Snead Wertheim Endowed Lecture: Intercultural Ethnography: The Work of Uriah Katzenelenbogen in Lithuania During the Inter-War Period presented by Dr. Les Field
-Event-
Start Date: Apr 10, 2026 - 02:00pm
Location: Hibben 105
On Friday, April 10 at 2 pm, Dr. Les Field will present the Snead Wertheim Endowed Lecture: Intercultural Ethnography: The Work of Uriah Katzenelenbogen in Lithuania During the Inter-War Periodin Hibben 105.
Abstract
The folkloric, literary, scholarly and political ideas of a Lithuanian Jewish man named Uriah Katzenelenbogen were actively promoted through social, artistic and cultural interculturalism during the interwar period in Lithuania. Katzenelenbogen was an ethnographer of his neighbors, the Lithuanian people, as part of his efforts to build bridges between peoples, and to cultivate a multi-ethic nation after Lithuania became an independent republic after World War I. I illustrate his work by comparing the uses of folklore in Europe and in Latin America, on the one hand, and contextualizing the distinctive character of his ethnographic work on the other. In this way, I re-examine alternative political and cultural ideas current among Jews of the early 20th century.