Rosenzweig Professorship awarded to musicologist Philip Bohlman - Seminar on Nationalism in the Eurovision Song Contest

The visiting professorship, named after Kassel-born Jewish religious philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, is awarded each summer semester to a scholar who contributes to the study and preservation of Jewish culture in Europe. "With his research topics, his international scholarly reputation and his ability to mediate, Philip Bohlman is without a doubt an ideal choice," said University Vice President Claudia Brinker-von der Heyde. The Kassel musicologist and representative of the search committee, Prof. Dr. Markus Böggemann, added: "Bohlman is one of the most distinguished researchers of Jewish musical culture and is one of the outstanding ethnomusicologists of our time. With him, the University of Kassel gains an outstanding scholar and teacher from whom students, the university and, not least, the Kassel public will benefit extraordinarily."

Bohlman, born in 1952 in Wisconsin (USA), has been a professor of music at the University of Chicago since 1999. He studied musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he earned his doctorate in 1984. He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1987, where he was appointed Mary Werkman Professor in the Humanities and Music in 1999, and Mary Werkman Distinguished Service Professor of Music and the Humanities in 2007. From 2003 to 2006, he also held the Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Chicago. Philip Bohlman is Honorary Professor at the Hanover University of Music and Drama and held a visiting professorship at the University of Vienna (1995/96). He has also taught at the universities of Berkeley, Yale, Newcastle, Freiburg, and Humboldt University Berlin.

Bohlman's research interests include Jewish music and culture in modernity, especially the music of Jewish communities in Central and East-Central Europe, music and cultural identity in modernity, and canon formation and nationalisms in music. As artistic director of the New Budapest Orpheum Society, he also combines scholarly research and artistic practice: the ensemble, based at the University of Chicago, is highly successful in reviving Jewish cabaret traditions of the 20th century, in whose rediscovery and exploration Bohlman has played a major role.

The Eurovision Song Contest as a Playing Field for European Nationalism

As part of the Rosenzweig Visiting Professorship, Bohlman will give a public inaugural lecture in Kassel as well as two seminars in the regular teaching program. All events are in German.

• The inaugural lecture, "Sing us songs of Zion!" - Jewish Music Beyond Franz Rosenzweig's Mesopotamia" will take place on Monday, May 19, 2014, 6 p.m. c.t. in the University's Gießhaus. Admission is free.
• In his seminar, "European Nationalism in the Mirror of the Eurovision Song Contest," Bohlman and university students will examine the world's most popular popular popular music contest as a symbol and laboratory of nationalism. The course of the seminar is also based on the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, which will take place in Copenhagen in early May.
• The second seminar is entitled "Jewish Music in Mesopotamia - Past and Present" . Based onRosenzweig's thematization of "Mesopotamia" in his latest book of the same name, this course is devoted to Jewish music in the German-speaking world. The repertoires examined range from synagogal music to the work of 19th century Jewish composers to 20th and 21st century popular and film music.

The Franz Rosenzweig Visiting Professorship is a unique institution in the German university landscape. Since 1987, it has been awarded in the summer semester to an academic from the humanities and social sciences who, through his or her work and research on issues of European Jewish history, culture and education, counteracts the suppression and forgetting of the Jewish heritage that has been destroyed in Europe. It is named after Franz Rosenzweig (1886 - 1929), who distinguished himself as a historian and philosopher and developed his religious philosophical thoughts in exchange with Christian friends.

Image by Prof. Dr. Philip Bohlman (Photo: private):
http://www.uni-kassel.de/uni/fileadmin/datas/uni/presse/anhaenge/2014/Bohlma.jpg

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Markus Böggemann
University of Kassel
Institute of Music
Department of Historical Musicology
Tel.: +49 561 804-4695
E-mail: boeggemann[at]uni-kassel[dot]de

Sebastian Mense
University of Kassel
Communication, Press and Public Relations
Tel.: +49 651 804-1961
E-Mail: presse[at]uni-kassel[dot]de