Gruss Workshop: Thinking Legally vs. Thinking Historically

Thursday, December 12, 2013 - 9:00am - 7:00pm

This interdisciplinary workshop brings together scholars of law, history, and religious studies to assess the relationship between legal and historical modes of thought. This idea emerges out of the deep divisions regarding the relative role of historical/contextual vs. doctrinal reasoning in the study of the Jewish law. However, by approaching the issue as a matter of general legal theory, we hope to draw on the parallel experiences of other thought traditions to address the following question: To what extent are lawyers justified in assuming that thousands of individualized acts separated by time, space and social context, form a legal system that transcends any individual action?

Co-sponsored by Penn Law School and the Jewish Studies Program

[Originally illuminated at the workshops of Bonifacio Bembo and Cristoforo De Predis, 15th century Northern Italy]. The Rothschild Miscellany. London: Linda and Michael Falter, Facsimile Editions, London; Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1989. Gift of Ruth and Raymond Brenner and the Brenner Family Fund for Jewish Studies in honor of Gregory Brenner, W', 1999; Adam Brenner, W', 2001; Jason Brenner, W', 2005.

One of the most lavishly illuminated and lavishly decorated examples of renaissance Jewish manuscript production, this facsimile edition reproduces in precise detail every aspect of the original, including the scribal method of ruling known as "pricking", the uneven cut of the pages, stains and holes found on the original parchment, and the texture of the gold leaf.

Jewish Studies @ PENN

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Gruss Workshop: Thinking Legally vs. Thinking Historically

Jewish Studies @ PENN

Fall 2013