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LeMoine, Mosse memorials set

March 24, 1999

The life of the late Fannie LeMoine, professor of classics and comparative literature, will be celebrated Thursday, March 25, at 3:30 p.m. in the Memorial Union’s Great Hall.

And a ceremony honoring the life and scholarship of George Mosse, Bascom-Weinstein Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of History, has been scheduled for Sunday, March 28, at 11 a.m., also in Great Hall.

The program, organized through the UW–Madison Departments of Classics and History, will feature readings from Euripides, medieval feminist Hildegard von Bingen and various African American authors. Also included will be a performance from UW–Madison’s Black Music Ensemble, and reflections on LeMoine’s contributions from her colleagues.

Memorial organizer Frank M. Clover, professor of classics and history, says the celebration will honor the many- faceted contributions LeMoine made to the university and larger community.

“Fannie was a classicist by training, but she appreciated and often studied all kinds of literature, and the readings for this memorial will reflect the breadth of her interests. She also enjoyed the music of life, and the Black Music Ensemble performance will illustrate that,” Clover says.

LeMoine died last August following a 20-year battle with leukemia.

Mosse died in January from liver cancer. He was an internationally recognized expert on European culture and the development of Hitler’s final solution, sexuality and concepts of masculinity.

At UW–Madison, Mosse taught courses in European intellectual history and Jewish history, some of which were broadcast as part of Wisconsin Public Radio’s “College of the Air” series.

Mosse was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984; the Goethe Institute honored him in 1988, and he joined the circle of distinguished senior historians receiving an American Historical Association Award for Scholarly Distinction in 1997. Last November he was awarded the Leo Baeck medal for distinguished contributions to Jewish and European history.