Author: Bhupender Singh

A Thinker Who Works Out Philosophical Problems Through Writing

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Gordon-vertical

 

For a long time, Lewis Gordon did not describe himself as a philosopher. Instead, he thought of himself as a writer working out the answers to problems through his writing. “For me every true thinker is always a thinker and something else,” says Gordon, who will arrive in Storrs next summer from Temple University, where he is a renowned philosophy professor and director of both the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies and the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought.He will join the UConn faculty as part of the University’s initiative to hire up to 500 new professors over four years, to strengthen the academic core. Click here to read more>>

Q & A with Prof. Stuart S. Miller: UConn’s Judaic Studies program enters new phase

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Posted by CindyMindell on July 11, 2012 in CT News

The Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life recently announced several developments, including the appointment of a new chair. Recently, Professor Miller spoke with the Ledger about these changes, as well as his work at the university and how his own role is changing. Click here to read more

Dr. Susan Einbinder Hired as Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies

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We are pleased to announce that Dr. Susan Einbinder has been hired as Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies. Dr. Einbinder holds a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, and was formerly Professor of Hebrew Literature at HUC-JIR/Cincinnati.

She has published two monographs on medieval Judaism, entitled No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France (U of Pennsylvania P, 2009) and Beautiful Death: Jewish Poetry and Martyrdom in Medieval France (Princeton UP, 2002); and she is currently in progress on a third, entitled Detours and Delays: On Medieval Jewish History and Literature. A 2004 recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship that allowed her to pursue research on her second book, Dr. Einbinder has also received a fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies, School of Historical Studies, as well as a grant from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. http://medievalstudies.uconn.edu/newsevents/recent-events/

Counting Jewish Communities

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Arnold DashefskyCounting the Jewish population in the U.S. and uncovering previously unknown Jewish communities has become an annual project for Arnold Dashefsky, his graduate students, and his colleagues. Dashefsky, the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies, and his colleague Ira Sheskin, a human geographer at the University of Miami, recently found that there are about 6.6 million Jews in the U.S., a figure 20 percent higher than the one reported in a 2000 National Jewish Population Survey.

The exact figure is hard to establish – defining who is a Jew is one elusive feature of a population count – but Dashefsky and Sheskin have been refining their project for five years. Each year, they are discovering new, previously unreported Jewish communities.“People who follow this issue are intrigued by it,” says Dashefsky, a sociologist who is director of the North American Jewish Data Bank, which is housed at UConn.

Population report: More Jews live in the US than in Israel

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A 2010 population report from the University of Miami and the University of Connecticut releases new estimates on American Jewish Population

CORAL GABLES, FL (October 21, 2010)–Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) and the University of Connecticut (UConn) have published a 2010 report on the American Jewish population, as part of a new North American Jewish Data Bank Report series.

Find the full report here

Chair in Judaic Studies Established with Gift from Konovers

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#12 Konovers with President Hogan

Two founding supporters of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University, Doris and Simon Konover of West Hartford, will endow the Center’s first faculty chair. The Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies will support teaching and research by a leading scholar of Jewish life, history, and religion. The endowment of a chair will enable the Center, which has just celebrated its 25th anniversary, to attract a scholar with an international reputation to develop new courses and provide research leadership in the field of Judaic Studies.

 

Religious Pluralism in the Roman Empire: The Case of the Jews – presented by Erich Gruen

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Arch_of_Titus_Menorah     PUBLIC LECTURE – March 3rd  

      “Religious Pluralism in the Roman Empire: The Case of the Jews”

       WHERE: HBL Video 1  – 2nd floor of LIBRARY AT 4PM

Erich Gruen is a Classicist and Ancient Historian whose research focuses on identity and otherness in the ancient world.  His many books include Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (1992), Heritage and Hellenism:  The Reinvention of the Jewish Tradition (1998), Diaspora:  Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans (2002), and Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (2011).

This lecture is sponsored by the Center for Judaic Studies as part of our Spring lecture series.  The public lecture is open to Faculty, Staff, Students, and the Community.  Please RSVP by emailing judaicstudies@uconn.edu.

 

 

Jewish Appropriation of Greek Mythology – Research Seminar by Erich Gruen

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    Gruen_DSC_4317-1 RESEARCH SEMINAR – March 4th  

 

      “Jewish Appropriation of Greek Mythology”

       Where: Dodd 162 AT 12:30pm

Erich Gruen is a Classicist and Ancient Historian whose research focuses on identity and otherness in the ancient world.  His many books include Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome (1992), Heritage and Hellenism:  The Reinvention of the Jewish Tradition (1998), Diaspora:  Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans (2002), and Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (2011).

This lecture is sponsored by the Center for Judaic Studies as part of our Spring lecture series.  The public lecture is open to Faculty, Staff, Students, and the Community.  Please RSVP by emailing judaicstudies@uconn.edu.

 

 

A Day with Joy Ladin, March 12, 2015

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JoJoy Ladiny Ladin will be visiting UConn on March 12, 2015, for a series of events that will take place throughout the day.

Joy Ladin’s return to Yeshiva University as a woman after receiving tenure as a man made her the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution and made page-3 news in the New York Post. Her memoir of gender transition, Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders, was a finalist for a 2012 National Jewish Book Award, and winner of a Forward Fives award, and she was named to the 2012 Forward 50 list of influential or courageous American Jews. She is also the author of six books of poetry, including Psalms and Lambda Literary Award finalist Transmigration; her seventh collection, Impersonation, is due out in 2015.

She holds the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Yeshiva University. Her work has been recognized with a Fulbright Scholarship and an American Council of Learned Societies research fellowship. She has spoken about gender identity issues around the country, and was featured on NPR’s “On Being” with Krista Tippett and other NPR programs. She serves on the Board of Keshet, a national organization devoted to full inclusion of LGTBQ Jews in the Jewish world.

Dr. Ladin will be the guest at a staged conversation with students from Dr. Jeffrey Shoulson’s Jewish American Literature and Culture Course, as well as students from some WGSS courses and any others interested in attending. This special event will begin at 11:00 am in Class of ’47 Room of the Library.  Following the class room visit, The Center for Judaic Studies will be hosting a luncheon meet and greet for Joy, in collaboration with the Rainbow Center, Women’s Center, English Department, WGSS, and Creative Writing.  All students, faculty, staff, and others are invited and welcome to attend.  The luncheon will be held in the Student Union Room 310.  Please RSVP if you will attend so that we can have accurate count for lunch.

At 4:00 pm, the Storrs-Center Co-Op Book store will host Dr. Ladin for a reading from her new published memoirs titled, “Through the Door of Life”.  This event is open to the public, and all are invited and welcome to attend.  It will be a great opportunity to hear some excerpts from her latest book.

We welcome Joy to UConn and are looking forward to a successful collaborative effort of events, and hope you all reach out and welcome Joy, and attend any of these events that you are able to!