Karl Joachim Weintraub

Karl Joachim Weintraub , also known as Jock Weintraub , (* 1924 in Darmstadt , German Empire , † March 25, 2004 in Chicago , Illinois ) was an American historian . He has taught at the University of Chicago since 1954 and has also conducted research in the fields of social theory, cultural history and the humanities.

Life

Weintraub was born in Darmstadt to a Jewish-Russian father and a Christian-German mother. From 1935 he and his sister, Tatjana Wood (née Weintraub), attended the Quaker School in Eerde . Towards the end of the Second World War he had to get to safety from the Nazis and was hidden by a Christian family. In 1948 Weintraub and his sister were able to travel to the USA with the support of the Quakers , where he was advised to continue his education in Chicago.

During his college and university years in Chicago, he worked on the side in various jobs, for example as a night porter in a hotel that later served as a student residence. In 1949 he took the bachelor's examination and in 1952 the master’s examination. Since 1954 he taught as a doctoral student at the university in the "Western Civilization Program" before he received his doctorate in history in 1957. One of Weintraub's most important teachers was another émigré at the University of Chicago: Christian W. Mackauer (1897–1970), "whose selfless devotion to the 'Western Civilization course' [..] became a role model for the younger man".

Weintraub had been entrusted with numerous management positions at the university. He was chairman of the Western Civilization Seminar, chairman of the cultural history committee, and dean of the humanities department. He was also closely associated with art institutes outside the university.

Weitraub's wife, Katy O'Brien Weintraub, was one of his students in the 1970s. The two married in 1983, and she became his colleague at the university in 1987. In 1990 Karl Joachim Weintraub was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Although Karl Weintraub had long since retired and was in poor health, he still taught until 2002, but refused to accept a salary for it. He died of a brain tumor at the age of 79.

Teaching and teaching

Hans A. Schmitt, German-American historian and, like the Weintraub siblings, a student at the “Quaker School Eerde”, recalls Karl J. Weintraub as a “nationally recognized teacher”. This assessment is confirmed again and again by the many obituaries. “His branch of the History of Western Civilization was a major attraction earlier this month, when more than a thousand students queued up and then spent the night on campus to secure seats in the classes of their choice. Although students must take a Civilization course, they can choose from more than a dozen different courses, including what is known as the Western Civ. ”Alan Mendelson, a former student of Weintraub, stated that his courses were very famous as early as the mid-1960s. And Amy Kass, a lecturer at the University of Chicago, added that elsewhere, students slept outside to get a basketball ticket, while in Chicago they did it for a place in Weintraub's classes. "That's the difference between other schools and Chicago. Here it was for Jock. ”In its obituary, the University of Chicago states that Weintraub was the most important educational influence in their lives for many Chicago students. Compassionate and approachable, he was a constant inspiration to them and remained connected to them even after their time on campus.

Weintraub's academic work has focused on cultural history, autobiography research, and the history of the self in the context of Western civilization. He recognized that the autobiographical writers of the 18th and 19th centuries often used the narrative of a development in their stories - in contrast to earlier autobiographies, which used the narrative of "unfolding". Weintraub provides the main features of his autobiographical research, in which autobiographies are read as sources for the development history of individuality, in his book The Value Of The Individual .

“On the basis of the assumption that the metaphysically anchored self presents itself in autobiographical texts and that 'both self and representation are as hold, indivisible, and unitary as the' I 'that marks the space of selfhood on the page of autobiography' , Karl Joachim Weintraub [..] uses autobiographical texts from Augustine to Goethe to summarize a history of the origins of this modern Western self-image, which he summarizes under the term individuum ineffabile . In doing so, he starts from the decisive assumption that 'the proper form of autobiography' is the one in which 'a self-reflexivc person asks' who am I?' and 'how did I become what I am'? ›Weintraub sees the climax and completion of his search for the conditions for such a self-confident individuality as documented in Goethe's Poetry and Truth at the end of the 18th century . Here he finds the balanced autobiographical mixture of loving cultivation of both particular interests and the common and universal ideals of humanity formulated by the Enlightenment; the development of an individuality as a simultaneously unique self and representative of his world. "

Weintraub had to witness the fact that the research area on Western civilization was reduced and changed by a younger generation of the faculty. Only the courses that the two Weintraubs still offered remained unchanged. His experiences with National Socialism formed the basis of his determination to at least keep his course alive. "I've had enough of life without civilization," the Chicago Tribune quotes him about the struggle over the reduced range of courses.

Works

Among the large number of publications that Weintraub published, two are considered to be his main works:

• Visions Of Culture (1966, a study of cultural historians such as Jacob Burckhardt and Johan Huizinga )
• The Value Of The Individual: Self and Circumstance in Autobiography (1978)

literature

• Antje Kley: “The selected self” in the autobiographical script. On the politics and poetics of self-reflection in Roth, Delany, Lorde and Kingston , Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen, 2001, ISBN 978-3-8233-5650-9 .
• Gabriele Blod: Life Tales. Goethe's "Poetry and Truth" as a poetic and poetological text , Königshausen and Neumann, Würzburg, 2003, ISBN 978-3-8260-2566-2 .
• Penny Schine Gold & Benjamin C. Sax (Editors): Cultural Visions. Essays in the History of Culture , Editions Rodopi BV, Amsterdam & Atlanta, 2000, ISBN 90-420-0490-8 . The essays in this book are dedicated to Karl Joachim Weintraub and particularly pay tribute to The Value Of The Individual .

Web links

• Publications by and about Karl Joachim Weintraub in WorldCat

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Obituary for Karl Weintraub of the University of Chicago from March 26, 2004
2. ↑ ^{a b} A Tough Teacher Whose Classes Are a Big Draw. The New York Times, May 27, 1990
3. ↑ According to other sources, the entire family found shelter in Holland and was then able to travel to the USA together. University Mourns Weintraub - The Chicago Maroon - April 2, 2004
4. ↑ CHICAGO JEWISH PHILANTHROPISTS , in: Chicago Jewish History, Vol. 28, No. 2, Spring 2004. Mackauer is a largely unknown scientist, possibly because he saw himself primarily as a teacher and did not publish much himself. Karl Joachim Weintraub - Teacher of Culture and Cultural Historian - 1924-2004. Transcript of a radio broadcast from April 2004 : “As a devoted student, [Weintraub] also edited a posthumous collection of Mackauer's unpublished lectures, appropriately titling it 'A teacher at his best. . . '(1973). "
5. ^ University mourns Weintraub - The Chicago Maroon - April 2, 2004
6. ^ ^{A b c} Karl Joachim Weintraub, 79, U. of C. prof's class had appeal like rock concert - Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2004
7. ↑ Hans A. Schmitt: Lucky Victim. An Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times 1933-1946 , Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1989, ISBN 0807115002 , p. 94. "Karl J. Weintraub, nationally recognized as a master teacher [..]."
8. ^ "His section of the History of Western Civilization was one of the prime attractions earlier this month when more than a thousand students lined up and then spent the night on campus to secure places in the classes of their choice for fall. Although undergraduates are required to take a civilization course, they can choose from more than a dozen different ones, including what is known as Western Civ. " A Tough Teacher Whose Classes Are a Big Draw. The New York Times, May 27, 1990
9. ↑ Philip Holden: Autobiography and Decolonization , University of Wisconsin Press, 2008, p. 18th
10. ↑ Antje Kley: “Das erlesene Selbst” in the autobiographical script , p. 68 ff. On a possible misinterpretation of poetry and truth by Weintraub see also: Gabriele Blod: Lebensmärchen , p. 14