Frances Tanzer | Clark University (original) (raw)

Papers by Frances Tanzer

Zócalo Public Square , 2023

The postcard selection on Vis, Croatia's most remote island, was not terribly appealing. I consid... more The postcard selection on Vis, Croatia's most remote island, was not terribly appealing. I considered a card adorned with a photograph of boats in the old harbor. Surely, I thought, the photograph I had taken the previous night of the pink sunset over the harbor in Komiža was more beautiful than the seemingly hastily composed postcard image of the same scene.

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2023/02/02/in-praise-of-postcard/ideas/essay/

The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 2018

This article examines the changing content and context of the cabaret director Stella Kadmon's re... more This article examines the changing content and context of the cabaret director Stella Kadmon's repertoire as she attempted to establish continuity with the Viennese cabarets of Red Viennaç first in exile inTel Aviv and then after her return toVienna in 1947. Although Kadmon's long-term cultural work has seldom been considered within the framework of German-Jewish history, I propose that Kadmon's stage serves an example of one of the most adequate attempts to rebuild the type of Jewish and non-Jewish conjunction that had existed before the Anschluss. A central contention of this article is that Kadmon's theatreçduring its interwar, exile, and postwar incarnationsçprovided a space to represent Jewish characters and work through issues that Kadmon believed were important to Viennese Jews. These issues included a critique of assimilation; the possibility of restoring an Austrian-Jewish symbiosis after 1945 (and its stark limitations); and a defence of life in the land of the perpetrators (together with criticism of Zionism). And yet, her theatrical productions were misunderstood in both the Yishuv and the Second Republic.

Contemporary European History

This article examines how states with a fascist past – Germany, Austria and Italy – used modernis... more This article examines how states with a fascist past – Germany, Austria and Italy – used modernism in the visual arts to rebrand national and European culture at the Venice Biennale of Art after 1945. I argue that post-war exhibitions of modern art, including those at the Biennale, reveal a vast confrontation with Jewish absence after the Holocaust. Christian Democrats and proponents of European integration attempted to reimagine modernism without the Jewish minority that had shaped it in crucial ways. Meanwhile, living Jewish artists resisted their exclusion from the post-war interpretations of modernism, as well as absorbtion of modernism as part of national heritage. Their criticisms lay bare a seeming paradox at the heart of post-war Europe: a desire to claim the veneer of pre-Nazi cosmopolitanism without returning its enabling demographic and cultural diversity. This article points to the significance of philosemitism for establishing post-war national and continental identities.

Contemporary European History , 2021

This article examines how states with a fascist past-Germany, Austria and Italyused modernism in ... more This article examines how states with a fascist past-Germany, Austria and Italyused modernism in the visual arts to rebrand national and European culture at the Venice Biennale of Art after 1945. I argue that postwar exhibitions of modern art, including those at the Biennale, reveal a vast confrontation with Jewish absence after the Holocaust. Christian Democrats and proponents of European integration attempted to reimagine modernism without the Jewish minority that had shaped it in crucial ways. Meanwhile, living Jewish artists resisted their exclusion from the postwar interpretations of modernism, as well as absorbtion of modernism as part of national heritage. Their criticisms lay bare a seeming paradox at the heart of postwar Europe: a desire to claim the veneer of pre-Nazi cosmopolitanism without returning its enabling demographic and cultural diversity. This article points to the significance of philosemitism for establishing postwar national and continental identities.

Politically Theology Network, 2021

Over half a century after his death, Martin Buber is still an iconic Jewish philosopher. His whit... more Over half a century after his death, Martin Buber is still an iconic Jewish philosopher. His white-bearded face is immediately recognized as the face of modern Jewish thought, one that reconnects a post-1945 world with the world of prophets on the one hand, and with contemporary theo-politics on the other. When Buber was writing about theopolitics, he was writing not only with and against Carl Schmitt’s stress on the “secularization of theological concepts.” He was writing with and against his closest friends among the liberal theological institution; with and against his academic colleagues in Palestine. With drawings by Frances Tanzer.

Zócalo Public Square , 2023

The postcard selection on Vis, Croatia's most remote island, was not terribly appealing. I consid... more The postcard selection on Vis, Croatia's most remote island, was not terribly appealing. I considered a card adorned with a photograph of boats in the old harbor. Surely, I thought, the photograph I had taken the previous night of the pink sunset over the harbor in Komiža was more beautiful than the seemingly hastily composed postcard image of the same scene.

https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2023/02/02/in-praise-of-postcard/ideas/essay/

The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 2018

This article examines the changing content and context of the cabaret director Stella Kadmon's re... more This article examines the changing content and context of the cabaret director Stella Kadmon's repertoire as she attempted to establish continuity with the Viennese cabarets of Red Viennaç first in exile inTel Aviv and then after her return toVienna in 1947. Although Kadmon's long-term cultural work has seldom been considered within the framework of German-Jewish history, I propose that Kadmon's stage serves an example of one of the most adequate attempts to rebuild the type of Jewish and non-Jewish conjunction that had existed before the Anschluss. A central contention of this article is that Kadmon's theatreçduring its interwar, exile, and postwar incarnationsçprovided a space to represent Jewish characters and work through issues that Kadmon believed were important to Viennese Jews. These issues included a critique of assimilation; the possibility of restoring an Austrian-Jewish symbiosis after 1945 (and its stark limitations); and a defence of life in the land of the perpetrators (together with criticism of Zionism). And yet, her theatrical productions were misunderstood in both the Yishuv and the Second Republic.

Contemporary European History

This article examines how states with a fascist past – Germany, Austria and Italy – used modernis... more This article examines how states with a fascist past – Germany, Austria and Italy – used modernism in the visual arts to rebrand national and European culture at the Venice Biennale of Art after 1945. I argue that post-war exhibitions of modern art, including those at the Biennale, reveal a vast confrontation with Jewish absence after the Holocaust. Christian Democrats and proponents of European integration attempted to reimagine modernism without the Jewish minority that had shaped it in crucial ways. Meanwhile, living Jewish artists resisted their exclusion from the post-war interpretations of modernism, as well as absorbtion of modernism as part of national heritage. Their criticisms lay bare a seeming paradox at the heart of post-war Europe: a desire to claim the veneer of pre-Nazi cosmopolitanism without returning its enabling demographic and cultural diversity. This article points to the significance of philosemitism for establishing post-war national and continental identities.

Contemporary European History , 2021

This article examines how states with a fascist past-Germany, Austria and Italyused modernism in ... more This article examines how states with a fascist past-Germany, Austria and Italyused modernism in the visual arts to rebrand national and European culture at the Venice Biennale of Art after 1945. I argue that postwar exhibitions of modern art, including those at the Biennale, reveal a vast confrontation with Jewish absence after the Holocaust. Christian Democrats and proponents of European integration attempted to reimagine modernism without the Jewish minority that had shaped it in crucial ways. Meanwhile, living Jewish artists resisted their exclusion from the postwar interpretations of modernism, as well as absorbtion of modernism as part of national heritage. Their criticisms lay bare a seeming paradox at the heart of postwar Europe: a desire to claim the veneer of pre-Nazi cosmopolitanism without returning its enabling demographic and cultural diversity. This article points to the significance of philosemitism for establishing postwar national and continental identities.

Politically Theology Network, 2021

Over half a century after his death, Martin Buber is still an iconic Jewish philosopher. His whit... more Over half a century after his death, Martin Buber is still an iconic Jewish philosopher. His white-bearded face is immediately recognized as the face of modern Jewish thought, one that reconnects a post-1945 world with the world of prophets on the one hand, and with contemporary theo-politics on the other. When Buber was writing about theopolitics, he was writing not only with and against Carl Schmitt’s stress on the “secularization of theological concepts.” He was writing with and against his closest friends among the liberal theological institution; with and against his academic colleagues in Palestine. With drawings by Frances Tanzer.