Literature

This session dovetails with the showing of the silent movie Nathan the Weise produced in 1922 by the Jewish film director Manfred Noa. Lessing’s 1779 play was his last work and has become a central text in German literary canon. It argues vehemently for the equal validity of the three monotheistic religions. The main character, the Jew Nathan, was modeled on Lessing’s friend, the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn.

Susanne Klingenstein was born in Germany. After studying various literatures, history and philosophy at the University of Heidelberg and Brandeis University, she pursued Yiddish literature and postgraduate work in American literature at Harvard University. In 1991 she earned a PhD in American Studies. She teaches philosophy and history of medical culture as lecturer in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology at the Harvard Medical School. She is a regular contributor to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and is currently writing an introduction to Yiddish literature for Beck Verlag in Munich.