Luck and the Holocaust - Public Lecture

A free public lecture by Professor Robert S.C. Gordon (University of Cambridge)

This lecture examines how the Holocaust and its cultural legacies have reshaped the ways we think about some of the most fundamental questions of human experience. Its focus in particular is on the nature of luck and chance and how they operate in our world. The lecture examines a cluster of first-hand Holocaust testimonies, alongside an eclectic sample of works of wider cultural interest, in order to trace the strange, but compelling bond between the Nazi genocide, stories of survival and modern ideas about luck.

Robert S. C. Gordon is Serena Professor of Italian at the University of Cambridge. He has published on a range of aspects of the cultural history of modern Italy and on the cultural memory of the Holocaust. His books include Pasolini: Forms of Subjectivity (1996), Bicycle Thieves (2008) and Culture, Censorship and the State in 20th-century Italy (ed. 2002). He has written extensively on the work of Primo Levi (Primo Levi’s Ordinary Virtues, 2001) and on the legacy of the Holocaust in Italy (The Holocaust in Italian Culture, 2012).

The event is free but please RSVP to events.natlib@dia.govt.nz
Please include ‘Luck and the Holocaust’ in your RSVP.