Conservatism, Reaction, and Messianism

Generously supported by the Hans & Berthold Finkelstein Foundation

Public Keynote of the Conference, "Between Revolution and Reaction" October 25-27

Join us when Mark Lilla, Professor of Humanities at Columbia University, delivers the second annual Eva Reichmann Lecture to open LBI's academic conference on German-Jewish engagement with right-wing politics. Lilla's will trace an intellectual genealogy of conservative and reactionary thought among German-Jewish thinkers who attributed the problems of modern society to a break in the history of ideas and promoted a return to earlier modes of thought.

The Reichmann Lecture, which is open to the public, will be followed by two days of exploration of this theme among over twenty scholars from around the world at LBI's conference Between Revolution and Reaction: German-speaking Jews and the Ideas, Politics, and Cultures of the Right. Members of the scholarly community in New York may register to attend the conference by emailing lbiconference2026@lbi.org.

About the Speaker

Mark Lilla was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1956, and was educated at the University of Michigan and Harvard University. He is currently Professor of the Humanities at Columbia, where he focuses on Western political and religious thought. He is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, and publications worldwide. His books, which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, include The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (2017), The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction (2016), The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (2001). His most recent book is Ignorance and Bliss: On Wanting Not to Know (2024).

About the Eva Reichmann Lecture

The Hans & Berthold Finkelstein Foundation established the annual Eva Reichmann Lecture to honor the life, work, and legacy of historian and sociologist Eva Reichmann. During the Weimar Republic and the National Socialist regime, Reichmann advocated for Jewish civil rights through her work with the Centralverein, and after her emigration to the United Kingdom, she dedicated herself to the study of antisemitism and the collapse of democracy in Germany. She was instrumental in establishing the Wiener Library in London as one of the earliest and most comprehensive sites of documentation of Jewish persecution under National Socialism. The inaugural Reichmann Lecture was held in 2025 at the Wiener Library in partnership with Leo Baeck Institute London.