R102|Irrational Enthusiasms: Weimar Germany 1919-1933| Phil Deely
Thursdays
11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Zoom
6/8,
6/15, 6/22, 6/29
Four Sessions
This four-session seminar examines, at hyperspeed, Weimar’s
agonizing birth, shaky adolescence, full formed adulthood, and eventual
decrepitude.A staggering amount of
creative energy was crammed into this 14-year period; artistic movements encompassed
Expressionism and Dada; in architecture the Bauhaus brought a new vocabulary of
architect and design; music, film, and dance all pushed accepted boundaries of
expression. A fragile democratic state was beset by the battling street armies
of Reds and Nazis. The balance was tipped in 1933, when President Hindenburg anointed
Adolph Hitler as Chancellor of the Germany-what followed was Germany’s real
‘stab in the back.’ Weimar’s internal contradictions and eventual demise have
been employed as a lesson for today. Is the USA of the 21st Century a version
of the Weimar Republic? Do subterranean forces threaten our increasingly
fragile democracy?Step this way, mein
dammen und herren, and consider these questions as we step into the
dazzling and troubling world of the Weimar Republic.
Phil
Deely grew up in Stockbridge Massachusetts and
received his BA at Hobart College in European History, and attended University of
Chicago for his MA. Phil did additional post degree coursework at Harvard
University, the University of Maine, and Exeter College-Oxford University. In
the 1970’s and 1980’s Phil was a full time educator. Phil began teaching at
Simon’s Rock Great Barrington MA and lectured at New York University.
Subsequently he served as Principal of Emma Willard School Troy, NY, Associate
Head and Academic Dean at the Ethel Walker School Simsbury, CT and History
department chair Foxcroft School Middleburg, VA. In 1980 he was selected as a
Klingenstein Fellow. From 1989-1998 Phil served as an associate director for
the Norman Rockwell Museum Stockbridge, MA. He helped the museum reinvigorate
and successfully conclude The Campaignfor Norman Rockwell to construct the new museum. Phil has been active in
philanthropic efforts serving as chairman of Berkshire Country Day School,
advisor to Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation and board member of Laurel
Hill Association.
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