May 5-6, 2011
The workshop will explore the complex of notions that revolve around the breach between external manifestations and inner states, intentions, and beliefs; a complex of notions that lie at the foundations, and have figured in the origins, of the “three Abrahamic religions”: notions like hypocrisy, duplicity, and dissimulation.
All sessions will take place in Swift Hall, Common Room, 1025 East 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.
Conference Schedule:
Thursday, May 5
Session 1: 9:30-11:15
David Nirenberg (Chicago), Introduction and Overview of the Issues
Gabriel R. Lear (Chicago), “Appearing As You Are: Plato and Epictetus”
Margaret Mitchell (Chicago), “Peter’s ‘Hypocrisy’ and Paul’s: Reconciling Galatians 2:11-14 and 1 Corinthians 9:19-23”
Session 2: 11:30-1:15
Barry Wimpfheimer (Northwestern), “‘Mind-theft’ and ‘Verbal Extortion’: Hypocrisy and Dissimulation on the Boundary of Law and Lore in Rabbinic Judaism”
Fred Donner (Chicago), “Thoughts on the Qur’anic ‘hypocrites’”
Maribel Fierro (CSIC, Madrid), “Hiding and revealing in Andalusi religious sources: an overview”
Lunch Break 1:15—2:30
Session 3: 2:30-4:15
Mercedes García-Arenal (CSIC, Madrid), “Dissimulation and Eschatology: Crypto-Muslims in Early Modern Spain”
Devin Stewart (Emory), “Comparative Notes on Morisco and Shiite Dissimulation”
Franklin Lewis (Chicago), “Pretenses of Piety and Taxonomies of Hypocrisy: The Struggle for Sincerity in the Persian Discourses of Spirituality, 10th-14th Centuries”
Session 4: 4:45-6:00
John McCormick (Chicago), “‘Appearances and Outcomes’: Machiavelli on Princely, Noble and Popular Deception”
Susan Schreiner (Chicago), “‘Glittering in Appearance,’ Luther on Idolatry and False Prophets”
Friday, May 6
Session 5: 9:30-11:15
Nathan Tarcov (Chicago), “Three Approaches to Simulation and Dissimulation in Religion: Alfarabi, Boccaccio, and Machiavelli”
Pawel Maciejko (Hebrew University), “Jewish crypto-Christianity in the 17th and 18th centuries”
Jane Taylor (University of the Western Cape), “‘Everyone is orthodox to himself’. From Locke to Diderot; from toleration to a theory of acting”
Session 6: 11:30-12:45
Sarah Hammerschlag (Williams and University of Chicago), “If you pardon the expression”: Dissimulation and Being-Jewish in postwar French Philosophy”
Avishai Margalit (Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton and Hebrew University),“Apostasy and Hypocrisy”
Lunch Break 12:45-2:00
Session 7: 2:00-3:30
Josef Stern (Chicago), Closing Discussion
The conference is free and open to the public. For more information, or to request a disability accommodation, contact Christina Heisser at cheisser@uchicago.edu, 773-702-7108.
This event is made possible by the Harriet and Ulrich Meyer Fund and the Aronberg Fund of the Chicago Center for Jewish Studies, in collaboration with the Committee on Social Thought, the Divinity School, and the Franke Institute for the Humanities.