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Tam Institute for Jewish Studies Seminar Series:
Fall 2009

Upcoming event(s):

"Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: Nation Beyond State in Jewish Political Thought, 1917-1948"
- Noam Painko (University of Washington)
- Discussant: Don Seeman (Department of Religion, Emory University)

 

Today, Zionism is understood as a national movement whose primary historical goal was the establishment of a Jewish state. However, Zionism's association with national sovereignty was not foreordained. This lecture introduces a stream of  Zionist thought that challenged the model of a sovereign nation-state. Key interwar Jewish intellectuals conceived of alternate paradigms of national cohesion that disconnected national identity from political citizenship. Recovering these roads not taken helps us to reimagine Jewish identity and collectivity, past, present, and future.

 

Friday, November 20th, 2009
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Candler Library, Room 125

Pianko Seminar Paper

Previous event(s):

"Echoes of the Spanish Civil War in Palestine: History and Memory"
- Raanan Rein (Distinguished Visiting Professor, Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry, Tel Aviv University)
- Discussant: Patrick Allitt (Department of History, Emory University)

 

For those who lived through it, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 was a life-changing event. In its struggle for survival, the Second Republic succeeded in rallying to its support almost 40,000 volunteers from 53 different countries. But as the vast literature on the International Brigades testifies, volunteers brought to Spain definitions of “friend” and “foe” and “right” and “wrong” that grew out of their own experiences “back home.” Raanan Rein examines the reactions of Jewish society in Palestine to the civil war, as well as the story of the volunteers who left Palestine in order to fight for the Republic. Despite much ideological sympathy in Palestine, active support there for the Spanish Republic was neither unequivocal nor unconditional. Rather, solidarity with Spain was refracted through the prism of local political reality.

 

Friday, October 30th, 2009
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Candler Library, Room 125

 

"Psychoanalysis and Jews in Argentina: The Case of Jose Bleger: Zionist, Psychoanalyst and Marxist"
- Mariano Plotkin (Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Argentina)
- Discussant: Robert A. Paul (Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, Emory University)

Due to the historical conditions of its implantation, and unlike in other countries, psychoanalysis was not considered a "Jewish science" in Argentina. Most of the leaders of the first generation of analysts were not Jewish. Moreover, the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association, created in 1942, has always claimed to be an apolitical institution. This presentation focuses on one particular analyst: Jose Bleger, who stands out because he was at the same time a member of the Communist Party and a Jewish militant.

 

Friday, October 16th, 2009
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Candler Library, Room 125

 

"From Father, From Son: Generational Perspectives in Christoph and Jakob Hein"
- Caroline Schaumann (Department of German Studies, Emory University)
- Discussant: Hazel Gold (Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Emory University)

While generational literature most commonly addresses family history from the viewpoint of children or grandchildren, in this paper, Schaumann juxtaposes two works that complement each other in their seemingly opposite familial perspective. Both the renowned GDR playwright and writer Christoph Hein (born 1944) and his son, physician and writer Jakob Hein (born 1971), base their works on Christiane Hein’s premature death from breast cancer in 2002.

Christoph Hein fictionalizes his wife’s death in a book for children, whereas his son, Jakob Hein, deliberates his mother’s death in an autobiographical text that unravels the parental and grandparental family history. The respective familial gaze allows each author to go beyond patriarchal tradition and expand narrow definitions of father literature and family novels: while the father expresses loss through the ingenuous eyes of a child, the son takes the loss of his mother as a point of departure to examine mediated memories of parents and grandparents alike, negotiating the tensions of a heritage that includes both Jewish and non-Jewish relatives.

 

Friday, September 25th, 2009
9:30-11:00 a.m.
Candler Library, Room 125

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