Life takes you in some funny directions. I never thought I’d have to register as a lobbyist with the U.S. Congress, but that happened last month. I also never thought I’d be asked to moderate a panel on Satirical Depictions of Hitler in Contemporary Culture, but here we are! (I will admit to a lifelong phobia of being exposed as a fraud by Hitler, so hey.) On May 6, at the Goethe-Institut in NYC (30 Irving Place), I’ll be the moderator for this:

Satirical Depictions of Hitler in Contemporary Culture

Together with the German Book Office, the Goethe-Institut New York hosts a panel discussion that examines representations of Adolf Hitler in contemporary western culture, ranging from feature films and advertising campaigns to political caricatures and polemics. The focus of the debate will be on Germany, where the critical memory culture that was set in place in the 1960s has recently been eroded by more satirical approaches to the Nazi past that have their origin in the Anglo-American context and the comedies of figures such as Charlie Chaplin and Ernst Lubitsch. Timur Vermes‘ bestseller Look Who’s Back (2012, English translation, MacLehose 2013), which imagines Hitler returning to life in present-day Berlin is the latest example of this shift in German memory and what appears to be a collective desire for a normalized relationship to the country’s troubled past. The author will be in conversation with New York Times book critic and author Liesl Schillinger; and Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, a professor of history at Fairfield University and author of Hi Hitler!: How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture (2015). The panel will be moderated by Gil Roth, host of The Virtual Memories Show Podcast.

The event is free and begins at 6:30 on May 6 at the Goethe-Institut: 30 Irving Place, New York, NY 10003. For more info, you can call 212-439-8700 or e-mail info@newyork.goethe.org.

And no goose-stepping!

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