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NCGS – Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann
October 13, 2023 @ 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Friday, 13 October 2023 from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm (Eastern Time)STEFAN-LUDWIG HOFFMANN (University of California, Berkeley, Dept. of History)Dreams, Terror, and Complicity: Reinhart Koselleck Meets Charlotte BeradtABSTRACT: Recently, there has been an uptick of interest across disciplines in the theoretical writings of the late Reinhart Koselleck. Whenever scholars deal with issues of temporality, with present pasts or past futures, the German conceptual historian’s work is invoked. Yet in new histories of Fascist and Nazi times one of his most incisive essays, “Terror and Dream,” is oddly omitted. In his talk, he will explore Koselleck’s encounter with Third Reich of Dreams by Charlotte Beradt, a book that the German-Jewish émigré journalist wrote in the early 1960s. Especially Beradt’s suggestion that dreams are one of the most telling historical sources for understanding individual experiences of time in the 1930s fascinated Koselleck. In light of the resurgence of authoritarianism in our own time, the talk will ask whether Beradt’s and Koselleck’s analytical concern with the workings of dreams, terror, and complicity in everyday life gains new significance and urgency.BIO: STEFAN-LUDWIG HOFFMANN is Associate Professor for Late Modern European History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is historian of German, European, and International History from the late eighteenth century to the present and has an ongoing interest in social, legal, and political thought as well as in the theory of history. His most recent book is Der Riss in der Zeit: Kosellecks ungeschriebene Historik (Suhrkamp, 2023, English translation under contract with Princeton UP). He currently works on a history of Human Rights.MODERATION: ANDREA A. SINN (Associate Professor of History, Elon University, Department of History and Geography)COMMENT: KONRAD JARAUSCH (Lurcy Professor of European Civilization, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Department of History)The NCGS graduate assistants KEVIN J. HOEPER (kjhoeper@live.unc.edu) and MADELINE JAMES (mljames6@live.unc.edu) will take care of the organization and technology of the Zoom Seminar. Please contact them if you have any questions or trouble.NCGS Website: https://ncgsws.web.unc.edu/NCGS Twitter: https://twitter.com/NCGermanStudiesCONTACT:Karen Hagemann (Speaker, UNC-Chapel Hill, Department of History), email: hagemann@unc.eduCONVENERS: Duke University: Department of German Studies and Department of History; UNC-Chapel Hill: Carolina Seminars, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies, Center for European Studies, Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages & Literatures, Department of History