Professor Mirjam Wenzel

Director of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt

Professor Mirjam Wenzel studied general and comparative literature, political science, and theater studies in Berlin and Tel Aviv. Afterward she worked as a research assistant at the Institute of German Philology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and earned her doctorate with a dissertation on the Holocaust discourse in Germany in the 1960s.

Mirjam Wenzel is the author and co-editor of various books and exhibition catalogs on German-Jewish art and cultural history. Her publications include essays, articles, and blog entries on questions of cultural theory, aesthetics, and museology, on representations of the Holocaust in the visual arts, photography, and film, on critical theory, and particularly on the life and works of Siegfried Kracauer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Hannah Arendt. She also works as a curator and has developed several international exhibitions.

From 2007 to 2015, Mirjam Wenzel directed the media department of the Jewish Museum Berlin, where she was responsible for the presentation of Jewish history and culture in digital and print media. She has been recognized as an international expert on the digital transformation of museums ever since. She has directed the Jewish Museum Frankfurt – Germany’s oldest Jewish museum – since 2016 and has been an honorary professor at the Department of Jewish Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt since 2019. She will serve as a visiting professor at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar for the 2020/21 winter semester.

Quote by Professor Mirjam Wenzel
“Jewish life in Europe is diverse and threatened. It is rooted in a centuries-long history that is marked by the struggle for equal rights and social participation and by the age-old experience of discrimination and violence. These topics continue to be highly relevant today. Jewish museums touch a raw nerve of our time with their examinations of current issues. They raise the question of how we want to and can live together in an increasingly diverse and polarized society.”

CV und Publikationsverzeichnis Mirjam Wenzel

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Since 10/2020 Visiting professor at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
Since 04/2019 Honorary professor at the Department of Jewish Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt
Since 03/2019 Lecturer at the Department of Jewish Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt
Since 01/2016 Director of the Jewish Museum Frankfurt
10/2007–12/2015 Director of the media department at the Jewish Museum Berlin, responsible for online strategy, the museum’s website, publications, media installations at exhibitions, and the Rafael Roth Learning Center
06/2009 PhD from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
03/2001–09/2007 Research assistant at the Institute of German Philology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
06/2000–02/2001 Doctoral candidate at the Institute of General and Comparative Literature at Freie Universität Berlin
06/2000–10/2007 Freelance curator
06/2000 Awarded a master of arts by the Humanities Department of Freie Universität Berlin
09/1995–04/1996 Guest student at the Minerva Institute for German History at Tel Aviv University and freelancer at the at the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Tel Aviv
10/1992–06/2000 Master’s program in general and comparative literature, theater, film and television studies, and political science at Freie Universität Berlin

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