Identity and Migration: Artists and Composers who Fled Persecution

What is it that defines human identity? DNA? Language? Culture? Landscape? Polity? Or is it a combination of all of these factors? How do the sources of identity make it easy or difficult for individuals who migrate from one location to another—by choice or under duress—not merely to adapt but to become fully comfortable within their new home? How do artists, with their particular set of sensibilities respond to their own migration?

There are many times in the course of history when these questions have offered particularly strong reference points, including our own, with its unprecedented patterns of migration, and vast numbers of refugees removing themselves under duress from one region to other parts of the planet. Within the Western World in particular the most significant era in which such issues might be raised occurred just prior to the mid-twentieth century, with the rise of Nazism and other fascist movements across most of Europe.

Opening remarks by Consul Yasemin Pamuk, Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany in New York

Distinguished Panelists
Ori Z Soltes PhD, Georgetown University in Washington DC
Artist Refugees from Nazi Germany in the United States
Rebecca Erbelding PhD, Historian and Author in Washington DC
US Immigration Policy during the 1930s Refugee Crisis
Stephen M Rasche JD, Catholic University in Erbil, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
Identity in a Time of Forced Displacement: Religious Art and the Iraqi Christian Experience
David Stern, German born American Artist in New York NY
Immigration and Culture Shock in Times of Globalization

Musical Performance (Piano)
Carolyn Enger, Steinway Recording Artist:
Arnold Schoenberg – Sechs kleine Klavierstücke Op. 19
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou: Homesickness Pt. 1
Paul Ben-Haim – Canzonetta from Five Pieces for Piano, Op 34

Moderation
Rachel Stern, The Fritz Ascher Society for Persecuted, Ostracized and Banned Art in New York NY

Register here.

About the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture
The Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Center for Thought & Culture is a forum to highlight the true, the good, and the beautiful as they have been expressed throughout the ages. Cognizant of our creation in the image and likeness of God, the Sheen Center aspires to present the heights and depths of human expression in thought and culture, featuring humankind as fully alive. At the Sheen Center, we proclaim that life is worth living, especially when we seek to deepen, explore and challenge ourselves, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, intellectually, artistically, and spiritually.