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Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Graduate Seminar Series
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Fall 2008 Calendar of Events
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"Jewish Violence in the Middle Ages: Fantasies and Realities"
- Elliot Horowitz
(Bar Ilan University)
with a response by Vincent Cornell (MESAS)
The history of Jewish liturgy contains various angry prayers expressing hopes for the downfall of Christendom. Previous scholarship has either downplayed them or seen them as part of a legacy of Jewish ressentiment rather than understanding them as drawing upon of a legacy of violence. This seminar will focus on the liturgy for two periods of the year among the Jews of early medieval Palestine and Italy and high medieval Franco-Germany, the High Holy Days and the season of Purim, and trace the implications of acknowledging and addressing the anti-Christian elements that survive in Jewish liturgy through the present.
Elliott Horowitz was born in New York City and educated at Princeton and Yale. He has taught in Israel since 1982, first at Ben Gurion University and then in the Dept of Jewish History at Bar Ilan University. He is co-editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review and author of Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton University Press, 2006; paperback, 2008) and many articles on Jewish social and cultural history. He is currently senior lecturer at Bar Ilan University. This lecture is part of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Seminar Series.
Co-sponsored by the Institute for Comparative and International Studies; the Vann Seminar in Pre-Modern European History; the Emory University Graduate School's New Thinkers, New Leaders Fund; and the LaBelle Birnbaum Tenenbaum Enrichment Fund.
Friday, September 12th
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Bowden Hall, Room 323
Lunch is provided. Please RSVP to Tobi at 404-727-0896 or tames2@emory.edu
International Conference
"What's at Stake in the Ethnography of Human Experience? Phenomenological and Psychoanalytic Perspectives"
This international conference brings over twenty major scholars to Emory from places like Harvard, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Oslo. Over two and a half days, we will be holding spirited discussions on the nature of human experience and subjectivity, how it can be described analytically, and how these understandings can improve medical care, political interventions in conditions of oppression, and social scientific study of human culture and society. This conference is organized by TIJS core faculty member Don Seeman and recent Emory Ph.D. recipient and NIMH Postdoctoral Fellow Sarah Willen. It is sponsored by the Lemelson Conference Fund of the Society for Psychological Anthropology, the Provost's Conference Subvention Fund, the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, Emory University Graduate School's New Thinkers, New Leadera Fund and the LaBelle Birnbaum Tenenbaum Enrichment Fund.
Space is limited, so please contact the organizers at whats.at.stake.conference@gmail.com
Sunday, September 21, 2008-Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Emory University Conference Center
"Bethsaida: The Capital of the Forgotten Kingdom of Geshur"
- Rami Arav (University of Omaha, Nebraska)
Part of the Mediterranean Archaeology Lecture Series.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Studies, The Program in Mediterranean Archaeology, the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies at Emory, and American Schools of Oriental Research.
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008
7:00 p.m.
Carlos Museum Reception Hall
"What you are" or "what's in your heart"? Competing definitions of religion among intermarried couples
-Jennifer Thompson (Emory University, Graduate Division of Religion)
with a response by Laurie Patton (Religion)
In intermarried couples, two different definitions of religion simultaneously govern the family's religious practices, conceptions of Jewishness, and relationship to the Jewish community. In my ethnographic research, conducted over four years in Atlanta, I found that Christian spouses define religion in American Protestant terms, rejecting hierarchy and valuing individualism, moral improvement, and religious tolerance. They often enthusiastically participate in, even spearhead, Jewish ritual in their families because it "touches their hearts." They see religion as essentially universal because it is individual. As a central cultural influence in American culture and history, Protestantism influences Catholic intermarried spouses' language as well, emphasizing faith and emotional experience and a personal relationship with God. But in contrast to the Christian spouses' definition of religion, Jewish spouses define religion implicitly in both this Protestant way and as "what you are": "You do the traditions because that's what you are, not because of what you believe," said one intermarried Jewish woman. Jewish and Protestant views of religion coexist uneasily within intermarried families, in part because they exist within critical discourses in the American Jewish community about intermarriage. These discourses draw on both definitions of religion, with a halakhic definition of Jewishness that conflicts with the dominant Protestant conception of religion in America. Intermarried couples are well aware of these discourses and respond to them in their own lives even though the discourses rarely take into account their responses.
Jennifer Thompson is a Ph.D. candidate in the Ethics and Society program of the Graduate Division of Religion. Her ethnographic dissertation analyzes the experiences of intermarried Jewish-Christian couples in Atlanta and the American Jewish discourses on intermarriage. She has been a Graduate Student Fellow at the Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life, a Sloan Center for Working Families, since 2005. She holds an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School (2000) and a B.A. in English and American Literature from Brandeis University (1998). This lecture is part of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Seminar Series.
Cosponsored by the Graduate Division of Religion (GDR), Emory University Graduate School's New Leaders, New Thinkers Fund, and the LaBelle Birnbaum Tenenbaum Enrichment Fund.
Friday, October 24th
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Candler Library Room 212 (JS Seminar Room)
"Why Faith Matters"
- Rabbi David Wolpe
Rabbi David Wolpe will speak about his new book Why Faith Matters. The book is a refutation of the "New Atheism" represented in books by Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything), Sam Harris (The End of Faith), and Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion). Rabbi Wolpe has written eight books and was named by Newsweek as the most influential congregational rabbi in the United States. Co-sponsored by the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies.
October 28th, 2008
4:30 p.m.
Candler Theology/Center for Ethics Building
"History, Memory and Public Art"
- Visiting artist/scholars, Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock
Stih & Schnock are conceptual artists who explore how memory functions in the social sphere and how it is reflected symbolically in urban spaces. They explore how the intrusion of art in public space affects everyday life through their memorial projects, which include: "Places of Remembrance in Berlin --Schöneberg" (1993), BUS STOP (1994/95), "The City As Text -- Jewish Munich" (2007), "Invitation -- Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1997/98). They also focus on art collections as places of collective memory. Examples include: "Show Your Collection -- Jewish Traces in Munich Museums" (2008), the environment at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart "Who Needs Art - We Need Potatoes" (1998), "The Art of Collecting - Flick in Berlin" (2004).
Renata Stih has taught art and technology, film and media at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin for many years. Frieder Schnock received his PhD in art history and is a former curator at the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel. He also teaches art history to film students. Together they have taught at numerous American universities, including Princeton, Harvard, SAIC Chicago and MICA Baltimore. They live in Berlin. Exhibitions (selection): Deutschlandbilder. Martin Gropius Bau (1997) CTRL Space. ZKM Karlsruhe(2001) Signs from Berlin, Jewish Museum New York (2003) Die zehn Gebote. Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden (2004) Schrift -- Bilder -- Denken. Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2005) Die RAF-Ausstellung. Kunstwerke, Berlin (2005) Berlin Messages. Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale/US (2005) Displaced. Neuer Berliner Kunstverein,Berlin (2005) Reality Bites. Mildred Lane Kempner Art Museum St. Louis /US (2007) Modelle -- Materialisierung von Konzepten. Deutscher Künstlerbund, Berlin (2008) (Keine) Angst / (No) Fear. Kunstverein Ludwigshafen (2008)
This event is organized and sponsored by The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts, with additional sponsorship from the Emory University Strategic Initiative for Creativity & Arts, the Emory College of Arts and Sciences Center for Creativity & Arts, the Hightower Fund, the Goldwasser Fund of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, Center for the Study of Public Scholarship, Departments of Visual Arts, Art History, German Studies, History and Religion.
Tuesday, November 11, 11:45 – 1 p.m.
Colloquium: "Reflections on Art, Space and Remembrance"
Slide presentation and open discussion with the artists (free and open to the public)
The Graduate Institute of Liberal Arts, Callaway Center S423, 537 Kilgo Circle
Wednesday, November 12th, 4 p.m.
"Who Needs Art, We Need Potatoes – Public Space and Social Sculpture"
Slide lecture and discussion, followed by reception (free and open to the public);
Visual Arts Program Gallery, 700 Peavine Creek Dr., Emory University
www.visualarts.emory.edu Tel.: 404.727.6315
*For further information about these events, call 404.727.7601.
*For further information about the artists, go to www.stih-schnock.de
Elisabeth of Berlin film screening
A discovery was made in 2004 in a dusty church basement outside Frankfurt, Germany that re-wrote history. Before the briefcase full of papers was found, only a friend knew for sure that Elisabeth Schmitz was perhaps the most forceful voice of Christian resistance against the Nazis. This discovery connected a forgotten woman to the most tumultous events of the 20th century. Who was this courageous woman?
Candler School of Theology proudly hosts a premier screening of “Elisabeth of Berlin,” the latest film by director Steven D. Martin. Co-sponsored by the Office of Student Programming, the Graduate Division of Religion, and the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies.
For more information on this screening, please visit the Candler School of Theology website.
Friday, November 12th, 2008
11:00 a.m.
Candler School of Theology, Room 252
Lunch is provided
How Danaydah is becoming Dvorah: A Cuban Journey to Israel
-Ruth Behar (University of Michigan)
with a response by Joyce Flueckinger (Religion)
Globalization seduces women. It makes them dream of other places, far away, where they feel certain they will find the happiness that eludes them at home. Eighteen-year-old Danayda arrived in Beersheva in November, 2007. She is part of a small community of Cubans of Jewish heritage who are remaking their lives in Israel. As a black Cuban woman, Danayda faces race, class, and cultural prejudices daily. But there is no turning back. And so she concentrates on becoming Dvorah, a woman who didn’t exist in Cuba.
Ruth Behar was born in Havana, Cuba and grew up in New York City. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Award, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Distinguished Alumna Award from Wesleyan University. She has worked as a cultural anthropologist in Spain, Mexico, and Cuba. Her books include The Presence of the Past in a Spanish Village, Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza’s Story, and The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology That Breaks Your Heart. Her recent book, An Island Called Home: Returning to Jewish Cuba, is a blend of memoir, ethnography, and photography that tells the story of her quest to get to know the Jewish community that remains on the island she left as a child. She is also co-editor of Women Writing Culture, and editor of Bridges to Cuba, a pioneering forum of culture and art by Cubans on the island and in the diaspora. Her latest anthology is The Portable Island: Cubans at Home in the World, co-edited with Lucía Suárez. In addition to scholarly work, she writes essays, poetry, and fiction, which can be found in King David’s Harp: Autobiographical Essays by Jewish Latin American Writers; Telling Stories: An Anthology for Writers; Burnt Sugar/Caña Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English and Spanish; Sephardic American Voices: Two Hundred Years of a Literary Legacy; and Little Havana Blues: A Cuban-American Literature Anthology. Her work as a filmmaker led her to write, direct, and produce Adio Kerida/Goodbye Dear Love: A Cuban Sephardic Journey, a feature-length documentary distributed by Women Make Movies, which has been shown around the world. She is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Further information about her work is available on her web site: www.ruthbehar.com. This lecture is part of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Seminar Series.
Co-sponsored by Emory University Graduate School's New Thinkers, New Leaders Fund and the LaBelle Birnbaum Tenenbaum Enrichment Fund.
Friday, November 14th, 2008
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Jones Room, Woodruff Library
SUMMARY OF RUTH BEHAR'S TALK
"How was spring trimmed at the apple gardens": Abba Kovner sings the Holocaust
- Ofra Yeglin (Emory University, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies)
with a response by Shalom Goldman (MESAS)
Abba Kovner (1919-1987) was a leftist art student when he famously exhorted his fellow Jews in the Vilna ghetto to take up arms and not to go as sheep to the slaughter. A partisan commander and one of the founders of the Berihah (illegal emigration), he made his way back to Europe in 1945 armed with enough poison to kill six million Germans; he went on to become the officer of cultural activities during the Israeli war of Independence (1948), a central witness at the Eichmann trail (1961), and the creator of “The Diaspora House” (Beth Hatefutsoth), the museum of the Jewish people (1978), which established an entirely new concept of what a Jewish museum should be.
Kovner is also one of Israel's most profound and original poets. His lifetime endeavor to “sing the Holocaust” in ten lengthy poems encompasses all available genres, bringing the essence of poetic language “down” to the earth of history with compellingly surprising insight. In the era of the loss and disappearance of intimate personal Holocaust experiences and the decline of collective historical accounts and ceremonies—and after we have listened carefully to Paul Celan's poetry in German—it is time to listen to Kovner's Hebrew song of testimony.
Ofra Yeglin is Assistant Professor at Emory University's Department of Middle East and South Asian Studies. This lecture is part of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Seminar Series.
Co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University Graduate School's New Thinkers, New Leaders Fund, and the LaBelle Birnbaum Tenenbaum Enrichment Fund.
Friday, December 5th
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Candler Library Room 212 (JS Seminar Room)
SUMMARY OF OFRA YEGLIN'S TALK
"Beer, the Bible, and Archaeology"
- Michael Homan (Xavier University, Louisiana)
Part of the Mediterranean Archaeology Lecture Series.
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
7:00 p.m.
Carlos Museum
"Coffee and the Moral Order: How Ethiopian Jewish Pentecostals and Messianic Jews are Challenging the Meaning of Jewishness in Israel"
- Don Seeman (Emory University, Religion Department)
Part of the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Graduate Seminar Series.
Friday, January 30th, 2009
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Place: TBA
The Aesthetics and Ethics of Mystification: Der Nister's "Flora"
- Erik Butler (Department of German Studies)
with a response by Sander Gilman (ILA)
Der Nister, the penname adopted by the underappreciated Yiddish author Pinkhas Kahanovich (1884-1950), translates to "The Hidden One." The pseudonym points toward a strategy of concealment-and intermittent disclosure-that the author performs in his works.
This paper explores how, in the short story "Flora" (1946), Der Nister's signature, chiaroscuro style captures the ambiguities of "reality" (virklekhkayt). Far from merely representing an aesthetic tendency toward obscurity, Der Nister's riddling prose gives symbolic form to a historical situation-life under Nazi occupation-that was characterized by radical uncertainty and the ever-present possibility of betrayal. Through the author's skillful vagueness, the fiction transforms into something resembling actual fact, and dark deeds are revealed as sources of light in the historical night.
Although the paper examines the text primarily through the lens of literary criticism, I frame my reading with a discussion of relevant, Hasidic forms of piety, as well as reflections on the less-than-straightforward kinds of sociability that have been documented in the underground milieu in which Der Nister situates his tale.
Friday, February 13th, 2009
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Place: TBA
"Mysticism in Modern Hebrew Literature"
Ben Gurion University Emerita Professor Hamutal Bar-Yosef - a noted poet, translator, and literature researcher - will present a talk as part of the Tam Institute's ongoing 2008-2009 seminar series.
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
4:00 p.m.
"On the Eve: The Jews of Europe Before the Second World War"
University of Chicago Professor Bernard Wasserstein will present the 11th annual Stein Lecture on Modern Jewish and Israeli History. Sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Modern Israel and co-sponsored by the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies. For more information, please visit the ISMI web page.
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009
7:00 p.m.
Miller-Ward Alumni House (815 Houston Mill Road)
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