email : Webview : Summer News at the Katz Center

SUMMER NEWSLETTER

In this edition of the newsletter, we look back at the 2017–2018 academic year, including the culminating Gruss Colloquium, a two day conference exploring the history of Judaism’s engagement with science. We also feature the newly released video mini-course on the Jewish Italian Renaissance, produced in conjunction with the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, and celebrate the career of Judith Leifer, who has retired after 30 years at Penn. Read on for more details and for additional highlights from the Katz Center.

Interested in seeing news, videos, and announcements more often? Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

GRUSS COLLOQUIUM

The Katz Center hosted the 24th Annual Gruss Colloquium in April and welcomed area as well as international scholars at the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center for panels focused on the theme of “Science and Transformation in Jewish Culture.” Click here to see the full program and click the above video tile to watch a set of lectures that tell fascinating and diverse stories about the complex intersection of Jews and medicine in the 20th century, stories that touch on race, gender, and nation.

Also read reflections by the fellows who constructed the final colloquium program, on their thinking about the process as a whole by clicking here. You can read closing summary remarks by adjunct fellow Annette Yoshiko Reed by clicking here.

ADVANCED SUMMER SCHOOL FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS

The Katz Center and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Hebrew University of Jerusalem hosted the Advanced Summer School for Graduate Students in Jewish Studies at 420 Walnut Street in June. With a theme focused on the supernatural in Jewish history and culture, the week-long program brought 25 graduate students and 15 faculty members together for an immersive experience in interdisciplinary Jewish studies, exposing them to innovative scholarship, broadening their intellectual perspectives, and allowing them to engage with internationally recognized scholars as well as their peers from around the world.

Visit our blog to learn more about the program and stay tuned for an announcement of the topic and application for next year's program.

VIDEO MINI-COURSE

The Tabernacle in Word & Image: An Italian Jewish Manuscript Revealed

The Katz Center and the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) have recently announced the launch of an open-access video mini-course taught by Alessandro Guetta (Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales, Paris). He shows how Jews both imbibed and transformed the Italian Renaissance though his examination of a 17th-century manuscript describing the building of the biblical Tabernacle. Professor Guetta was the SIMS-Katz Distinguished Fellow in Jewish Manuscripts Studies for 2017–2018. The course, “The Tabernacle in Word & Image: An Italian Jewish Manuscript Revealed,” can be found here.

Click here to read the official mini-course launch announcement and here for a blog post authored by Guetta himself.

JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW

Click here for an overview of the contents of the current issue of the Jewish Quarterly Review (108.2, Spring 2018). With work by Francis Borchardt, Lily Okalani Kahn, Francesca Bregoli, Soli Shahvar, and Martin Kavka, JQR 108.2 contains research ranging from the Temple Scroll to 20th-century Jewish philosophy.

BLOG ROUNDUP

Interviews with Fellows

Center director Steve Weitzman sits down with two fellows from the 2017–2018 year to learn more about what compels their scholarship, how their time at the Center has affected their work, and what they see on the horizon.

Agata Paluch on the Literature of Early Modern Practical Kabbalah of East-Central Europe.

Julia Watts Belser on the Talmud, Disability Studies, and Environmental Humanities.

"Raphael Levi Hannover, First Known Jewish Copernican"

Past fellow Matt Goldish (2013–2014) examines a manuscript housed in the Library at the Katz Center for the legacy of Jewish Copernicanism and its link to an obscure Ashkenazi bookkeeper.

"JQR 108.2: Linguistics and History"

This blog post takes a focused look at the current issue's free article, “The Kitsur shulḥan ‘arukh, Hasidic Tale, and Maskilic Literature as Exemplars of Ashkenazic Hebrew,” by Lily Okalani Kahn.

AT THE CENTER

At the end of June, longtime Library at the Katz Center staff member Judith Leifer retired. A book of letters sent by staff and past fellows of the Katz Center was created to honor her thirty years of service. Click here to read Arthur Kiron’s introductory note to the thoughtful compilation.

Help ensure that the Katz Center will continue to serve as a laboratory for curiosity-driven research. Your support will enable us to expand the study and knowledge of Jewish civilization in a global context and propel the field of Judaic studies into the 21st century and beyond.

Support the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

Manage your preferences | Opt out using TrueRemove™
Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.
View this email online.

420 Walnut St
Philadelphia, PA | 19106 US

This email was sent to .
To continue receiving our emails, add us to your address book.