2006-07 Lectures

 

"A Manufactured Crisis:
Facts, Fiction, and the Politics of a Nuclear Iran"
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Assistant Professor of History and Sociology
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

April 23 , 2007
3:00 PM
Ridgley Hall, Room 219

Cosponsored with the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures and the Department of History

"Temple Treasures in the Dead Sea Caves:
New Insights from Archaeology"
Richard A. Freund
Maurice Greenberg Professor of Jewish History
Director, Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies
University of Hartford

April 20, 2007
11:00 AM
Lab Sciences 301

 

"Mittehwaerts" (Lyrik)
Ursula Krechel
Max Kade Fellow, Berlin

and

"Ohnebin. Roman"
Doron Rabinovici
Max Kade Writer in Residence, Vienna

April 19 , 2007
6:15 PM
Hurst Lounge

Cosponsored with the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

The authors will be reading their work in German.

 

"Survival Strategies:
Interpreting Islam in Central Asia,
Past and Present "
Devin DeWeese
Professor of Central Eurasian Studies
Director, Denis Sinor Institute for Inner Asian Studies
Indiana University, Bloomington

March 30, 2007
11:00 AM
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall

The talk will center on the problem of religious "survivals," in this case, elements of pre-Islamic religious traditions believed to survive in and shape the practice and world view of Muslims, as a way of understanding Islam in Cental Asia in the context of various academic constituencies that have employed it (colonial, nationalist, Soviet, sovietological, and others). Prof. DeWeese will focus on examples drawn from his work on the Yasavi Sufi tradition of Central Asia and discuss some implications of this strategy for the ways in which Islam in contemporary Central Asia is analyzed today.

 

"1943: The Jewish World at Ground Zero "
David G. Roskies
Sol and Evelyn Henkind Chair in Yiddish Literature and Culture
Professor of Jewish Literature
Jewish Theological Seminary, New York
2006-07 J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Senior Scholar-in-Residence
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

March 29, 2007
8:00 PM
McDonnell Hall, Room 162

Cosponsored with the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures

 

Prof. Roskies's talk will explain how, contrary to popular belief, the Jewish world was not silent during the Holocaust. In every language, everywhere within the war zone and on the home front, and in every form of self-expression, Jews gave voice to their grief, rage, pride, and protest. In the course of one year, as they learned of the annihilation of European Jewry, they began to pray for victory and vengeance, to exalt martyrdom and resistance, to confess their sins of omission and comission, to mobilize for rescue and radical renewal, and to mourn their incalculable losses.

For additional information, especially about parking, please call 314-935-8567.

 

"Through Love to a New Jewish Womanhood:
The Independent Order of True Sisters, 1846-1918 "
Cornelia Wilhelm
Visiting Professor
Bildner Center for Jewish Studies
Rutgers University

March 6, 2007
2:30 PM
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall

The talk focuses on a women's group that used the model of fraternal organization to create a way for Jewish women to enter the public sphere and redefine their new role in both contemporary Judaism and American society.

 

"The Limits of Intellectual Daring:
Freethinking and Its Role in Medieval Islamic Society "
Sarah Stroumsa
Alice and Jack Ormut Professor of Arabic Studies
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

March 6, 2007
4:15 PM
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall

Cosponsored with the Program in Religious Studies

 

"The Afterlife of Orphism:
Jewish, Christian and Gnostic Perspectives "
Guy Stroumsa
Martin Buber Professor of Comparative Religion
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

March 5 , 2007
4:15 PM
Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall

Cosponsored with the Department of Classics and
The Program in Religious Studies

 

Prof. Roskies's talk will explain how, contrary to popular belief, the Jewish world was not silent during the Holocaust. In every language, everywhere within the war zone and on the home front, and in every form of self-expression, Jews gave voice to their grief, rage, pride, and protest. In the course of one year, as they learned of the annihilation of European Jewry, they began to pray for victory and vengeance, to exalt martyrdom and resistance, to confess their sins of omission and comission, to mobilize for rescue and radical renewal, and to mourn their incalculable losses.

For additional information, especially about parking, please call 314-935-8567.

 

 

"Traditional Judaism, Modern Technology:
The Challenge of Medical Ethics"
Hillel Gray
The University of Chicago

February 27 , 2007
4:00 PM
McDonnell Hall, Room 362

This talk discusses and raises questions about the application of premodern Jewish literature to contemporary technologies. How do rabbinic principles and vignettes, such as the woodchopper, shape contemporary medical technology decisions? Do American Jewish medical ethics today draw from Jewish sources alone?

 

"Local Narrative Forms and
the Construction of the Arabic Novel "
Mohamed-Salah Omri
University of Exeter

February 27 , 2007
3:00 PM
Brown Hall, Room 118

 

"Women's Tales and Subaltern Performance: Refiguring the Folk in Egyptian Feminist Theatre"

Sonali Pahwa
Columbia University

February 22 , 2007
3:00 PM
Ridgley Hall , Room 122

 

"The Jew Usually Left Those Crimes to Esau:
Jewish Responses to Accusations Regarding Jewish Criminality in New York City, 1908-1912"

Gil Ribak
University of Wisconsin, Madison

February 19 , 2007
4:00 PM
McDonnell Hall, Room 362

The talk focuses on the responses of Jewish communal activists, leaders, intellectuals, and the Yiddish press to allegations regarding crimes committed by Jews and purported Jewish criminality. Those reactions reflected not only the tension between Jewish self-image and a certain social reality, but also many Jewish imigrants' distrust of the Gentile accusers and their motives. .

 

"Tongues of Men and the Word of God:
Language, Interpretation and the Qur'an "

Bruce Fudge
Harvard University

February 8, 2007
4:00 PM
Ridgley Hall, Room 122

 

Holocaust Memorial Lecture

David Rieff

November 8, 2006

In his book, A Bed for the Night, and in numerous articles and essays, Rieff tries to gauge the effectiveness of humanitarian aid that he has witnessed. While greatly admiring aid workers, he challenges the traditional Western perspective that all humanitarian aid is good, and posits whether our collective ideology regarding the desire to help people in need often conflicts with the harsh and overwhelming realities on the ground.

 

"Maimonides as Physician:
Medicine in the 12th Century"

Fred Rosner

November 6, 2006

 

Boniuk Lecture in Jewish Medical Ethics

"An Overview of Jewish Medical Ethics"

Fred Rosner, M.D., F.A.C.P.
Former Director of the Department of Medicine, Queens Hospital Center and Professor of Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

November 5, 2006
Sponsored by
The Center for Study of Ethics and Human Values

 

"Exercises in Being Jewish Poems and Prose"

Esther Dischereit

October 26, 2006

Esther Dischereit's work explores the desire to escape the burden of being Jewish, a weight that she feels has been placed on her in part by non-Jewish Germans and by the events of the Holocaust. Her mother survived World War II in hiding, and she grew up in West Germany before moving to Berlin, where she now is a major intellectual voice. Through op-eds, film and book reviews, and articles in newspapers and magazines, she dissects what it is like to be Jewish in Germany today.

In her works, she “presents Jews not as outsiders to German society but as major participants within that society where Jewishness or Germanness are but two markers of identity.” She is also one of Germany's most well-respected feminist writers. Her most important works include the novel “When my Golem opened itself to me” and the essay “Lessons in being Jewish.”

Co-sponsored by the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and
the Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies Program

 

 

“Art of the Hebrew Book”

Brad Sabin Hill
Dean of the Library and Senior Research Librarian
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York

September 15, 2006

Co-sponsored by the Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures Department, the Jewish, Islamic and Near Eastern Studies Program and the Committee on Comparative Literature