The Harvard Student Council's Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization (1947), Salzburg Seminar in American Studies (1948–2007), Salzburg Global Seminar (2007–present)
Salzburg Global Seminar is a non-profit organization that convenes programs on health care, education, culture, finance, technology, public policy, media, human rights, corporate governance, philanthropy, and the environment.[1][2] Programs regularly occur at Schloss Leopoldskron in Salzburg, Austria. Since 1947, Salzburg Global has welcomed more than 40,000 participants, known as Salzburg Global Fellows, from more than 170 countries.[3][4][5]
Founders of Salzburg Global Seminar - Heller, Campbell, Elledge in 1947
In 1946, Clemens Heller, a native Austrian attending graduate school at Harvard University, "envisioned a cultural bridge spanning the Atlantic not only by introducing the demoralized Europeans to all sorts of American cultural achievements, but also by stimulating a fruitful exchange between European national cultures and America."[6]
Richard "Dick" Campbell Jr., an undergraduate student and Scott Elledge, an English instructor also at Harvard, became allies in the realization of this project. Though Harvard was unwilling to support the project, they were able to convince the Harvard Student Council to be the official sponsors of the Seminar.[7] The three founders raised the majority of funds. It was also necessary for the trio to obtain permission from the State Department for entrance into Allied Occupied Austria.[8]
Legend contends that in 1947, Heller bumped into Helene Thimig on a subway train in New York. The widow of theater producer Max Reinhardt had been friends with Heller's parents before the war and had a summer home in Salzburg named Schloss Leopoldskron.
Schloss Leopoldskron
Heller explained his plans and Thimig said she would rent Max’s Schloss at a low rate for the purpose of a summer school.[9] Dick Campbell is quoted as saying "We hope to create at least one small center in which young Europeans from all countries, and of all political convictions, could meet for a month in concrete work under favorable living conditions, and to lay the foundation for a possible permanent center of intellectual discussion in Europe."[10]
The first session, officially called "The Harvard Student Council's Salzburg Seminar in American Civilization,"[11] lasted six weeks in the summer of 1947 and brought together men and women from eighteen countries, including countries from behind the Iron Curtain.[12][13] Faculty for the first session included literary historian F. O. Matthiessen; anthropologist Margaret Mead; economists Walt Rostow and Wassily Leontief; writer and literary critic Alfred Kazin among others.[14]
The Seminar was formally incorporated on April 20, 1950. Dexter Perkins, Frederick Muhlhauser, Herbert P. Gleason, Clyde and Florence Kluckhohn, Wassily Leontief and Richard Campbell all signed the papers of the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies.[15] By 1950, the Seminar developed into more than a summer school and session topics were expanded beyond American Studies.[16]
During President Tuthill’s second year, he told the Board that in 1979 "American Law would be the only ‘American’ subject offered."[17] The Seminar had become so global in focus, that he twice urged that the Seminar be renamed "Salzburg Seminar in International Studies."[18] In 2007, the Seminar changed its name to the Salzburg Global Seminar in order to better reflect the increasingly global, rather than American, outlook of the Seminar and the focus of its course offerings.[19]
Although the Seminar grew to include a more global focus, American Studies themes continued to be present at Salzburg Global Seminar. In 1994, the Seminar returned to its roots by establishing the American Studies Center. From 1994 to 2002 thirty-two sessions on American themes were held. In 2003 the Salzburg Seminar American Studies Association (SSASA) was created. SSASA organizes a yearly symposium devoted to a broad American Studies theme such as politics, literature, history or cultural studies.[20][21]
Today, Salzburg Global Seminar holds sessions that focus "on critical issues confronting the global community, covering topics as diverse as health care and education, culture and economics, geopolitics and philanthropy... Seminars are designed to be participatory: prompting candid dialogue, fresh thinking and constantly in the search for innovative but practical solutions."[22]
Home of the Salzburg Global Seminar
Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg Count Leopold Anton Eleutherius von Firmian (1679-1744) commissioned Schloss Leopoldskron in 1736.[23] The chapel of Leopoldskron was consecrated in 1744.[24] Archbishop von Firmian handed the Fideikommiss charter to his nephew, Lakantz, Count of Firmian.[25] The Archbishop died in October 1744, and was buried in the Salzburg's cathedral while his heart was interred in Leopoldskron's chapel.[26] The Schloss remained in the possession of the Firmian family until 1837. It was then sold to the owner of a local shooting gallery, George Zierer, who stripped the palace of most of its valuable interior decorations, including paintings, etchings, and sculptures.[27]
The Schloss had several owners during the 19th century (including two waiters who wanted to use it as a hotel, ex-King Ludwig I of Bavaria and a banker)[28] until it was bought in 1918 by the famous theatre director Max Reinhardt, co-founder of the Salzburg Festival.[29] During World War II the Schloss was confiscated as Jewish property. After the war, and Max Reinhardt's death, the Schloss was returned to the Reinhardt Estate. After two quick sales, first to a bank and then the City of Salzburg, Schloss Leopoldskron was sold to the "Salzburg Seminar in American Studies" in 1959.[30] The purchase price of the Schloss and 17 acres was "$77,000, plus $10,500 in solicitors' fees."[31] In 1973 the adjacent Meierhof, a part of the original Firmian estate, was also purchased by the Seminar.
In 2014, the Meierhof underwent a substantial two-month renovation which incorporated the 18th century style of the Schloss. For instance, the headboards were crafted from historic shutters. In addition, three rooms were created to reference the 1965 movie "The Sound of Music" which was filmed, in part, on the Schloss grounds.[32] In addition to being the home of Salzburg Global Seminar, the Schloss Leopoldskron and the Meierhof now operate as a fully functioning hotel.
The mission of Salzburg Global Seminar is to challenge current and future leaders to shape a better world. The Salzburg Global Seminar convenes imaginative thinkers from different cultures and institutions, organizes problem-focused initiatives, supports leadership development, and engages opinion-makers through active communication networks, all in partnership with leading institutions from around the world and across different sectors of society.[33]
Areas of Impact
Salzburg Global's programs are organized under five thematic headings:
Peace and justice
Arts and culture
Education
Health
Programs
Salzburg Global American Studies Program
The Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change
Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Innovation
Culture, Arts and Society
Education for Tomorrow’s World
Health and Healthcare Innovation
Global Innovations on Youth Violence, Safety and Justice
Parks for the Planet Forum
Japan-India Transformative Technology Network
Asia Peace Innovators Forum
Salzburg Global Finance Forum
Salzburg Global Corporate Governance Forum
Salzburg Global Law and Technology Forum
Salzburg Cutler Fellowship Program
In 2012, Salzburg Global Seminar launched the Salzburg Cutler Law Fellows Program, named in memory of Lloyd N. Cutler, former White House Counsel for two presidents and Chairman of the Board of Salzburg Global Seminar.[34] The program is a partnership with ten leading U.S. law schools in order to identify and mentor young leaders in international law and legal practice.[35]
Notable Salzburg Global Fellows
Alumni of Sessions of Salzburg Global Seminar are referred to as Salzburg Global Fellows. The Salzburg Global Fellowship consists of more than 30,000 individuals from 169 countries around the world who have participated in Salzburg Global Seminar programs since 1947.”[36]
Salzburg is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,852.
Max Reinhardt was an Austrian-born theatre and film director, intendant, and theatrical producer. With his radically innovative and avante garde stage productions, Reinhardt is regarded as one of the most prominent stage directors of the early 20th century.
Charles Eliot Norton was an American author, social critic, and Harvard professor of art based in New England. He was a progressive social reformer and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States. He was from the same notable Eliot family as the 20th-century poet T. S. Eliot, who made his career in the United Kingdom.
Francis Otto Matthiessen was an educator, scholar and literary critic influential in the fields of American literature and American studies. His best known work, American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman, celebrated the achievements of several 19th-century American authors and had a profound impact on a generation of scholars. It also established American Renaissance as the common term to refer to American literature of the mid-nineteenth century. Matthiessen was known for his support of liberal causes and progressive politics. His contributions to the Harvard University community have been memorialized in several ways, including an endowed visiting professorship.
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach was an Austrian architect, sculptor, engraver, and architectural historian whose Baroque architecture profoundly influenced and shaped the tastes of the Habsburg Empire. His influential book A Plan of Civil and Historical Architecture (1721) was one of the first and most popular comparative studies of world architecture. His major works include Schönbrunn Palace, Karlskirche, and the Austrian National Library in Vienna, and Schloss Klessheim, Holy Trinity Church, and the Kollegienkirche in Salzburg.
Heart-burial is a type of burial in which the heart is interred apart from the body. In medieval Europe heart-burial was fairly common among the higher echelons of society, as was the parallel practice of the separate burial of entrails or wider viscera: examples can be traced back to the beginning of the twelfth century. Evisceration was carried out as part of normal embalming practices, and, where a person had died too far from home to make full body transport practical without infection, it was often more convenient for the heart or entrails to be carried home as token representations of the deceased. The motivation subsequently became the opportunity to bury and memorialise an individual in more than one location.
Timothy W. Ryback is a historian and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague. He previously served as the Deputy-Secretary General of the Académie Diplomatique Internationale in Paris, and Director and Vice President of the Salzburg Global Seminar. Prior to this, he was a lecturer in the Concentration of History and Literature at Harvard University. Ryback has a doctorate.
Schloss Leopoldskron is a rococo palace and a national historic monument in Leopoldskron-Moos, a southern district of the city of Salzburg, Austria. The palace, and its surrounding seven hectare park, is located on the lake Leopoldskroner Weiher. The palace has been home to Salzburg Global Seminar since 1947. In 2014, the palace and the neighboring Meierhof building were opened as a privately owned hotel, Hotel Schloss Leopoldskron.
Thomas Hopkinson Eliot was an American lawyer, politician, and academic who served as chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis and as a congressman in the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts.
Schloss Klessheim is a Baroque palace located in Wals-Siezenheim, 4 km (2.5 mi) west of Salzburg, Austria. The palace was designed and constructed by Austrian architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach for Prince-Archbishop Johann Ernst von Thun in 1700. It became the summer residence of the Archbishops of Salzburg. Since 1993, the palace has been used by Salzburg Casino.
Herbert Parsons Gleason was an American attorney who served as Boston's chief legal counsel under Mayor Kevin White.
Arthur R.G. Solmssen was an American lawyer and novelist.
Salzburg College is a small, private Austrian institution specialized in study abroad and located in Salzburg, Austria. Students come to Salzburg College to study:
Chang King-yuh is a Taiwanese politician. He was Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan from 28 February 1996 to 31 January 1999.
Werner G. Krebs is an American data scientist. He is currently CEO of data science and artificial intelligence startup Acculation, Inc. and has previously held positions at what are now Virtu Financial, Bank of America, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
Helmut Staubmann is an Austrian sociologist. He is professor for social theory and cultural sociology at the University of Innsbruck and Dean of the School of Political Science and Sociology of the University of Innsbruck. From 2013 to 2015, he served as President of the Austrian Sociological Association.
The Pune International Literary Festival is an annual literary festival held in Pune, Maharashtra. It was founded in 2013 and is one of the top eight literary festivals in India. In 2017, attendance at the festival reached 15,000 people. Since 2016, an international organisation Salzburg Global has been partnering with the festival.
Teresa Präauer is an Austrian writer and visual artist.
Dietmar Werner Winkler is an Austrian scholar of patristics and ecclesiastical history. He is a professor and the founding director of the Center for the Study of the Christian East at the University of Salzburg.
Daniel Gorman is an arts consultant, manager and producer, who for more than two decades has been involved in a broad movement linking arts and human rights, working on many projects both in the United Kingdom and the Middle East with the aim of increasing dialogue, communication and collaboration, while promoting social justice and equality through the arts.
References
↑ "2012 Program". Salzburg Global Seminar. Retrieved 14 March 2013.
↑ "Session 630 Education and Work: Education and Workforce Opportunities for Refugees and Migrants Salzburg Global Seminar Profiles".{{cite web}}: Missing or empty |url= (help)
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