A lecture by Professor Mark H. Gelber

While Stefan Zweig was widely celebrated during his lifetime as one of the great writers of the 20th century, his popularity and reputation declined dramatically following his suicide in 1942. However, in the last few years, a global Stefan Zweig  Renaissance  has begun.  New translations of his writings, critical studies, a series of international conferences about him and his as well as films about him or based on his fiction or inspired by it are the proof. 

Our upcoming lecture attempts to explain the possible reasons for a Zweig Renaissance and to discuss the possibility of whether new images of Zweig and new readings of his work and different topics of concern may displace those already in place. In the past, Zweig was lauded or criticized for his humanism, cosmopolitanism, pacifism, his psychological insight and enthusiasm for Sigmund Freud, his apolitical posture, his work as a mediator between cultures, his status as a grand European, but also in the end as an exile who left Nazi Europe and an isolated England to finish his life as a self-described wanderer in the Americas.

Prof. Gelber

Prof. Mark H. Gelber (picture) is Senior Professor and Director of the Center for Austrian and German Studies at Ben-Gurion University in Israel.  He has written, edited and co-edited 17 books and published some 80 academic essays, book chapters and scientific articles. He has been a visiting professor and guest researcher in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Slovenia, New Zealand, China, and the United States. One of his most recent books is Stefan Zweig -Jüdische Relationen. Studien zu Werk und Biographie  (co-edited with Elisabeth Erdem and Klemens Renoldner, Würzburg: 2017).