Tuesday 16 June 2020

16 June 2020-Project Update: Research on Dr. Rudolf Altschul (1901-1963) Presented at HBI Research Day


Emigre Neuroscientist’s Biography Presented at the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) Research Day (May 28, 2020)


This update is part of the regular U of C Émigré Project Updates: (http://emigreucalgary.blogspot.ca/2020/)

          Last month, on May 28, 2020, Anzo Nguyen presented a research poster in collaboration with Dr. Frank W. Stahnisch at the annual Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) Research Day, which took place as a half-day online symposium due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Research Day, which highlighted the work being done by HBI researchers and trainees, included a virtual gallery of poster presentations. This poster, titled “From Prague to the Prairies: Dr. Rudolf Altschul (1901-1963), a Refugee Neuroscientist’s Plight”, provided a biographical account of one German-speaking neuroscientist who eventually settled in the Canadian Prairies, namely Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. As described in the previous blog article, Dr. Altschul fled his native Czechoslovakia in 1939 due to the Nazi German annexation of Bohemia, and after a cumbersome flight found refuge and settled at the University of Saskatchewan to take up a position in the Department of Anatomy. This poster, while chronicling Dr. Altschul’s resettlement and academic career in the neurosciences in Canada, contextualizes his story in the larger exodus of Jewish and oppositional academics from Central Europe in the 1930s. In addition, a parallel is drawn to the current refugee crisis in the Middle East, where a similar mass emigration of at-risk academics is occurring. The poster was designed primarily with these overarching contextual themes in mind.

The link to view the poster can be found below:


Copyright note: the photographs in this poster were used, and are now shared, with the express written consent and courtesy of the University of Saskatchewan Archives and Special Collections from 10 June, 2020. Permission to reproduce any images must, however, be addressed to them: https://library.usask.ca/archives/contact-us/index.php