News & Events
Eighty years after his exile in the U.S. began, the exhibition titled Bertolt Brecht's Paper War looks through Brecht’s glasses with contemporary eyes, reflects on his views of the "American Way of Life" during the time of Roosevelt, Truman, and McCarthy, and brings together Brecht's writing and the newspaper clippings he used for inspiration. By juxtaposing these elements in an exhibition, co-curators Grischa Meyer and Holger Teschke pay homage to Brecht’s montage format, expanding and renewing an aesthetic point of view while infusing contemporary context and understanding into the works. Filmmaker Andrea Simon's film Salka Viertel, Every Sunday forms a part of the exhibition, along with an online mini film series including Peter Voigt's 2004 film Die Hinterlassenschaft, A Legacy, recently subtitled for this exhibition and event series by the DEFA Film Library at UMass-Amherst.
This exhibit includes images that depict violence and death associated with war, as well as primary source materials that contain racist language. The opinions expressed in these materials are those of the original authors only. They do not reflect the opinions or views of the curators or of any Five College or Amherst College faculty, staff, or students.
The intention of showing these materials is to provide an opportunity for analysis with the understanding that the sovereignty of all humans is respected.
To accompany the exhibition, a mini film series will be streamed from Sept. 19–Nov. 2, 2022. We thank director Andrea Simon and Jutta Voigt for making these films available, and the DEFA Film Library at UMass-Amherst for adding the English subtitles.
Sponsored by: the Five College Lecture Fund, Amherst College Department of German and the Eastman and Lamont Funds, Mount Holyoke College German Studies Department, Smith College Department of German and Italian, Hampshire College, The University of Massachusetts-Amherst Department of German and Scandinavian Studies and DEFA Film Library, and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung New York Office.
Free and open to the public.
This exhibit includes images that depict violence and death associated with war, as well as primary source materials that contain racist language. The opinions expressed in these materials are those of the original authors only. They do not reflect the opinions or views of the curators or of any Five College or Amherst College faculty, staff, or students.
The intention of showing these materials is to provide an opportunity for analysis with the understanding that the sovereignty of all humans is respected.
This Event Is Free and Open to the Public