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What America Can Learn From Germany
November 11, 2020 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
FreeAconversation with Susan Neiman, moderated by Mary Johnson
Susan Neiman translates the German word Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung as “working off the past,” a description of the process by which Germany has confronted its history of Nazism. In her 2019 book Learning From the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, Neiman explores this decades-long process and by way of comparison, how the United States might do the same with its legacy of slavery and contemporary racism. Amidst a national reckoning about racism, reparations, and monuments in the United States, Neiman and Mary Johnson engage in an important conversation about confronting the evils of the past.
Co-sponsored by OJMCHE, Oregon Historical Society, and WorldOregon
Susan Neiman grew up in Atlanta during the civil rights movement. She studied philosophy at Harvard and the Freie Universität Berlin, and was professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv University. Neiman is director of the Einstein Forum, a think tank in Berlin, where she has spent much of her adult life. When she has not been writing about Immanuel Kant and the enduring virtues of the Enlightenment, she has written about being Jewish in Berlin. She is the author of Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin, The Unity of Reason: Rereading Kant, Evil in Modern Thought, Fremde sehen anders, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists, Why Grow Up?, Widerstand der Vernunft. Ein Manifest in postfaktischen Zeiten and Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil.
Mary Johnson is currently an Affiliate and Adjunct Professor for Stockton University, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and a consultant for Classrooms without Borders. Mary earned her Masters and Doctoral degrees from Washington University. Between 1983 and May 2020, she was Senior Historian for Facing History and Ourselves, facilitating workshops and seminars, writing curricula, and conducting research. She has numerous publications on Holocaust and Genocide research and education. Currently, she is preparing a virtual tour and curriculum on the Civil Rights Movement for Classrooms without Borders; she is also coauthoring a publication on the Nanjing Safety Zone and the treatment of Comfort Women during World War II.