MONDAY, 04/04/2022: Dr. Arkady Kovelman at the Jewish Studies Workshop (Zoom)

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop  for a presentation by:
Dr. Arkady Kovelman
(Professor, Head of the Department for Jewish Studies, Lomonosov Moscow State University)
Exstasis and Exodus in the Interpretation of Philo of Alexandria
 *Joint Session with the Ancient Societies Workshop*

Monday April 4, 2022 at 5:30 PM Central

To join the Zoom meeting, click here

 

Jewish Studies Workshop Schedule Spring 2022 

 

Monday, April 4

*Joint session with the Ancient Societies Workshop*

Exstasis and Exodus in the Interpretation of Philo of Alexandria

Dr. Arkady Kovelman (Professor, Head of the Department for Jewish Studies at Lomonosov Moscow State University)

 

Monday, April 18

Kinship,  Anti-Kinship, and a Tale of two Names: A Thematic Nexus joining Garden and Tower

Dr. Bruce Rosenstock (Professor, Department of Religion, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

 

*Thursday*, April 28 (in-person)

Working Through Disbelief: The Vocal Communities of Kol Nidre

Dr. Ruth HaCohen (Artur Rubinstein Professor of Musicology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

**Please note that this session will be held in-person at 4:30 pm (location TBA)**

 

Monday, May 2

~Title TBA~

Matthew Johnson (PhD Candidate, Germanic Studies, University of Chicago)

**Please note that this session will be held at 2:00pm**

Monday, May 16

A Meeting Among Writers in the Wake of the 1967 War: Uncovering the Political through the Poetic Imaginary in Dahlia Ravikovitch and Mahmoud Darwish

Stephanie Kraver (PhD Candidate, NELC, University of Chicago)

 

Monday, May 23

~Title TBA~

Zavi Feldstein (MA Student, Divinity School, University of Chicago)

 

MONDAY, 3/7/2022: Elena Hoffenberg on Jewish Domestic Space, Economic Life, and Kinship Structures in Vilne

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:
Elena Hoffenberg (PhD Student, History, University of Chicago)
At Home in Vilne: Jewish Domestic Space, Economic Life, and Kinship Structures in a Polish City
Monday March 7, 2022 at 5:30 PM Central
 
To join the Zoom meeting, click here
(meeting ID: 957 5921 2032/ password: polish)

Elena’s paper, to be read in advance of the session is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: Hoffenberg-Jewish Studies Workshop

Monday, 02/21/22 – Allison Schachter at the Jewish Studies Workshop (Zoom)

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a virtual book talk by:

Allison Schachter (Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and English at Vanderbilt University)

“Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919–1939” 

Allison Schachter, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and English at Vanderbilt University, will discuss her new book, Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919–1939 (Northwestern UP, 2021) at the Jewish Studies Workshop. In conversation with Prof. Schachter will be Kenneth Moss, Harriet and Ulrich E. Meyer Professor of Jewish History, University of Chicago, and Na’ama Rokem, Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature & Comparative Literature.

Monday February 21, 2022 at 5:30 PM Central, on Zoom

To join the Zoom meeting, click here

For any questions, please email Ido Telem, telem@uchicago.edu

MONDAY, 02/07/2022: Ranana Dine on Jewish Visual Ethics

​Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:

Ranana Dine (PhD Student, Divinity School, The University of Chicago)

Hath not a Jew Eyes?:  Broadening Jewish Ethics to Include Visual Culture

With a response by:

Ido Ben Harush (PhD Candidate,  Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Yale University)

Monday February 7, 2021 at 5:30 PM Central

To join the Zoom meeting, click here

Ranana’s paper, to be read in advance of the session is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: RDineJewishStudiesWorkshopPaper

 

MONDAY, 1/24/2022: Dr. James Adam Redfield on Reading Strange Talmudic Stories from Medieval to Early Modern Ashkenaz

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop together with the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Reception Workshop for a presentation by: 

Dr. James Adam Redfield (Assistant Professor of Biblical and Talmudic Literatures, Saint Louis University; Visiting Assistant Professor in the Divinity School, University of Chicago) 

“The Allegorical Prism: Reading Strange Talmudic Stories from Medieval to Early Modern Ashkenaz”

 Monday, January 24, 2022 at 5:30 PM Central (via Zoom)

To join the Zoom meeting, click here

(Meeting ID: 963 4410 7430  / Password: 374853 )

MONDAY, 11/15/2021: Adi Shiran on Saadia Gaon’s interpretation of Eve & the serpent

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:

Adi Shiran (PhD Student, Divinity School, The University of Chicago)

“Where did the serpent meet Eve? On an unusual interpretation of Saadia Gaon and its history”

With a response by:

Rachel Katz (PhD Student, Divinity School, University of Chicago)

Monday November 15, 2021 at 5:30 PM Central

To Join the Zoom meeting, click here

(Meeting ID: 922 8712 5385 / Passcode: 107586)

Please note there are no materials to read in advance. Abstract:

Questions about the locations in which specific events took place are common in exegetical literature. One such question is: Where did the serpent meet Eve? Or, in other words, was the location of their meeting inside the Garden or outside of it? This question is related to other ancient debates: Where was Adam created? Was Eve created at the same place, and where were the animals created? When was the Garden created? And did animals inhabit it when God gave the order “to dress it and to keep it” (Gen 2:15)?

In his commentary on Genesis 3, Saadia Gaon argues that Eve left the Garden and met the serpent outside of it. This argument might not seem unreasonable, but it is highly unusual. The Rabbinic sources that predated Saadia usually stress that the serpent was inside the Garden when he met Eve. Saadia, however, believes that Eve had to leave the Garden to meet him. In fact, the question itself regarding the location of the meeting is absent from the Rabbinic sources. Why then does Saadia even raise such a question, and why does he offer such an unexpected answer?

This paper will attempt to explain Saadia’s choice not to adopt the typical Rabbinical view and argue that a combined examination of the Judeo-Arabic tradition and the Muslim one sheds light on Saadia’s interpretation. This examination will show 1. That Saadia’s interpretation is not original in the general context of Arabic-written exegetical literature, and 2. That his choice in a divergent opinion might involve certain theological and polemical considerations.

To support these arguments, I will examine some key ideas that circulated in the medieval Jewish and Muslim exegetical traditions. The Judeo-Arabic commentaries which will be explored are those of Saadia’s younger Karaite contemporaries Ya῾kūb al-Qirqisānī and Yefet ben Eli. The interpretations they offer to the “location question” are mostly yet unpublished. The Qur῾ān commentaries which will be examined in this context are those of al-Māwardī and al-Jubbā᾿ī.

 

MONDAY, 11/8/2021: Oren Yirmiya on Franz Kafka and the Talmud Bavli

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:
Oren Yirmiya (PhD Candidate, Department of Middle Eastern Cultures and Languages, UC Berkeley)
“Forgetting the Torah, Losing Halakhah: Tradition and Crisis in
Franz Kafka’s ‘On Parables’ and Talmud Bavli M. Shabbat 138b-139a”

With a response by:

Samuel Catlin (PhD Candidate, Comparative Literature and the Divinity School, University of Chicago)

Monday November 8, 2021 at 5:30 PM Central

**Swift 400**

Oren’s paper, to be read in advance of the session is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated paper: Oren Yirmiya – Kafka and Talmud – U Chicago workshop

**TUESDAY**, 10/26/2021: Syllabus Workshop— Race and Religion: Theorizing Blackness and Jewishness (Kirsten Collins)

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a teaching & syllabus workshop led by:

Kirsten Collins (PhD Candidate, Divinity School, University of Chicago)

Race and Religion: Theorizing Blackness and Jewishness

***PLEASE NOTE DATE CHANGE***

Tuesday, October 26, 2021, at 5:30 PM Central

**Swift 403**

Kirsten’s syllabus, to be read in advance of the session, is available for download below. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.

Pre-circulated syllabus: collins-syllabus workshop f2021

MONDAY, 10/11/2021: Professor Harriet Murav on Literature of Abandonment and the Russian Civili War

Please join the Jewish Studies Workshop for a presentation by:
Dr. Harriet Murav (Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
“Hefker: The Literature of Abandonment and the Russian Civil War”
With a response by:
Benjamin Arenstein (PhD Student, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago)
Monday October 11, 2021 at 5:30 Central
**Session will be held via Zoom**
Dr. Murav’s paper, to be read in advance of the session, is available for download below. While we will discuss the paper in its entirety, Dr. Murav has noted that the first eleven pages are on political theory and can be skipped over if participants are so inclined. The password to the document will be emailed to the Jewish Studies Workshop email listserv. If you would like to be added to this listserv, please click the “Subscribe” tab above.
To join the Zoom meeting, click here
(Meeting ID: 995 9004 6462/ Password: Hefker)