Puppeteer Vit Horejs will talk about the history and role of puppetry, including the Spejbl and Hurvinek Theatre in Prague and its founder Josef Skupa, against the sociopolitical backdrop of Czechoslovakia from the 1920s to today.
Scholars, scientists, artists, and professionals of Czech or Slovak descent to introduce their talent, the subject of their work, project, research, or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes.
Zbynek Tarant will discuss Leo Herrmann’s rescue plan for 2,500 Czech Jews by means of a ha‘avara scheme. Without Herrmann, Franz Kafka’s archive would likely have been lost forever.
Author Daniela Grollova Spenser will be in conversation with Dan La Botz about her new book – a deeply personal yet historically grounded account of Czechoslovakia from the 1930s to the 1990s.
Tatana Kellner, a multi-disciplinary artist, will discuss her work, charting her journey as an immigrant from Czechoslovakia in 1969, finding her artistic voice, and co-founding the Women’s Studio Workshop.
Celebration of the legacy of the late Lubomir and Tiree Chmelar, the Prague-Vienna Greenway, and the unique Herb Garden in Valtice.
Explore remarkable personal stories about survival, hope, and new beginnings shared by Czech immigrants who lived through World War II.
Igor Lukes, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, will present new evidence regarding the pre-World War II escalating crisis and point out the parallels between the appeasers in the 1930s and today.
A lecture with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and historian Anne Applebaum. An evening in the spirit of Vaclav Havel, featuring keynote remarks by Anne Applebaum, moderated Q&A with John Shattuck, and wine reception.
Brenda Flanagan and Hana Waisserova, the co-authors of Women’s Artistic Dissent: Repelling Totalitarianism in Pre-1989 Czechoslovakia, will discuss their book and pay tribute to creative Czech women dissidents.
Scholars, scientists, artists, and professionals of Czech or Slovak descent to introduce their talent, the subject of their work, project, research, or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes.
A special evening celebrating the launch of William Luers’s memoir Uncommon Company. Ambassador Luers will be in conversation with Stephen Heintz, the President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, sharing stories of his incredible career as a US diplomat
Professor Thomas Ort will explore the uncanny relevance of the early 20th century Czech writer, Karel Capek, for our times' political and technological developments. Capek's fears about the displacement of human labor by machines and the threat of authoritarianism appear closer to their realization than ever since the 1930s.
Musicologist Michael Beckerman explores music on the “outer edges” of the set of Czech Jewish music in order to ask whether such a set actually exists.
Scholars, scientists, artists, and professionals of Czech or Slovak descent to introduce their talent, the subject of their work, project, research, or studies in a short presentation limited to six minutes.
An evening honoring the legacy and values of Vaclav Havel, featuring a pop-up exhibition of the bronze sculpture “Citizen/Disappearing Man” by Czech artist Olbram Zoubek and a seminar titled “Vaclav Havel’s Message to Young People.”
Milan Zonca will revisit this question of the possibility of intellectual and religious contacts between the Jews and the Hussites during the Hussite movement at the turn of the 15th century in Bohemia.
Gordon Dale, the Inaugural Dr. Jack Gottlieb Scholar in Jewish Music Studies, will examine the spiritual significance of music according to Jewish mysticism, and present melodies associated with important rabbinic figures.
An intimate evening with Anna and Jordan Rathkopf, an award-winning photography duo who will share their family’s deeply personal story captured in their upcoming book.
Explore the pivotal role of women in Charter 77 and the broader Czech dissent movement. Kamila Bendova and Martin Palous will discuss how the experiences of the past can help us build bridges between our present and future.
A lecture dedicated to the topic of Moravia and Silesia as an unique area of the development of Jewish history. It is a place that gave the foundation to many Austrian, Hungarian and Slovak Jewish communities.
Vit Horejs and his guests will share their memories of Majales, a medieval student tradition celebrating spring, mocking professors, elections and officialdom in 1965 Prague, during which the American poet Allen Ginsberg found himself unexpectedly crowned as the King of May.
Pianist and musicologist Katelyn Bouska offers new insights into Antonin Dvorak in America through a special musical tour focused on his compositions, students and contemporaries in the late 19th century. Featuring works by Dvorak, Burleigh, Beach, Sukova-Dvorakova.
Professor Hynek Wichterle will discuss his stem cell research at Columbia University Medical Center. He developed groundbreaking methods for producing spinal cord neurons from pluripotent embryonic stem cells in a culture dish.
Cantor Matt Austerklein will share new research and musical examples which illuminate a dynamic era in Jewish music history.
Scholars, scientists, artists, and professionals of Czech or Slovak descent to introduce their talent, the subject of their work, project, research, or studies in a short presentation limited to 6 minutes.
Jaroslav Olsa Jr. will discuss the life and work of Miles J. Breuer (1889 –1945), a Czech-American writer who stood at the birth of science fiction literature in the USA.
Researcher Walter Zev Feldman will discuss the history of Jewish musicians’ guild, emanating from Bohemia to Poland-Lithuania in the 16th century.
Designer Oldrich Voyta will discuss the relationship between art, beauty, craftsmanship, modern technology, aesthetics, and comfort in designing shoes.
In this talk, historian Elissa Bemporad will trace the legacies of the two most extreme manifestations of Tsarist antisemitism pogroms and blood libels in the Soviet Union, from 1917 to the early 1960s.
This talk introduces two prominent figures of the Czech 1980s generation – brothers Jachym and Filip Topol. Although both brothers became dissidents and both signed Charter 77, they rejected the notion of a pre-political self and projected an almost nihilistic stance against everything.
