The David R. Blumenthal Award in Jewish Studies and the Humanities was established in 1999 by Professor Blumenthal's friends and colleagues in his honor. The award is given to Emory students (graduate and undergraduate) who submit the best papers that link the knowledge, insights, values, and perspectives of Jewish realities to broader human concerns in thought or action; in ethics, language and linguistics, literature, theology, exegesis, law, or the arts.
Click here for submission guidelines.
Winners
2009
Andrea Marcardis (Undergraduate winner): "Responsum Regarding the Difficult Decisions of an Emergency Room Physician"
Craig Perry (Ph.D. student winner): "The Cairo Geniza and the Persistence of Cultural Hybridity"
Lee Ann Bambach (Ph.D. student honorable mention): "The Enforceability of Arbitration Decisions Made by Muslim Religious Tribunals: Examining the Beth Din Precedent."
2008
Joshua Neuman (Undergraduate winner): "haHolkhi baHoshekh: the Canaanite National Plan in Poetry"
Caitlin Stewart (Ph.D. student winner): "'If Jews themselves are divided, how can we decide?' American Protestants Respond to Zionism, 1938-1948"
2006
Leah Wolfson (Ph.D. student winner): "Listening to the Dead: The Traumatic Testimony of Claude Lanzmann's Shoah."
Dan Leshem (Ph.D. student honorable mention): "Water Fierce Dream: Primo Levi's Poetic Fugue."
2005
Mollie Lewis (Ph.D. student winner): "Making Argentina a Jewish Homeland: Zionism and Israel, 1925-1935"
Katie Heffelfinger (Ph.D. student honorable mention): "Peering Across the Abyss: Fackenheim's Abyss and an Attempt at a Fraternal Reading of Jeremiah 31"
Alison Joseph (Master's student winner): "Genesis 34: A Family Violated"
Marian Broida (Master's student honorable mention): "Lamentations 1 and 2: Metaphor and Meaning in the Destruction of Jerusalem"
Lisa Harrow (Undergraduate winner): "Jewish American Gangsters"
Stacey Dembo (Undergraduate honorable mention): "Jewish and African American Representations at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893"
Photo of award recipients
2004
Sarah Willen (Graduate winner): "'Flesh of Our Flesh'?: Configurations and Experiences of 'Illegality' among Undocumented Migrant Leaders in Tel Aviv" (See note below.)
Dan Leshem (Graduate honorable mention): "'Body=Pain=Death': Jean Améry, Torture and Testimony"
Nathan Hofer (Graduate honorable mention): "Finding Meaning in Meaninglessness"
Roselyn Paskow (Undergraduate winner): "The Jewish American Home Front"
Sarah Littlefield (Undergraduate honorable mention): "A Jewish Perspective on the Separation of Conjoined Twins"
2002
Marni Davis (Graduate winner): "Jews and Booze in the New South"
Emily Saffitz (Undergraduate winner): "Memorandum to President Chace on Holocaust Denial"
Dov Grohsgal (Undergraduate honorable mention): "Coalition: Jews, Blacks, and the NAACP"
2001
Martin J. Wein, "Notes on the Role of Jewish Studies in the Academy"
Note: Sarah Willen's winning paper from 2004 has been revised and appears as “Birthing ‘Invisible’ Children: State Power, NGO Activism, and Reproductive Health among Undocumented Migrant Workers in Tel Aviv, Israel.” in the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies 1(2): 55-88 (June 2005).
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