Liliane Weissberg (born 1953) is an American literary scholar and cultural historian specializing in German-Jewish studies and German and American literature. She is currently the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in Arts and Sciences and Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. She received, among others, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Humboldt Research Award for her research on German-Jewish literature and culture and the Berlin Prize of the American Academy in Berlin, and holds an honorary degree from the University of Graz.

Liliane Weissberg
Born1953
Occupation(s)Literary scholar, cultural historian
Awards
Academic background
Alma mater
Academic work
Discipline
Sub-discipline
Institutions
Notable students
Main interests

Life and career

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Liliane Weissberg was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1953 to a Jewish family. Her parents were political refugees who had fled from Poland in 1949. She grew up in Frankfurt, Germany.[1]

Weissberg graduated from the Free University of Berlin in 1977 with a master's degree in general and comparative literature, German studies, and linguistics. She obtained a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University in 1984, concentrating on American, German, and French literature. Her dissertation thesis examined allegories in Edgar Allan Poe.[2]

After teaching as an assistant professor of German at Johns Hopkins University (1983-1989), Weissberg joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania as an associate professor of German and Comparative Literature in 1989 and was promoted to full professor in 1994. She was the Joseph B. Glossberg Term Chair in the Humanities for several years. Since 2004, she has been the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in Arts and Sciences.[3] At Penn, she has several times served as graduate chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and as Director of the Program in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory.[4]

Weissberg has been a guest professor at several universities in the United States, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (Princeton, Hamburg, Aachen, Frankfurt, the Humboldt University Berlin, Potsdam, Bochum, the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg, Innsbruck, Vienna, the ETH Zurich),[5] and has held visiting chairs at the University of Hamburg, the University of Graz, and the University of Kassel.[6][7] She has also been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Munich, the Dubnow Institute in Leipzig,[8] and the IFK Vienna."Fellow - Liliane Weissberg - IFK (EN)".

Weissberg has curated exhibitions at the Slought Gallery at Penn, Jewish Museum Frankfurt,[9][10] the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach, and the German Historical Museum in Berlin.[11] She has served on numerous institutional boards,is currently a member of the board of the German Historical Museum in Berlin[12] and the advisory board of the Leo Baeck Institute London,[13] and the Center for Jewish Studies, Graz. She was one of the founding members of the Research Center Sanssouci for the Study of the Enlightenment (RECS), a collaboration between the University of Potsdam and the Public Castles and Gardens Sanssouci,[14] and served on the advisory board of the Moses Mendelssohn Center in Potsdam. Weissberg has also been a guest speaker on several radio shows, including BBC World Service, CBC Toronto, Deutschlandfunk, Hessischer Rundfunk, Bayerischer Rundfunk, NPR and the MLA radio service.[15][16]

Research

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With her books and more than 200 academic articles, Weissberg's research has covered German and American literature from the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries, cultural studies, literary and psychoanalytic theory, aesthetics and material culture.[17][18] She has contributed to the rediscovery of German-Jewish literary and cultural traditions and has researched the German-Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala), Romanticism in America and Europe, German realism, and visual studies. Weissberg has also studied issues concerning the Holocaust.[19][20] She has extensively dealt with figures like Edgar Allan Poe, Rahel Varnhagen, Hannah Arendt, Dorothea Schlegel, Henriette Herz, Johann Gottfried Herder, Moses Mendelssohn, Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich von Kleist.[21][22][23][24]

Awards

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Bibliography

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Monographs

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  • Geistersprache. Philosophischer und literarischer Diskurs im späten achtzehnten Jahrhundert. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1990, ISBN 3-88479-480-9.
  • Edgar Allan Poe (= Sammlung Metzler. Band 204). Metzler, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-476-10204-1.
  • Hannah Arendt, Charlie Chaplin and the Hidden Jewish Tradition(= Vorlesungen des Centrums für Jüdische Studien. Band 1). Leykam, Graz 2009, ISBN 978-3-7011-0165-8.
  • Über Haschisch und Kabbala. Gershom Scholem, Siegfried Unseld und das Werk von Walter Benjamin (= Marbacher Magazin. 140). Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, Marbach am Neckar 2012, ISBN 978-3-937384-94-8.
  • Münzen, Hände, Noten, Finger: Berliner Hofjuden und die Erfindung einer deutschen Musikkultur (= Vorlesungen des Centrums für Jüdische Studien Graz. 12). Clio Verlag, Graz 2018, ISBN 978-3-902542-71-7.

Editions

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  • Weiblichkeit als Maskerade. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-596-11850-6.
  • Hannah Arendt: Rahel Varnhagen. The Life of a Jewess. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8018-6335-X.
  • Kennedy J. Gerald and Liliane Weissberg. 2001. Romancing the Shadow : Poe and Race. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513710-8.
  • Affinität wider Willen? Hannah Arendt, Theodor W. Adorno und die Frankfurter Schule (= Jahrbuch zur Geschichte und Wirkung des Holocaust. 2011). Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2011, ISBN 978-3-593-39490-9.
  • Beckman, Karen, and Liliane Weissberg, eds. On Writing with Photography. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.978-0-8166-8885-2.
  • (with Andreas Kilcher) Nachträglich, grundlegend: Der Kommentar als Denkform in der jüdischen Moderne von Hermann Cohen bis Jacques Derrida.ISBN 978-3-8353-3369-7.
  • Benjamin Veitel Ephraim: Kaufmann, Schriftsteller, Geheimagent. 2021, ISBN 978-3-11-072240-6.
  • Psychoanalysis, Fatherhood, and the Modern Family. 2021, ISBN 978-3-03082123-4.

Articles (selection)

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  • „Der Jude als Paria: Stationen in der Geschichte einer Idee im Diskurs der Assimilation“. In: Christina von Braun (Hrsg.): Was war das deutsche Judentum? (= Europäisch-jüdische Studien. Beiträge 24). Oldenbourg De Gruyter, 2015, p. 117–133.
  • Rückkehr im Widerstand. In: Katharine Rauschenberger (Hrsg.): Rückkehr in Feindesland? Fritz Bauer in der deutsch-jüdischen Nachkriegsgeschichte. (= Jahrbuch des Fritz Bauer-Instituts. 2013). Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 15–37.
  • Sehnsucht nach Goethe. Sigmund Freud und der Sommer 1931. In: Stephan Braese, Daniel Weidner (Hrsg.): Deutsche *Sprachkultur von Juden und die Geisteswissenschaften. Kadmos Verlag, Berlin 2015, p. 201–214.
  • Das Unbewußte der Bundesrepublik: Alexander Mitscherlich popularisiert die Psychoanalyse. In: Zeitschrift für Geistes- und Ideengeschichte. V 3, 2011, p. 45–64.
  • Karl Löwiths Weltreise. In: Monika Boll, Raphael Gross (Hrsg.): „Ich staune, dass Sie in dieser Luft atmen können“. *Jüdische Intellektuelle in Deutschland nach 1945. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, p. 126–170.
  • Postcards from the Avant-Garde. In: MLN. Band 132, Nr. 3: Else Lasker-Schüler and the Avantgarde. 2017, p. 575–601.

References

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  1. ^ Lützeler, Paul (2018). Transatlantic German Studies: Testimonies to the Profession. Rochester, New York: Camden House. pp. 249–251. ISBN 9781640140127. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  2. ^ "Liliane Weissberg: ANNA-MARIA KELLEN FELLOW - CLASS OF SPRING 2020". American Academy in Berlin. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  3. ^ "On the Front Page: October 12, 2004". University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  4. ^ "People: The Graduate Group in German Languages and Literatures". Penn Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  5. ^ "Liliane Weissberg: ANNA-MARIA KELLEN FELLOW - CLASS OF SPRING 2020". American Academy in Berlin. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  6. ^ "Advisory Board". The Berlin Center for Intellectual Diaspora. 21 February 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  7. ^ "Franz-Rosenzweig-Professur geht an Prof. Dr. Liliane Weissberg". UniKassel. Archived from the original on 2018-07-04. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  8. ^ "Guests". Dubnow Institute. Retrieved September 19, 2022.
  9. ^ "Antisemitismus im Museum: Liliane Weissberg im Gespräch". Politik und Kultur. 3 June 2022. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  10. ^ "Juden. Geld. Eine Vorstellung". Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  11. ^ "What is Enlightenment? Questions for the Eighteenth Century - Deutsches Historisches Museum". 18 October 2024.
  12. ^ "Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania: Prof. Liliane Weissberg". Penn Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  13. ^ "Advisory Board". Leo Baeck Institute London for the Study of German-Jewish History and Culture. 27 November 2013.
  14. ^ "International Boards". Penn Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  15. ^ "Liliane Weissberg – profile". critical theories of antisemitism network. 25 December 2012. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  16. ^ ""Eine Verknüpfung, die immer noch im Kopf ist": Liliane Weissberg im Gespräch mit Michael Köhler". Deutschlandfunk. 27 April 2013. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  17. ^ "Liliane Weissberg: Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor in the School of Arts & Sciences Professor of German and Comparative Literature". Penn Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  18. ^ Lenz, Susanne (23 August 2020). ""Es gab heiße Diskussionen. Zum Beispiel: Dürfen Frauen Postkarten schreiben?"". Frankfurter Rundschau. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  19. ^ "Liliane Weissberg, 2015 Rutman Fellow, Studies Trauma as Narrative in the Visual History Archive". USC Dornsife. 4 October 2023.
  20. ^ "Liliane Weissberg. Image, Voice, and Text: On Recording Holocaust Victims". Yale University: Department of German Languages and Literature.
  21. ^ "Liliane Weissberg". Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  22. ^ "Liliane Weissberg, Ph.D.: Rutnam Fellowship for Teaching and Research". USC Shoah Foundation. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  23. ^ Lenz, Susanne (11 July 2020). ""Schöne Grüße von Moses": Als die Postkarte etwas Sensationelles war". Berliner Zeitung. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  24. ^ Urbina, Ian (6 September 2008). "Baltimore Has Poe; Philadelphia Wants Him". The New York Times. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  25. ^ "Worthy and Dignified: University of Graz awards honorary doctorate to literary and cultural scholar Liliane Weissberg". University of Graz. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  26. ^ "Liliane Weissberg Has Been Awarded a 2019 Humboldt Research Fellowship For Her New Book Project on Early Twentieth Century Material Culture". Penn Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  27. ^ "Eight Women Academics Honored With the Berlin Prize". WIA Report. 23 May 2019. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  28. ^ "Liliane Weissberg received the 2012 Alexander von Humboldt-Forschungspreis". Facebook. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  29. ^ "Profile: Prof. Dr. Liliane Weissberg". Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Retrieved August 30, 2022.
  30. ^ "Fulbright-Freud Visiting Lecturer of Psychoanalysis". Sigmund Freud Museum. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  31. ^ "Liliane Weissberg appointed Visiting Professor in Zürich and Munich". Penn Arts and Sciences. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  32. ^ "Lindback and Provost's Awards: 2003 Winners". University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  33. ^ "SAS Term Chairs: Dr. Waldron, Dr. Weissberg". University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  34. ^ "Glossberg Chair Renewed". University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
  35. ^ "Liliane Weissberg". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved August 27, 2022.
  36. ^ "SAS Term Chairs: Dr. Waldron, Dr. Weissberg". University of Pennsylvania Almanac. Retrieved August 28, 2022.
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