The Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies

Joyce Z. and Jacob Greenberg Center for Jewish Studies
1155 East 60th Street, Room 302A
Chicago, IL 60637
773.702.7108
ccjs@uchicago.edu

 

Event Archive 2016 - Present

Public lecture by Kenneth Moss

Description: 
Title TBD. Kenneth Moss is Associate Professor, Felix Posen Chair in Modern Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University. 'I study modern Jewish history from the mid-18th century to the present, with a particular interest in Jewish political, intellectual, and cultural histories in 19th and 20th-century Russia and Poland/Eastern Europe, Palestine, and Israel to the present day. My research to date has focused (in reverse chronological order) on East European Jewish political culture, thought, and choice in the interwar period; interwar Jewish social and moral thought, particularly evolving Jewish conceptions of the relationship between economic and political upheaval, majority-minority relations and identities, political rationality and irrationality, explanation and extrapolation, power and powerlessness, and futurity and risk; the history and sociology of Jewish nationalism from the 1880s to the 1930s; the intertwined histories of Zionism and Jewish Diasporism; the history and interpretation of Yiddish and Hebrew literary culture; and the Jewish negotiation of modern concepts of culture, the aesthetic, and the secular. Currently, as I complete a book on interwar Polish Jewish political culture, my research interests are turning toward the post-war world, with particular interests in the history of Israeli thought, culture, planning, and extrapolation regarding the future; the persistence/resurgence of Jewish religiosity especially in non-liberal forms; the history of American Yiddish literary culture as a site of social thought and historical reflection on the American century. My teaching interests extend across a wide array of topics in modern Jewish history as well as 20th century and contemporary social theory; the history and sociology of nationalism; the institution of culture; the history of religion in modernity. My current book project, provisionally entitled The Unchosen People: Danger, Powerlessness and the Recasting of Polish Jewish Culture, Thought, and Politics in the Age of Fascism, is under advanced contract from Harvard University Press.'
Date: 
Wednesday, November 20, 2019
Category: 
Lectures

Conference: Jewish Difference Under Empire

Description: 
Jewish Difference Under Empire:Identity and Alterity across the Maghreb, France, and Israel/Palestine Scholarship in Jewish studies has become increasingly attentive to the impact of colonial expansion and transnational exchange on Jewish life and writing. As the editors of the recent volume, Colonialism and the Jews put it: “In failing to grapple with colonialism, Jewish historians disregarded essential dimensions of the modern Jewish experience. In European colonies from the British antipodes to French North Africa, Jewish economic, religious, and social life was transformed in important ways by the encounter with empire.” Taking this as our starting point, we aim to continue conversations about the overlaps between Judaism and “other Others,” to use and expand Sergei Dogolpolski’s term. The goal is not to create an overarching theory of alterity, but to explore new possibilities for conceptualizing the production of race, minority, and difference, and the philosophical and political responses generated out of those experiences.
Date: 
Monday, November 18, 2019

Lecture by Nitzan Lebovic: A Temporal Turn: Buber, Benjamin, Arendt, and Celan

Description: 
A Temporal Turn: Buber, Benjamin, Arendt, and Celan A German Jewish Time, tells the story of a group of twentieth-century Jewish intellectuals who grappled ceaselessly with concepts of time and temporality. The project brings into dialogue key thinkers, including the philosopher of religion Martin Buber, the critical theorist Walter Benjamin, the political scientist Hannah Arendt, and the poet Paul Celan, who stand at the center of our contemporary understanding of religion, critical theory, politics, and literature. All four, and many colleagues around them who identified with their approaches saw time—not space—as the key to their individual and collective experience, rejecting definitions of self based on borders, territory, or geographic/national origin. Short Bio: Nitzan Lebovic received his B.A. in History and Theory of Literature from Tel Aviv University and his Ph.D. from UCLA. His first book, titled The Philosophy of Life and Death: Ludwig Klages and the Rise of a Nazi Biopolitics (2013) focuses on the circle around the Lebensphilosophie and anti-Semitic thinker Ludwig Klages. His second book, Zionism and Melancholy: The Short Life of Israel Zarchi, came out in Hebrew in 2015 and was published in June 2019 with the 'New Jewish Philosophy and Thought' series at Indiana University Press. He is also co-editor of The Politics of Nihilism (2014) and of Catastrophes: A History and Theory of an Operative Concept (2014), and has edited special issues of Rethinking History (Nihilism), Zmanim (Religion and Power), The New German Critique (Political Theology), Comparative Literature and Culture (Complicity and Dissent), and Political Theology (Prophetic Politics).
Date: 
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Category: 
Lectures

New Budapest Orpheum Society: 'Every Voice of Comfort Pierced My Heart'

Description: 
“Every Voice of Comfort Pierced My Heart” — The New Budapest Orpheum Society Commemorates Kristallnach The New Budapest Orpheum Society Julia Bentley, mezzo-soprano Philip V. Bohlman, artistic director and commentary Jim Cox, bass violin Stewart Figa, baritone Danny Howard, percussion Iordanka Kissiova, violin Ilya Levinson, arrangements, piano, and musical director Don Stille, accordion When synagogues and Jewish shops across Germany were systematically burned and the material culture of German Jews were destroyed on Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass, November 9, 1938 – the full force of anti-Semitism and the violence that would transform it into the final stages of the Shoah were unleashed. With this afternoon of commemoration in Fulton Hall the New Budapest Orpheum Society, the ensemble-in-residence of the Humanities Division, gathers songs of remembrance and resistance to give voice to the Jewish lives that were driven from Germany and, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, from elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. Of even greater significance are the voices of those who did not survive, but whose struggle and dignity are present in the Jewish music of survival. During the course of this commemoration performance, the ensemble weaves testimonies from the witnesses to Kristallnacht into the narrative of the program, again enhancing the voices that were not silenced. The repertory of commemoration ranges from folk song to art song, songs of exile and songs of survival, the music of sacrifice and the music of redemption, with compositions by Paul Dessau, Mordechai Gebirtig, Ilya Levinson, Darius Milhaud, and singer-songwriters from diverse European cabaret scenes.
Date: 
Sunday, November 10, 2019

Conference: Rabbinic Judaism and Its Contexts

Description: 
RABBINIC JUDAISM AND ITS CONTEXTS *** SUNDAY : CLASSICS BLDG *** MONDAY: SWIFT HALL (3rd floor) Rabbinic Judaism was born twice, in the spaces and cultures of Roman Palestine and Sasanian Iran. Rabbinic lore and argument must be understood in relation to these contexts, even in its desire to stand apart from them. The conference celebrates a new generation of scholarship, dedicated to historical, comparative and critical readings of the rabbis and their texts. The papers will speak to the broadest possible audience, and the conference will conclude with a general discussion in which all are invited to participate. Please see the website for schedule and details.
Date: 
Sunday, November 10, 2019

Naomi Chazan - 'Gender and Democracy in Israel'

Description: 
Visiting Patinkin Professor Naomi Chazan will give a public lecture on Thursday, November 7. Naomi Chazan is professor emerita of Political Science and African Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and co-director of the Center for the Advancement of Women in the Public Sphere at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, where she is also a senior research fellow. Active in a variety of women’s, human rights, and peace organizations, she was one of the founders of the Israel Women’s Network and served as president of the New Israel Fund. Prof. Chazan was first elected to the Knesset in 1992 on the Meretz ticket and was a Knesset Member for three terms, until 2003. She served as Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and was a member of the Economics, Foreign Affairs and Defense, Education, Immigration, and Status of Women committees. She has written and edited many books on comparative politics and has published numerous articles on African politics, the Israeli-Arab conflict, politics in Israel, and the status of women.
Date: 
Thursday, November 7, 2019
Category: 
Lectures

David Harris - Hebrew Bible Workshop

Description: 
PhD student David Harris, Near Eastern Languages and Literatures, will present a paper for the Hebrew Bible Workshop. Location to be determined. For information, contact workshop coordinator Justin Moses at jpmoses@uchicago.edu.
Date: 
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Category: 
Workshops

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