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Borders in Jewish Thought

The conference is made possible by the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies, The Franke Institute for the Humanities, the Committee on Social Thought, the Department of History, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. Building/Room: Franke Institute. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): The Franke Institute for the Humanities, Committee on Social Thought, Divinity School, History, and NELC. Conference Title: Borders in Jewish Thought. Presenter(s): Rachel Havrelock, University of Illinois, Chicago Ofri Ilani Sam Shonkoff Meredith Aska McBride Hillel Ben Sasson Adam Stern Rachel Seeling, Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Toronto Israel Yuval, Hebrew University Jerusalem. Open to the Public: Yes. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: The conference will explore the ways in which Jews have invoked the borders of the Land of Israel as a malleable metaphor for considering a variety of issues that extend beyond geography. The Hebrew Bible presents several border schemes of the Land of Israel: some extend from the Nile to the Euphrates, while others are limited to the land of Canaan hemmed in by the Jordan; some emphasize natural boundaries while others delineate the borders according to ritual logic. Each scheme represents a different conce… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Monday, February 13, 2012, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM. Franke Institute Seminar Room, East Wing of Regenstein Library 1100 E. 57th St. For more info visit lucian.uchicago.edu.

Alvin Rosenfeld: The 2012 Gossett Lecture

Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, received his Ph.D. from Brown University in 1967 and has taught at Indiana University since 1968. He holds the Irving M. Glazer Chair in Jewish Studies and is Director of the university’s Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He founded Indiana University's well-regarded Borns Jewish Studies Program and served as its director for 30 years. The editor of William Blake: Essays (1969) and the Collected Poetry of John Wheelwright (1972), he is also the author of numerous scholarly and critical articles on American poetry, Jewish writers, and the literature of the Holocaust. Indiana University Press published his Confronting the Holocaust: The Impact of Elie Wiesel (co-edited with Irving Greenberg) in 1979 and, in 1980, published his A Double Dying: Reflections on Holocaust Literature (the book has since appeared in German, Polish, and Hungarian translations). With his wife, Erna Rosenfeld, he tr… Building/Room: Swift Hall, Common Room. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Presenter: Alvin Rosenfeld (Indiana University). Lecture Title: Primo Levi and the Germans: Is Forgiveness Possible after Auschwitz? Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: In four decades of thinking and writing about the Holocaust following his liberation from Auschwitz, Primo Levi carried on an intense moral and intellectual engagement with Germany and the Germans. His greatest wish was to understand the people who had been his persecutors, to judge them, and, if possible, to forgive them. But despite many years of probing reflection on the Nazi crimes and those who had perpetrated them, Levi came to the conclusion that he was a failure. This lecture will examine Levi’s sus… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Monday, February 20, 2012, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM. Swift Hall, Common Room 1025 E. 58th St.

Michael Segal, The Writing On the Wall: Dreams and Riddles in the Book of Daniel

Dr. Michael Segal is the Chair of the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (on sabbatical during the 2011-12 academic year), and also serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Hebrew University Bible Project. His research interests center upon Jewish literature of the Second Temple Period, including the late Biblical books, Dead Sea Scrolls, Apocrypha, and Pseudepigrapha; the textual history of the Hebrew Bible; and ancient Jewish Biblical interpretation. His first book, entitled The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (English: Brill; Hebrew: Magnes; 2007), was awarded the Polonsky Prize for Creativity and Originality in the Humanistic Disciplines (2008). He is currently writing two books on the Book of Daniel. The first will consist of a collection of interpretive studies of central passages in the book. The second will be a complete, critical commentary of Daniel and the Additions to Daniel for the Anchor Yale Bible Series. Building/Room: TBA. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): American Friends of the Hebrew University (Midwest Region). Presenter: Michael Segal. Lecture Title: The Writing On the Wall: Dreams and Riddles in the Book of Daniel. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Thursday, February 23, 2012, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM. TBA.

Graduate Student Workshop with Sam Brody

Refreshments will be served. Find more information at http://ccjsgraduateworkinggroup.wordpress.com/ or email workshop coordinators Katharine Pflaum and Joela Zeller at cjs.grad.ws@gmail.com. Building/Room: Social Science Tea Room. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Presenter(s): Sam Brody (Ph.D student in History of Judaism). Title: A Jewish Solution to the Zionist Problem, or, Why Martin Buber Considered Isaiah 30:15 More Realistic than Rifle Practice. Open to the Public: No. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: Graduate Student only workshop. This paper argues that Buber’s career as a public intellectual raises and sharpens the question of the opposition between “realism” and “utopianism” in politics. This can be seen on two levels: the level of the reception of Buber as a political thinker, and the level of his actual engagement with and impact on the public through speeches, editorials, and activism. On the first level, the paper argues that Buber’s reputation as a political thinker has suffered from a tenden… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Friday, February 24, 2012, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM. Social Science Tea Room 5730 South Ellis Avenue Chicago, IL 60637.

Nili Sacher Fox: The Matter of Israelite Religion, Lecture 4 of 4

Building/Room: Classics 110. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): Divinity School. Presenter: Nili Sacher Fox (Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion). Lecture Title: Fashion vs. Ideology: Biblical Laws Pertaining to Israelite Dress. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: Nili Sacher Fox is Professor of Bible and Director of the School of Graduate Studies at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, Ohio. She holds a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Fox teaches Bible, Archaeology, Ancient History and Languages, and is co-director of the Graduate Summer-in-Israel Program. She has written on various topics relating to the history and culture of ancient Israel, including: In the Service of the King: Officialdom in Anc… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Thursday, March 1, 2012, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM. Classics 110 1010 E. 59th St.

Ellen Cassedy, "We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust"

Building/Room: TBA. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): Human Rights Program. Presenter: Ellen Cassedy. Lecture Title: We Are Here: Memories of the Lithuanian Holocaust. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Friday, March 2, 2012, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM. TBA.

The State of American Jewish Belief Revisited: At the Edge of a Crisis or at a New Threshold?

Building/Room: Spertus Institute. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago, The Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture. Conference Title: The State of American Jewish Belief Revisited: At the Edge of a Crisis or at a New Threshhold? Presenter(s): Speakers include: Rachel Adler (Professor of Modern Jewish Thought and Judaism and Gender, Hebrew Union College-Los Angeles) Saul Berman (Yeshiva University, Founder of Edah) Arnold Eisen (Chancellor, Jewish Theological Seminary) David Ellenson (President, Hebrew-Union College) Arthur Green (former President, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Seminary; Dean, Non-denominational Rabbinical School of Boston Hebrew College) Riv-Ellen Prell (Professor and Chair of American Studies, University of Minnesota). Open to the Public: Yes. Cost: free, but registration is required at uofcconference@spertus.edu. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: Recent studies point to declining synagogue membership and denominational identification as signs of crisis in American Judaism. This symposium focuses attention on theological dimensions of the perceived crisis. Six leading thinkers come together to share their unique vantage points on a series of questions: Is American Judaism theologically bankrupt or is it at the cusp of a radically new beginning? How should we diagnose this perceived crisis and what proposals might counter it? How can American Judaism… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Sunday, March 4, 2012, 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM. Spertus Institute 610 South Michigan Ave. Chicago, IL 60605-1901. For more info visit spertus.edu.

Dan Laor

Building/Room: Classics 110. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Presenter: Dan Laor, Tel-Aviv University. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Thursday, March 8, 2012, 11:30 PM – Friday, March 9, 2012, 1:00 AM. Classics 110 1010 E. 59th St.

Graduate Student Workshop with Elayne Oliphant

Refreshments will be served. Find more information at http://ccjsgraduateworkinggroup.wordpress.com/ or email workshop coordinators Katharine Pflaum and Joela Zeller at cjs.grad.ws@gmail.com. Building/Room: Social Science Tea Room. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Presenter(s): Elayne Oliphant (Ph.D student in Anthropology). Title: The Risks of Historical Memory: Inter-Religious Dialogues in Present-Day Paris. Open to the Public: No. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: Graduate student only workshop. This paper explores examine a series of unsuccessful Catholic-Jewish dialogues between “cultural” Jewish and Catholic organizations in Paris that attempted to find unity in the common text of the “Old” Testament, without leaving space to account for the effects of a very fraught history in this conversation. This chapter also examines the paradoxical role played by Paris’ recently deceased and very popular archbishop–Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger–who was born to Jewish parent… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Friday, March 9, 2012, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM. Social Science Tea Room 5730 South Ellis Avenue Chicago, IL 60637.

Martin Marty Center Visiting Scholars Symposium

Thomas Meyer focuses on modern German philosophy and the history of ideas. He has published broadly on Ernst Cassirer as well as on Jewish philosophy and theology of the 20th Century. Currently he is working on an intellectual biography of Leo Strauss. He received his Doctorate in 2003 and hisHabilitation in 2009, both from Ludwig Maximilians-University. Since then, he has held visiting professorships at ETH Zurich and Karl-Franzens University of Graz. Building/Room: Swift Common Room. Primary Sponsor: Other Sponsor(s). Other Sponsor(s): Divinity School. Presenter: Dr. Thomas Meyer. Lecture Title: From Kirchhain to Annapolis: Leo Strauss’s intellectual biography. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Thursday, March 15, 2012, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM. Divinity School, The University of Chicago 1025 E. 58th St. Chicago, IL 60637.

Steven Zipperstein: Mythology, Historicity, and the 1903 Kishinev Pogrom: How a Riot Changed 20th Century Jewish History

Steven J. Zipperstein, Daniel E. Koshland Professor in Jewish Culture and History at Stanford University, has published widely in European Jewish history and literary biography. Among his books are: Elusive Prophet: Ahad Ha'am and the Origins of Zionism (1993); Imagining Russian Jewry: Memory, History, Identity (1999); and Rosenfeld’s Lives: Fame, Oblivion, and the Furies of Writing (2008) His books have garnered the National Jewish Book Award, the Smilen Prize, and the Leviant Prize of the Modern Language Association. He is an editor of the journal Jewish Social Studies, a series editor of Jewish Lives project at Yale University Press, and Chair of the Academic Advisory Council of the Center for Jewish History, in New York. For sixteen years, he was Director of the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford. Zipperstein writes often for general as well as specialized publications, and has published in The New York Times Sunday Book Review, The New Republic, Dissent, Chronicle of Higher Education, and… Building/Room: Rosenwald, room 405. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): The Committee on Social Thought, History of Judaism Club. Presenter: Steven Zipperstein. Lecture Title: Mythology, Historicity, and the 1903 Kishinev Pogrom: How a Riot Changed 20th Century Jewish History. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Thursday, March 29, 2012, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM. Rosenwald 405 1101 E. 58th St. Chicago, IL 60637.

David Stern: The Haggadah, Lecture 1 of 4

Building/Room: Special Collections. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; Divinity School. Presenter: David Stern (University of Pennsylvania). Lecture Title: The Haggadah and the Jewish Imagination. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Sunday, April 1, 2012, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM. Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library 1100 E. 57th St.

Marc Michael Epstein: The Haggadah, Lecture 2 of 4

Building/Room: Special Collections. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; Divinity School. Presenter: Marc Michael Epstein (Vassar College). Lecture Title: Birds Head Revisited: Identity, Politics and Polemics the Birds' Head Haggadah. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: Marc Michael Epstein has been teaching at Vassar since 1992, and was the first Director of Jewish Studies. He is a graduate of Oberlin College, received the PhD at Yale University, and did much of his graduate research at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has written on various topics in visual and material culture produced by, for, and about Jews. His most recent book, The Medieval Haggadah: Art, Narrative, and Religious Imagination (Yale, 2011) was selected by the London Times Literary Supplement as… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Sunday, April 22, 2012, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM. Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library 1100 E. 57th St.

A Conversation and Reading: Etgar Keret

http://www.chicagohumanities.org/Genres/Literature/2012-Keret-Etgar.aspx Born in Tel Aviv in 1967, Etgar Keret is the author of six bestselling story collections, most recently Suddenly, a Knock on the Door. His writing has been published in Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and Zoetrope. Jellyfish, his first movie as a director along with his wife, Shira Geffen, won the Camera d’Or prize for best first feature at Cannes in 2007. In 2010 he was named a Chevalier of France’s Order of Arts and Letters. Nathan Englander is the author of the forthcoming collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (advance praise here), as well as the internationally bestselling story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, and the novel The Ministry of Special Cases (all published by Knopf/Vintage). Translated into more than a dozen languages, Englander was selected as one of “20 Writers for the 21st Century” by The New Yorker, received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a PEN/Malamud Awa… Building/Room: Chicago Sinai Congr. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): The Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago,The Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies, Northwestern University, and the Spertus Institute. Author: Etgar Keret. Reading From: Suddenly, a Knock on the Door. Contact Name: Miller Prosser (contact Chicago Humanities Festival for tickets). Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: Tickets for this program are sold by the Chicago Humanities Festival and will be available to members in the member bundle beginning January 9, 2012. Single tickets will be available to members and the general public on March 5, 2012. CHF Member: $5.00 General Admission: $10.00 Equal parts Franz Kafka and Kurt Vonnegut, and suffused with inimitable and absurdist hilarity, Israeli writer Etgar Keret is a singular voice in contemporary literature. His masterful short stories, at once dark and delightfu… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Thursday, April 26, 2012, 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM. Chicago Sinai Congregation 15 W. Delaware Chicago, IL 60610.

Workshop on Writing/Graphic Films with Etgar Keret

Building/Room: TBA. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): The Chicago Humanities Festival. Presenter(s): Etgar Keret. Title: TBA. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Friday, April 27, 2012, 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM. TBA.

June and Harold Patinkin Lecture

Building/Room: Swift Hall, Common Room. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Presenter: Raymond Cohen, June and Harold Patinkin Visiting Professor. Lecture Title: TBA. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Tuesday, May 1, 2012, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM. Swift Hall, Common Room 1025 E. 58th St.

Vanessa Ochs: The Haggadah, Lecture 3 of 4

Building/Room: Special Collections. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Other Sponsor(s): Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library; Divinity School. Presenter: Vanessa Ochs (University of Virginia). Lecture Title: The coconut on the seder plate: A biography of the contemporary Haggadah. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Sunday, May 6, 2012, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM. Special Collections Research Center, Regenstein Library 1100 E. 57th St.

German-Jewish Echoes in the Contemporary Middle East

Building/Room: Franke Institute. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Conference Title: German-Jewish Echoes in the Contemporary Middle East. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Event Description: Under what guises do the German-Jewish past and German-Jewish thought and literature appear in the Middle East today? How might they operate as a productive reference point in understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader cultural and political context that surrounds the conflict in the Middle East? And how does the context of the Middle East allow us to better understand German-Jewish literature and thought and to rethink the enduring legacy of the German-Jewish encounter, in both its prod… Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Monday, May 7, 2012 – Tuesday, May 8, 2012. Franke Institute 1100 E. 57th St. Chicago, IL 60637.

Harriet Murav: Poetry After Kerch: Representing Jewish Mass Death in the Soviet Union

This event is made possible by the Aronberg Fund and the Meyer Fund of the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies, in collaboration with the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures. Building/Room: TBA. Primary Sponsor: Chicago Center for Jewish Studies. Presenter: Harriet Murav, Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Lecture Title: Poetry After Kerch: Representing Jewish Mass Death in the Soviet Union. Contact Name: Miller Prosser. Contact E-mail: m-prosser@uchicago.edu. Contact Phone: 773-702-7108. Campus Map: http://maps.uchicago.edu/. Disability Clause: Please contact the event sponsor(s) if you require assistance to fully participate in this event. Thursday, May 10, 2012, 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM. TBA.