{"id":469,"date":"2024-03-22T16:47:40","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T16:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/?p=469"},"modified":"2026-03-30T18:55:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T18:55:02","slug":"max-kade-center-to-host-conference-april-5th-at-central-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/2024\/03\/22\/max-kade-center-to-host-conference-april-5th-at-central-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Heard Libraries host Jewish history scholars for workshop spotlighting special collections!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Schocken at Vanderbilt<\/b><\/a><\/h2>\n
\"The
The Heard Libraries hosted a pair of Jewish history scholars at Central Library on April 10. Pictured, left to right: Leo Baeck Institute Executive Director Markus Krah, Vanderbilt University Librarian Jon Shaw, Dubnow Institute research associate Caroline Jessen, and Max Kade Center for European and German Studies Director Meike Werner. (Vanderbilt University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0<\/span>Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries<\/span><\/a>\u00a0hosted talks by two international scholars of Jewish history and culture on April 10 in the Central Library Community Room. Markus Krah, the John H. Slade Executive Director of the\u00a0<\/span>Leo Baeck Institute\u2013New York\/Berlin<\/span><\/a>, and Caroline Jessen, a research associate at the\u00a0<\/span>Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture\u2013Simon Dubnow<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in Leipzig, Germany, discussed the life and legacy of German-Jewish philanthropist and publisher Salman Schocken.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Schocken (1877\u20131959) was a department store magnate in pre-World War II Germany who established a publishing house in Berlin in 1931. The Schocken Verlag published the writings of Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Franz Kafka and S.Y. Agnon, among others, before being shut down by the German government in 1939.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Schocken relaunched the company as Schocken Books in New York in 1945. In his talk,\u00a0<\/span>Krah<\/span><\/a>\u00a0examined how Schocken sought to shape Jewish identity and culture in the U.S. through his English-language publishing catalog. When the iconic square \u201cs\u201d logo from Schocken\u2019s department stores reappeared as the logo for his American publishing house in 1946, it symbolized the continuity and resilience of Jewish culture. Today, Schocken Books endures as a publishing imprint of Penguin Random House that specializes in Jewish literary works.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Caroline
Caroline Jessen, the Max Kade Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt for spring 2025, collaborated with Special Collections and University Archives to curate an exhibit of items from Vanderbilt\u2019s Nahum N. Glatzer Collection. (Vanderbilt University)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jessen<\/span><\/a>, a scholar of German literature with a focus on material culture, discussed the publisher\u2019s approach to formats, series and book covers in his signature Schocken Library series. Launched in 1946, the series featured scholarly texts, prose, poetry and folklore as well as works by significant Jewish authors and those writing about Jewish topics.\u00a0<\/span>Schocken Books<\/span>\u00a0aimed to publish \u201cmodern books for the modern Jewish reader,\u201d and, as longtime editor Nahum N. Glatzer said, \u201ca diversity of opinions within the Jewish world.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jessen, who is serving as the Max Kade Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt for the spring 2025 semester, collaborated with\u00a0<\/span>Special Collections and University Archives<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to curate an\u00a0exhibit<\/a>\u00a0of items from Vanderbilt\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Nahum N. Glatzer Collection<\/span><\/a>. The<\/span>\u00a0collection preserves numerous programmatic texts including sales brochures, catalogs, book order forms, publisher\u2019s notes, book jackets and more. \u201cSome sentences come and go, others stay, but every text seems to be a fresh attempt to come to terms with what Schocken Books really is about,\u201d Jessen writes in her exhibit notes. \u201cEven the most inconspicuous, ad hoc drafts offer valuable insights into how Schocken Books\u2019 editors grappled with articulating the unique character of their publishing program and philosophy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The April 10 event was organized by the\u00a0<\/span>Max Kade Center for European and German Studies<\/span><\/a>\u00a0at Vanderbilt and its director,\u00a0<\/span>Meike Werner<\/span><\/a>, Centennial Chair in German Studies, in cooperation with the\u00a0<\/span>Department of German, Russian and East European Studies<\/span><\/a>\u00a0in the\u00a0<\/span>College of Arts and Science<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and Special Collections and University Archives at the Heard Libraries.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis workshop is the result of a meaningful collaboration between the Max Kade Center and Special Collections, and I want to extend thanks to everyone who made it possible,\u201d University Librarian\u00a0<\/span>Jon Shaw<\/span><\/a>\u00a0said. \u201cSpecial Collections are often thought of as a repository of the past\u2014and they are. But more importantly, they are spaces where we make connections: to our histories, to each other, and to the questions that continue to shape our cultural and intellectual lives. This program is a wonderful example of that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schocken at Vanderbilt The Heard Libraries hosted a pair of Jewish history scholars at Central Library on April 10. Pictured, left to right: Leo Baeck Institute Executive Director Markus Krah, Vanderbilt University Librarian Jon Shaw, Dubnow Institute research associate Caroline Jessen, and Max Kade Center for European and German Studies Director Meike Werner. (Vanderbilt University)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":541,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10,7],"tags":[5,3],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.vanderbilt.edu\/vu-cas\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/03\/21205552\/Shocken-at-VU.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":539,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions\/539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/as.vanderbilt.edu\/european-studies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}