| | 35th Annual Mortenson Distinguished Lecture
The THIRD REICH OF DREAMS: Hallucinations, Literary Imagination, and (Un)conscious Archives
in memory of Founding Mortenson Center Director
Marianna Tax Choldin
By Amanda Rubin
Documentary Filmmaker and Journalist Join us for the 2025 Mortenson Distinguished Lecture featuring Amanda Rubin, documentary filmmaker and journalist, who has brought The Third Reich of Dreams, a long-overlooked classic back to print in a newly-translated English edition (Princeton Press, 2025). Rubin will share Journalist Charlotte Beradt's incredible untold story and legacy of courage as a woman, journalist, and refugee. The lecture will focus on the power of the irrepressible imagination and the potent symbolism of books, writing, and archiving as "witnesses to history." To learn more about the Lecture and related activities, please visit our website: library.illinois.edu/mortenson/lectures Thursday, September 4, 2025
3:30– 5:00 p.m. CT (Hybrid lecture)
5:00– 5:45 p.m. CT (In-person reception and book signing)
School of Information Sciences Building, Room 126
501 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820 Book Description: Berlin, 1933. Shortly after Hitler is elected Chancellor, Journalist Charlotte Beradt (1906-1968) begins to experience vivid, disturbing nightmares. Realising she's not alone, she embarks on a quiet mission to record the dream life of her Jewish and non-Jewish friends, colleagues, and neighbours in Berlin. She compiles an extraordinary document of the slow colonization of the unconscious as the Third Reich's persecutions and propaganda seep into the last refuge of the private self. The resulting book: The Third Reich of Dreams. Biography: A documentary filmmaker, journalist, and independent scholar, Amanda Rubin works at the intersection of cultural history, music, the arts, and science. Her works have been featured on BBC, Channel 4, The History Channel, and Discovery+, among other notable channels. Her relevant recent work includes 21st Century Mythologies (BBC) which unpacks the 1957 book Mythologies, by French philosopher Roland Barthes, laying bare the mythmaking at the heart of consumer culture. It was while researching a film about journalist Charlotte Beradt and her unique dream anthology The Third Reich of Dreams that Amanda discovered the lost English language rights to the book. She was the force behind its republication in English in April 2025 with Princeton University Press to excellent reviews. She is currently also making a radio documentary for BBC Radio 4 about the dream collection and the role of psychotherapy under the Nazis. She lives and works in London. Read more here. | |