KU News Release

LAWRENCE — Distinguished scholars from Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the United States are expected to attend an interdisciplinary symposium titled “The Revival of the Renaissance in the 19th and 20th centuries” March 26-28 at the University of Kansas.

KU’s Max Kade Center for German-American Studies sponsors the event, and a grant from the Thyssen Foundation in Germany provides support. All events are free and open to the public

“In the last two decades of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century it was fashionable to think in terms of the Renaissance,” said Frank Baron, KU professor of Germanic languages and literatures. “Because this movement pervaded all aspects of life, especially in Germany, but also in other countries, including the United States, the Max Kade Center for German-American Studies has invited distinguished scholars from several countries to analyze its origins and impact. Hardly anything was immune: art, architecture, music and literature came under the spell of the Renaissance.

“Above all, a book by Jacob Burckhardt, ‘Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy,’ gave the impetus to the great interest in the art, history and literature of that earlier period. In 1960, KU’s museum of art and the history department celebrated the 100-year anniversary of this landmark publication.”

This year’s symposium, at the 150-year mark, will investigate individual intellectuals and their artistic and literary achievements. Richard Wagner, Friedrich Nietzsche, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ezra Pound and Thomas Mann are some of the people who revived the Renaissance spirit.

The symposium begins at 7:30 p.m. March 26 at the Spencer Museum of Art with a reading from Thomas Mann’s novel “Doctor Faustus” with piano accompaniment by Holly Kordahl from Beethoven’s last piano sonata. University of Illinois professor Stephen Jaeger will speak on “Jacob Burckhardt and the Cult of Violence in the Renaissance and Beyond.” Other programs will take place at the Max Kade center.