David-Herzog-Fonds Lecturer Prof. Mirjam Rajner
Thursday, 23rd of May, 2024
14:00-16:00
Library of CJS / Zoom
Beethovenstraße 21, 8010 Graz
The talk and the workshop will be hybrid. Please register for online participation under: office.cjs(at)uni-graz.at
The renowned saying „Inter Arma Silent Musae” (During the War the Muses Are Silent) stands in stark opposition to reality. Stemming from classical and romantic conceptions of muses as fragile feminine inspirations of male artistic creativity that fall silent in the wake of destruction and death, the aphorism has been proven false time and again. Often destruction brings forth its opposite — artistic creation as affirmation of life — one’s own, or as a need for preservation and documentation for posterity.
Prompted by wars witnessed in our own times, filled with trauma and suffering, the workshop includes and links topics examining means of coping by modern Jewish women activists and artists working across regions and periods — from World War One Vienna, during the Holocaust years in Germany and Southern France, to contemporary Ukraine and Israel.