Eva J. Engel

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Eva J. Engel , married Eva Engel-Holland , (born August 18, 1919 in Dortmund ; † August 30, 2013 in Göttingen ) was a Germanist and authoritative editor of the complete works of Moses Mendelssohn .

Life

Eva Johanna Engel was born in 1919 as the eldest of three children in a Jewish family in Dortmund. Her father was the pediatrician and professor of pediatrics Stefan Engel . She grew up in Berlin-Westend . After the " seizure of power " in 1933, the Engel family was increasingly exposed to repression by the National Socialists , emigrated to Great Britain in 1936 and settled in London . The mother, Margerethe Katharina, née Litten, died there two years later. An aunt who remained in Germany was deported and murdered.

Eva Engel studied German, Latin and Romance languages at King's College London . She then worked as a high school teacher for Latin, Roman history and German for twelve years before continuing her studies in German, Italian and Indo-European languages at Cornell University . It was with a thesis on the ethics and aesthetics at Karl Philipp Moritz for doctor of philosophy doctorate. This was followed by teaching activities at the Universities of London, Cambridge and Keele and a visiting professorship at Harvard . In 1967 she was appointed professor of German studies at Wellesley College in Boston. In the USA in 1971 she met the Orthodox Rabbi Alexander Altmann , the editor of the anniversary edition of Moses Mendelssohn's collected writings, with whom she has worked since then.

Eva Engel was married to Albert Edward Holland (1912-1984), a historian and former President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Vice-President of Wellesley College. On October 14, 2013, her urn was buried in the RuheForst Vorharz in Heiningen .

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Eva Engel was fascinated by Moses Mendelssohn after she encountered the Jewish philosopher's views on the autonomy of art in letters from the late Enlightenment scientist Karl Philipp Moritz, whom she researched in the mid-1950s. From 1972 she was the editor of the critical writings of Moses Mendelssohn, a quarter of his oeuvre.

After the death of her husband in 1984, she returned to Germany. In 1987 Alexander Altmann died. At his request, she became the general editor of the anniversary edition of Moses Mendelssohn. Collected Writings . From 1988 she worked at the Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB) in Wolfenbüttel , whose director, Paul Raabe , supported her research project on Mendelssohn's work by arranging a grant from the German Research Foundation and providing a study. Under the editors Altmann and Engel, the number of published volumes has risen to 33.

Since 1960, her own publications have included about thirteen books and thirty more extensive essays on Moses Mendelssohn and the history of ideas of the 18th century.

Since 2007 she has been very committed to the re-establishment of the Dessau Moses Mendelsohn Foundation for the promotion of the humanities . a. The predecessor institution of the same name founded by Albert Einstein was to continue. With success: In spring 2013, the first Dessau Moses Mendelssohn Prize for the promotion of the humanities was awarded to the philosopher Anne Pollok, who comes from Germany and teaches in the USA.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Jean Paul's schoolmaster Pig , 1962
  • German narrative Prose , two volumes, London 1965 and 1968
  • Moses Mendelssohn's correspondence with Lessing, Abbt and Iselin , 1994
  • News on Lessing research (with Ingrid Strohschneider-Kohrs and Claus Ritterhoff), 1998
  • Moses Mendelssohn and the European Enlightenment. The "Socrates of the 18th Century" , 1999
  • (Ed. With Michael Albrecht): Moses Mendelssohn in the field of tension in the Enlightenment , 2000
  • Judaism - Ways to Spiritual Liberation . Dessau autumn seminars 2000 and 2001 on the history of the Jews in Germany, 2002
  • Moses Mendelssohn and Shakespeare , in: Roger Paulin: Shakespeare im 18. Jahrhundert , Wallstein Verlag 2007, p. 157f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Obituary of the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel (PDF file; 82 kB)
  2. ↑ Michael Albrecht (ed.): "Gedanck und Sentiment". Selected writings . Ceremony for Eva J. Engel's 75th birthday on August 18, 1994, Frommann-Holzboog 1994, p. 5
  3. ^ Eduard Seidler: Jewish paediatricians 1933-1945. Disenfranchised - Fled - Murdered , Karger, Basel 2007, ISBN 978-3-8055-8284-1 , p. 229f.
  4. ↑ a b c d Stephen Tree: In Mendelssohn's name. Eva Engel-Holland is dead , Der Tagesspiegel September 9, 2013
  5. ↑ a b c Thomas Lackmann: Moses Mendelssohn Jubilee Edition, A Question of Philosophy , Der Tagesspiegel August 20, 2008
  6. ^ Engel, Eva Johanna: Carl Philipp Moritz: A Study of his Ethical and Aesthetic Concepts . A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, June 1954 / Eva Johanna Engel. - Ann Arbor, Michigan: 1954
  7. ↑ a b Eva J. Engel, authors at the Frommann-Holzboog publishing house ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.frommann-holzboog.de
  8. ^ Obituaries , The New York Times August 19, 1984
  9. ↑ Moses Mendelssohn Collected Writings, Herzog-August-Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
  10. ↑ Information from the Federal President's Office
personal data
SURNAME Engel, Eva J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Engel, Eva Johanna; Engel-Holland, Eva
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Germanist, editor of the complete works of Moses Mendelssohn
DATE OF BIRTH August 18, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Dortmund
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 2013
Place of death Goettingen