The May E-News has been released. Click the cover to learn about the latest news in the Center!
Author: Pamela Weathers
Professor Daniel Hershenzon Awarded Fellowship
We extend our congratulations to our colleague, Daniel Hershenzon, on receiving a UCHI internal fellowship for next year. Dr. Hershenzon is an assistant professor in the department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages. His fellowship topic is: “Captivity, Commerce, and Communication: Early Modern Spain and the Mediterranean.” We look forward to learning about his research.
Mazel Tov!
Professor Lewis Gordon Presents on the History of Jews of Color
Lewis Gordon, professor of Philosophy and Africana Studies, presented “Hidden Communities: Jews of Color in North America” as part of the Center for Judaic Studies’ Road Show series. The event was held on April 17 at the West Hartford Public Library and sponsored by Kehilat Chaverim.
Professor Gordon spoke to a large turnout on the history of Jews of color and their absence from the historical narratives most are familiar with and reflected on the importance of recognizing the full spectrum of Jewish diversity.
Professor Lewis Gordon teaches courses in philosophy, Africana studies, and Judaic studies at UConn and at universities in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean.
Predoctoral Fellowships Awarded to Four Graduate Students
With the support of the Graduate School, the Center for Judaic Studies has awarded four, faculty nominated, graduate students with $1500 predoctoral fellowships for their summer research. Congratulations!
Adane Zawdu (Department of Sociology):
Managing Differences in Everyday Life: Ethnoracial Categories, Social Boundaries, and National Belonging in Israel
My project is based on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Israel, in which I explore the different ways Ethiopian-Israelis’ gain group distinctiveness in three different contexts: everyday lives; State institutions and bureaucracy; and political mobilization. More broadly, I look at processes, mechanisms, and practices that structure why and how certain categories of difference become consequential for social relations and political mobilization, while others do not.
Jessica Strom (Department of History):
Adriano Lemmi: Banker of the Italian National Revolution
My project reconstructs Adriano Lemmi’s activities and position in the clandestine networks that funded revolutionary leaders during the period known as the Risorgimento, explaining why this Tuscan merchant was willing to commit his money and influence to fund revolutionary nationalist projects aimed at unifying Italy and secure its political independence. While scholars have disagreed about whether or not Lemmi’s family was Jewish, it is clear that both in Livorno and in Constantinople he came into close contact with many Jewish merchants who were part of wide-reaching business networks. Relationships cultivated with these Jewish merchants were instrumental to the success of Lemmi’s mercantile activities, yet they remain largely unexplored.
Mohammed Kadalah (Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages)
My project undertakes a study of contemporary Syrian literature within the context of modern trauma studies. This summer I will be preparing for my comprehensive examinations in the fields of trauma studies, war literature and testimony, and contemporary Arabic literature.
Kerry Carnahan (Department of English):
My project is to undertake a new translation of the Song of Songs accompanied by an exegetical commentary. This summer I will prepare a scholarly word study on the Song, explore its Kabbalistic interpretations, and immerse myself in the ancient cultic origins of the text.
2016 Israel Academic Travel Award Winners Announced
Global Affairs, Judaic Studies, and Middle East Studies are pleased to announce the Israel Academic Travel Award winners for the summer of 2016. Each student was awarded $1500 to defray the cost of their summer academic travel to Israel.
Congratulations to our awardees!
Jordan Angel: I will be working for Dynamic Shipping as a Finance Intern, spending my time doing academic research about new energy resources and renewable energy.
Yarden Canaan: I will be interning through the Onward Israel program. I expect to be assigned to the Venture Capital firm, ELEVATOR, in Tel Aviv, where I will be called upon to use my skills as an Economics and Applied Math major.
Jennifer Jacobson: I will hold an internship at the Hebrew University's Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace. During my internship, I will be assisting Dr. Micha'el Tanchum in his political research, focusing primarily on European Relations with Middle Eastern countries and particularly how the refugee crisis is altering these relationships.
We look forward to hearing about our awardees' experiences when the return!
Professor Hotam Presents “Transgression in Modern Jewish Thought”
Professor Yotam Hotam, the 2015 Horace W. Goldsmith Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies at Yale, presented “‘Transgression’ in Modern Jewish Thought” at our recent, April 20, faculty colloquium. Dr. Hotam is a lecturer in the department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education at the University of Haifa; and his research focuses on the intersections between secularism, religion, and theology in modern European and modern Jewish thought.
In his highly enjoyable presentation, Dr. Hotam examined Freud’s 1905 work, The Joke and its Relation to the Unconscious, and argued that the book, which consisted of a large collection of Freud’s “Jewish jokes,” revealed the way Freud navigated his dual identity as a lawful Jew whose parents hailed from Galicia and a secular modernist who rejected obedience to Jewish law. As Dr. Hotam explained, jokes act as a social mechanism to defy the norms of society by expressing inhibited or suppressed desires, but they also preserve the norms they attack. Freud’s jokes, according to Dr. Hotam, served much the same function in preserving his Jewish identity.
Dr. Hotam is the author of Modern Gnosis and Zionism: The Crisis of Culture, Life Philosophy and Jewish National Thought (Routledge 2013) and a co-editor of New Social Foundations for Education: Education in Post-Secular Society (Peter Lang 2015). Currently, he is working on a book project that explores the relation between the concepts of critique and theology in the writings of leading modern Jewish thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, and Theodor Adorno. We look forward to learning more about his work!
Students Awarded for Excellence
Congratulations to our student award winners who were presented with awards at the recent Literatures, Cultures, and Languages Achievement Awards ceremony.
Kerry Carnahan was awarded the Cohen and Henes Award for outstanding senior scholar in Hebrew and Judaic Studies.
Lea Anne Toubiana was awarded the Sylvia and Leo Dashefsky Family Prize in recognition of excellence in second year Hebrew.
Lorraine Gordon was awarded the Frances and Irving Seliger Memorial Award in recognition of excellence in Holocaust studies.
April 18 – Writer-in-Residence Joan Seliger Sidney Presents at 7pm at the Co-Op Bookstore in Storrs Center
Don’t miss the Center’s own writer-in-residence, Joan Seliger Sidney, Monday, April 18 at 7pm at the Co-Op Bookstore in Storrs Center where she will participate in the Roar Reading Series, presented by Elephant Rock Books!
Joan Seliger Sidney is the author of Bereft and Blessed, Body of Diminishing Motion: Poems and a Memoir (an Eric Hoffer Finalist, 2015), and The Way the Past Comes Back. She has received individual artist’s poetry fellowships from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Craig H. Neilsen Foundation, Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, also a Visiting Faculty Fellowship from Yale. She’s writer-in-residence at the University of Connecticut’s Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life. In addition, she facilitates “Writing for Your Life,” an adult workshop.
April 2016 E-News
The April E-News has been released. Click the cover to learn about the latest news in the Center and all of our upcoming events!
Guy Mendilow Ensemble Enchants
An amazing performance by the Guy Mendilow Ensemble was held at the Charter Oak Cultural Center in Hartford on April 7. The Guy Mendilow Ensemble is an award-winning quintet with a cast of world-class players who mesmerized the audience with their skill in playing a wide variety of instruments, including the Berimbau, Jaw Harps, and Thumb Piano. The unique performance, entitled “Tales from the Forgotten Kingdom,” combined storytelling with the music of the Sephardic diaspora, transporting the audience through time and place from Sarajevo to Jerusalem. The concert was sponsored by the Charter Oak Cultural Center and the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life.