National Resource Center Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. For information, visit the Greenberg Center website at ccjs.uchicago.edu or contact Nancy Pardee at npardee@uchicago.edu.
Date:
Wednesday, March 13, 2019