News and events
Taylor Antoniazzi with her supervisor Dr. P. Gölz at the 2013 JCURA presentation
Shown in conjunction with the Canadian Association of Teachers of German conference to be held during the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Monday, June 3, 7:00 – 10:00 pm., DSB C103
The Viennese author Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), whom Freud referred to as his Doppelgänger, provides the source material for this two-person dramatic reading: Arthur Schnitzler - Being Jewish. The reading consists of excerpts from Schnitzler's diaries and letter correspondences interspersed with quotes from the media. Arthur Schnitzler - Being Jewish highlights the ways in which Austrian and Jewish identities were constructed and received in turn-of-the-century Viennese society as well as how this legendary writer navigated his own concepts of Jewishness in his personal writing. Arthur Schnitzler is known for his provocative depictions of sexuality as well as his unique writing style that blurs the boundaries between dream and reality. His works continue to be relevant today. Stanley Kubrick's 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut, for example, is based on Arthur Schnitzler's novella Dream Story. Arthur Schnitzler's grandson, the artist and writer, Peter Schnitzler, will introduce the reading with a talk titled "The Boy on the Bicycle." The reading will be followed by a short response from a panel of scholars: Michael Boehringer (U of Waterloo), Agatha Schwartz (U of Ottawa), and Helga Thorson (UVic).
- Oratorio in Time for Liberation: April 15th is the anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. Now, due to an ambitious archival project at the University of Victoria sparked by an idea from two students on a field school in Europe, an oratorio composed by Holocaust survivor A. Peter Gary offers a unique auditory experience to the public as the first donation to the new UVic project.
Gary, a musicologist and retired rehabilitative medical practitioner now living in Victoria, was liberated from Bergen-Belsen on Apr. 15, also his birthday. In the 1970s, he composed the oratorio, A Twentieth Century Passion, about the Holocaust and he has now given the musical score to the university.
The collection, Building an Archive: Local Stories and Experiences of the Holocaust, was initiated in January 2012 to preserve the stories of individuals living on Vancouver Island who experienced the Holocaust directly. Once complete, it will be housed in the UVic Archives and available to everyone. Items range from artworks and poetry to items of clothing and firsthand interviews. UVic students Jason Michaud and Andrea van Noord in the Faculty of Humanities collaborated with UVic professor Dr. Helga Thorson, co-founder of UVic’s I-witness Holocaust Field School, and Dr. Richard Kool, former president of the Victoria Holocaust Remembrance and Education Society and a professor at Royal Roads University, to launch this project.
An audio sample from the oratorio can be available upon request.
Media contacts:
A. Peter Gary in Victoria, BC at 250-652-9230
Tara Sharpe (UVic Communications) at 250-721-6248 or tksharpe@uvic.ca
