Fall 2009 EventsAll events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. Email for further information. Select Month:
The Caroline Zelaznik Gruss and Joseph S. Gruss Lectures in Talmudic Civil Law: Lecture I - Defining Community in an Era of Nationalism: Who is in and who is out in the eyes of the law? Arye Edrei (University of Tel Aviv) Tuesday, September 22, 5:30 p.m., Silverman 245A, Law School Arye Edrei is Professor of Law, University of Tel Aviv, and Gruss Visiting Professor of Talmudic Civil Law, Penn Law Reception immediately following lecture. Dietary laws will be observed. Please RSVP to Genevieve Cattanea at 215-898-9425 or gcattane@law.upenn.edu, by September 15. The Caroline Zelaznik Gruss and Joseph S. Gruss Lectures in Talmudic Civil Law: Lecture II - Defining Community in an Era of Nationalism: Who is in and who is out in the eyes of the law? Arye Edrei (University of Tel Aviv) Tuesday, September 29, 5:30 p.m., Silverman 245A, Law School Arye Edrei is Professor of Law at the University of Tel Aviv, and is the Gruss Visiting Professor of Talmudic Civil Law at Penn Law Reception immediately following lecture. Dietary laws will be observed. Please RSVP to Genevieve Cattanea at 215-898-9425 or gcattane@law.upenn.edu, by September 22. October
Betty Fuks and Elisa Slavet Tuesday, October 6, 6 to 8 p.m., Slought Foundation, 4017 Walnut St. How can Freud help us understand the difference between Jewishness and being Jewish? Can psychoanalysis have original things to say about what makes a person Jewish? Is this identical with Judaism? Was Freud betraying his own people when he asserted that Moses was Egyptian? Is there any way to think about race without reducing it to racism or to physical differences? These questions will be discussed by a cultural critic and a psychoanalyst, both authors of books on Freud's Jewishness. They will allow us to move beyond biographical debates about how Freud felt about Judaism and explore his redefinition of Jewishness: what it is, how it is transmitted, and how it has survived. Both Fuks and Slavet engage with the Freudian text, offering insightful accounts of how Freud invented a unique relation to his own Judaism. Co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program Kutchin Seminar Series. For more information, Patricia Gherovici, pgherovici@aol.com Annual Joseph Alexander Colloquium: "Zionist Dilemmas: Internal Conflicts in Israeli Literature and Culture, 1948-2000" Yigal Schwartz (Ben-Gurion University) Tuesday, October 13, 5 p.m., Class of 1955 Room, Van Pelt Library The creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 constituted one of the most exciting and moving moments in the long history of the Jewish people. Yet, the establishment of the Jewish State also brought about a host of difficulties and crises. Professor Schwartz will explore the responses to the State that appear Israeli fiction, discussing phenomena such as: the traumatic passage from the "Yishuv society" to a state; the difficulty of coping simultaneously with renewed nationalism on the one hand, and with modernism and postmodernism, on the other; the unresolved struggle between the narrative of redemption and the narrative of the Diaspora, as well as the complicated passage from a "melting pot" society to a multicultural one. Schwartz will also examine the political context that shaped Israeli fiction, exploring the approaches of the authors of the Zionist left and the Zionist right to the practical implementation of the Zionist meta-narrative. Professor Yigal Schwartz is a full professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), Israel, and the Head of Heksherim: The Research Center for Jewish and Israeli Culture. His research focuses on Modern Hebrew literature in historical and cultural contexts. He has published several books, among them: Aharon Appelfeld: From Individual Lament to Tribal Eternity (Brandeis University Press and the University Press of New England, 2001); Vantage Point, a book of essays on the historiography of modern Hebrew literature (Dvir Publishing House, 2006), which received an award for outstanding research from the Minister of Education; Do You Know the Land Where The Lemon Blooms: Human Engineering and Landscape Conceptualization in Hebrew Literature, (Kinneret Zmora-Bitan, in print in Hebrew, and soon to be published in English, Italian, and Chinese). The 2009 Joseph Alexander Colloquium is sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program, and cosponsored by the Middle East Center. Event is free and open to the public. No RSVP necessary. A photo ID is required to enter the library.
"When Oral Torah Was Inscribed: Transformations in Rabbinic Culture" Talya Fishman (Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania) Thursday, October 15, 7 p.m., 2nd floor lounge (room 251), Claudia Cohen Hall Talya Fishman is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies and the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Her scholarship explores how the attitudes, beliefs, ritual, and compositional and legal practices of premodern Jews evolved within the broader historical and cross-cultural contexts of predominately Christian or Muslim societies. Prof. Fishman is the author of Shaking the Pillars of Exile: 'Voice of a Fool,' an Early Modern Jewish Critique of Rabbinic Culture. Sponsored by the Oriental Club of Philadelphia. All are welcome! "Constructing Manhood in American Jewish Culture" Beth Wenger (History, University of Pennsylvania) Friday, October 23, 12 p.m., 436 Claudia Cohen Hall Professor Beth Wenger (History and Jewish Studies) will be discussing her paper, "Constructing Manhood in American Jewish Culture." Professor Max Cavitch (English) and Professor Amy Kaplan (Engligh) will be responding to the paper. Please RSVP to Luz Marin (Lmarin@sas.upenn.edu) by Tuesday, OCtober 20th to reserve lunch and receive a copy of the paper. Sponsored by Alice Paul Center and Women's Studies Faculty Works-in-Progress Seminar.
Yiddish Sing-along Alexander Botwinik (University of Pennsylvania) Thursday, November 12 at 12 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., Penn Hillel, Steinhardt Hall, 215 South 39th St. Admission Free. Pizza and Drinks Served. Alexander (Sender) Botwinik is a Yiddish lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to teaching Yiddish, Botwinik teaches music and choir at Har Zion Temple, and music at the Kaiserman JCC. Alexander served at the music director for a documentary film about the artist and Holocaust survivor Toby Knobel Fluek. The film, entitled Toby's Sunshine, had its premier showing in June, 2008, followed by a concert featuring the songs from the film performed alongside a slide show montage of the artist's work. Alexander recently performed in three Yiddish concerts at Haverford College with singers Cantor Naomi Hirsch, Sherm Labovitz and Richard Lenatsky. In addition, Alexander has just completed preparing a book of his father's music, after many years of work on this lengthy (370-page) project. Publication of this book, From Holocaust to Life, is expected in the near future. Sponsored by the Germanic Languages and Literatures department, the Jewish Studies Program Kutchin Faculty Seminar Series, and Hillel.
Sea of Voices: Group Poetry Reading [LISTEN TO AUDIO/WATCH VIDEO] Marjorie Agosin (Poet and Professor of Spanish, Wellesley College) Thursday, November 12 at 5 p.m., Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk A multi-lingual group poetry reading, drawn from a recent anthology, A Sea of Voices: Women Poets in Israel, edited by Marjorie Agosin. The anthology collects poems by women who wrote or write in a number of languages in Israel--Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Arabic, German, Spanish, English, Russian, German, and Finnish. Moderator: Kathryn Hellerstein Sponsored by Jewish Studies Program Kutchin Seminar Series, Kelly Writers House, Middle East Center (MEC), Comparative Literature, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC), Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Alice Paul Center for Research on Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
Monroe Price (University of Pennsylvania) Wednesday, December 2 from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., Penn Bookstore, 2nd Floor Professor Price will be speaking at the University of Pennsylvania Bookstore on December 2, celebrating his new publication, Objects of Remembrance: A Memoir of American Opportunities and Viennese Dreams, and further bringing to life many of the relatives and experiences of his Jewish Viennese ancestors, as well as his journey through the years to reconnect with this past. Monroe E. Price's intimate chronicle of his life as a Jewish refugee illuminates the power of American assimilation and opportunity. This will be followed by a book signing. Objects of Remembrance is a reflection on the power of American assimilation and opportunity in the face of persisting refugee realities. Like Isaac Bashevis Singer, Monroe Price recounts the continuing impact of European identities as families, cast from their homes by the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, struggle to find their way in a new and challenging environment. Price was born to a Jewish family in Vienna in 1938 and left when he was seven months old. In a series of reflections, Price seeks to recreate the Vienna of his infancy and the socialization of his family, and other Jewish and Viennese immigrants, in the United States. As he traces the particular path of his own life, Price reveals a more universal story of adjustment, and the relationship between a marginal community and the drama of American citizenship. "An intimate and provocative meditation on Jewish life between the old and the new world." - Bernhard Schlink Monroe E. Price is Director of Center for Global Communications Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, and Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University He founded the Center for Media and Communications Studies at Central European University. After an undergraduate and law degree at Yale University, Price clerked for Associate Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court and then Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz.
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