Uploaded May 2018 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In this talk, Paul Lerner (Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Director of the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies) focuses on two contexts: the formation of consumer culture in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany and the activities of German-speaking émigrés in American consumer culture after World War II. Lerner demonstrates how department stores and other commercial venues were coded and represented as "Jewish" in the pre-war German context, while in postwar America, the work of some of these same figures was seen as "European" and sophisticated. Ultimately, in this talk Prof. Lerner attempts to challenge simple binaries between European and American consumer culture, revealing previously unappreciated mutual influences and cross-fertilization across the twentieth century, long-term processes in which émigrés and refugees from fascism played a unique role.
In this talk, Paul Lerner (Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Director of the Max Kade Institute for Austrian-German-Swiss Studies) focuses on two contexts: the formation of consumer culture in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Germany and the activities of German-speaking émigrés in American consumer culture after World War II. Lerner demonstrates how department stores and other commercial venues were coded and represented as "Jewish" in the pre-war German context, while in postwar America, the work of some of these same figures was seen as "European" and sophisticated. Ultimately, in this talk Prof. Lerner attempts to challenge simple binaries between European and American consumer culture, revealing previously unappreciated mutual influences and cross-fertilization across the twentieth century, long-term processes in which émigrés and refugees from fascism played a unique role.
