Public Lecture Announcements

Deeana Klepper Presents “Exile in the Eye of the Beholder: Jews, Christians, and the Embrace of Exile in Medieval Europe” Public Lecture on 3/10/14 at 5:00pm

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Please join us for a  Public Lecture on Monday, March 10, 2014 at 5:00pm in Class of ’47 Room, Library Building.

Exile in the Eye of the Beholder: Jews, Christians, and the Embrace of Exile in Medieval Europe

By: Dr. Deeana Klepper, Associate Professor of Religion, Boston University

Professor Klepper teaches Christianity and medieval and early modern European religious history, with special interests in the place of Bible in medieval culture, the social contexts of mysticism, Christian-Jewish relations and other cross-cultural religious encounters, and the history of science. Her research focuses on approaches to biblical interpretation in the Middle Ages and medieval Christian responses to Jews and Jewish tradition.  She is the author of The Insight of Unbelievers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), which explores the complicated and contradictory attitudes toward Hebrew texts held by a variety of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Christian scholars.

This seminar is part of a series sponsored by UConn Vice President for Research, Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, Departments of English, History, Philosophy, Literatures, Cultures and Languages, the Programs in Medieval Studies and Middle East Studies, and the Konover Chair of Judaic Studies

 

“Ritual Bathing Practices and Jewish Communal Life from Ancient Galilee to Nineteenth Century Chesterfield, CT” by Stuart Miller 2/26/15 5pm LH305

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Stuart Miller will be presenting a lecture/slide presentation, co-sponsored by Department of Anthropology, titled “Ritual Bathing Practices and Jewish Communal Life from Ancient Galilee to Nineteenth Century Chesterfield, CT”  on February 26th at 5pm in Laurel Hall 305.

Professor Miller is a Professor of Hebrew, History, and Judaic Studies and Section Head of Hebrew and Judaic Studies (“HEJS”) in the Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages.  He is also the Academic Director of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, and a member of the Classics and Mediterranean Studies section.  His research interests include: Greco-Roman Palestine, Rabbinic/Talmudic Literature, History of Judaism.  Professor Miller is a specialist in the history and literature of the Jews of Roman and Late Antique Palestine and has worked closely with archaeologists, having served for many years on the staff of the Sepphoris Regional Project, and the Chesterfield project.

 

 

Paola Tartakoff to present a Public Lecture: “Conspiring Against the Inquisition: A Tale of Revenge in Medieval Spain” on 2/6/14 5:30pm

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Please join us for a  SPECIAL LECTURE On Thursday, February 6, 2014 at 5:30 p.m.

in Library  Class of ’47 Room

 “Conspiring Against the Inquisition: A Tale of Revenge in Medieval Spain“

Dr. Paola Tartakoff

Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies

Rutgers University

 

Paola Tartakoff is a social and cultural historian whose work primarily explores Jewish-Christian relations in Iberia, with a focus on religious conversion and the inquisitorial prosecution of Jews and converts. She is the author of Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Medieval Crown of Aragon (U Penn Press).

Sponsored by the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life and the Konover Chair of Judaic Studies.

For further information or if you have not received our mailings and would like to be informed of future events, please contact us at:

Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, 405 Babbidge Road, Unit 1205, Storrs, CT  06269-1205  Telephone:  (860) 486-2271  Fax:  (860) 486-6332   E-mail:  judaicstudies@uconn.edu

 

Deborah Lipstadt Lecture – 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht – 11/11/13

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Deborah Lipstadt Lecture – 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht – 11/11/13

Deborah LipstadtOn November 11, 2013, over 500 guests attended a special lecture to mark the 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht, by Professor Deborah Lipstadt, titled “Holocaust Denial: A New Form of Anti-Semitism”.  A packed auditorium and additional overflow room by live broadcast enjoyed over an hour of lecture and open discussion with Dr Lipstadt.  Dr Lipstadt is an Internationally Recognized Scholar, and Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University, and  is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles and is an internationally respected historian of the Holocaust. She has been at the forefront of efforts to confront and respond to revisionist accounts of the Nazi genocides. Professor Lipstadt first came to wider public attention when she and the publisher of her book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (1993), were sued for libel by the British historian David Irving. In a celebrated court case, Lipstadt’s attorneys brought forth irrefutable evidence of the atrocities of the Shoah, soundly defeating Irving’s accusations that Lipstadt’s depiction of him as a Holocaust-denier was false and libelous. Lipstadt went on to write a riveting memoir of the trial, History on Trial: My Day in Court with David Irving (2005).  In 2011 she published the award-winning The Eichmann Trial.

This lecture was made possible through the generous contributions of The Dodd Center, the Office of Global Affairs at UConn, the Konover Chair, the Center for Judaic Studies and the Doris and Simon Konover Chair, and the Alumni Association.  The program was also supported by the Archdiocese of Hartford, the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Hartford, the Greater Hartford Rabbinic Association, the Development Corporation for Israel, the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford, the University of Hartford’s Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies, and the Greater Hartford Jewish Federation.

The Center for Judaic Studies is extremely pleased with the interest from the public and community organizations, and thanks all of our participants for attending this event.  For further information about the programs and events sponsored by the Center for Judaic Studies, please call 860-486-2271 or by email:judaicstudies@uconn.edu.

 

Ross Brann Lecture – “An Intimate Encounter: The Jews and Classical Islam” – 10/14/13

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Ross Brann Lecture – “An Intimate Encounter: The Jews and Classical Islam” – 10/14/13

Ross BrannOn October 14th, Dr. Ross Brann, presented a public lecture at the Dodd Center, Konover Auditorium, titled “An Intimate Encourter: The Jews and Classical Islam”.

On October 15th, Dr. Ross Brann spoke to faculty and guests at a Research Seminar on the topic “Inscribing the Mediterranean Journey”.  Both events were well attended.

Dr. Brann is the Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow, and Acting Chair, Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University.  He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, New York University, and the American University in Cairo. He has taught at Cornell University since 1986 and served sixteen years as Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies.

Professor Brann is the author of The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) and Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Muslims and Jews in Islamic Spain (Princeton University Press, 2002).  He has received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania.  Brann is also the editor of four volumes and author of essays on the intersection of medieval Jewish and Islamic cultures.  He is currently working on Andalusi Moorings: Al-Andalus and Sefarad as Tropes of Muslim and Jewish Culture.

The events were sponsored by the UConn Vice President for Research, the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life, Departments of English, History, Literatures, Cultures, and Languages, Medieval Studies and Philosophy and the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies.