Jews and Photography in Britain
Berkowitz’s ongoing research focuses on Jewish networks in radiography, the invention of Kodachrome, history of photojournalism and a reconsideration of the career of Helmut Gernsheim. Current work includes an essay, “Lost in the Transnational: Photographic Initiatives of Walter and Helmut Gernsheim in Britain,” and an article on Jewish humor in Britain. His scholarship has dealt broadly with modern Jewish identity formation and political self-representation between 1881 and 1948; relationships between art, politics and culture; sport (especially boxing) and spectacle; the politics of religion in Mandate Palestine; perceptions of criminality and social deviance from early modern times to the present; Jews and German culture; ties between charity and nationalism; and modes of understanding and misunderstanding the Holocaust.
This event is part of SF State’s Jewish Studies Community Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life.