Yair Wallach - “A City in Fragments”

In A City in Fragments (2020), Yair Wallach (University of London) explores “Jerusalem’s forgotten textual artifacts” dating from the mid-nineteenth century to the war of 1948. “Especially attracted to the little-noticed, half-erased texts: worn-out stone inscriptions, lettering on sewage covers, mysterious acronyms on gates and facades, faded ceramic street nameplates,” Wallach writes that “the texts of the city during this turbulent century registered the dramatic changes and violent ruptures in the modern history of the city: they were chronicles of construction and destruction, heritage preservation and modern development, occupation and displacement.” Dr. Wallach will be joined by respondents Basil Salem (Collegiate Assistant Professor, Dept. of History) and Andrew Katzenstein Atwell (PhD student, Dept. of Anthropology). and the discussion will be moderated by Orit Bashkin, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History, Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. To register for this virtual event, go to https://uchicago.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0sdO6tqT0rEtFAb2e9nOU6oFIWVA0Cdelu. This event is part of the series Greenberg Book Conversations, sponsored by the Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies and the Seminary Co-op Bookstore. For more information, contact the administrator of the Greenberg Center, Nancy Pardee, at npardee@uchicago.edu.