Monday, April 26

International House, University of Pennsylvania
Yarnell Conference Center, Europe Room 3701 Chestnut Street

GREETINGS

David Ruderman, Director, Center for Advanced Judaic Studies
Samuel H. Preston, Dean, School of Arts and Sciences

THE APPEAL OF ANTIQUITY – I
Chair: Paul Guyer, University of Pennsylvania

Zev Harvey, Hebrew University/CAJS
Mendelssohn’s Aestheticizing the Medievals
Adam Shear, University of Pennsylvania/CAJS
Judah Halevi’s Kuzari in the Haskalah: The Image and Function of a Medieval Work
Joseph Yahalom, Hebrew University/CAJS
Aesthetic Models in Clash: Classicism vs. Ornamentalism in Jewish Poetics

THE APPEAL OF ANTIQUITY – II
Chair: Simon Richter, University of Pennsylva

Martin L. Davies, University of Leicester/CAJS
A Classical Enlightenment: The Modernization of German-Jewish Culture in the Late Eighteenth Century
Liliane Weissberg, University of Pennsylvania/CAJS
Classic Lives
David Sorkin, University of Wisconsin
History in the Service of Belief: The Biblical Exegesis of the Religious Enlightenment

AN EVENING OF MEDIEVAL HEBREW POETRY
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, 420 Walnut Street

Chair: Angel Badillos, Universidad Complutense, Madrid/CAJS

Raymond P. Scheindlin, Jewish Theological Seminary of America/CAJS

Tuesday, April 27

THE YEARNING FOR HOMELAND
Chair: David Stern, University of Pennsylvania

Esperanza Alfonso, Universidad Complutense, Madrid/CAJS
Constructions of Exile and Domicile in Medieval Spanish Poetry
Arthur Kiron, Columbia University/CAJS
Golden Ages, Promised Lands: Sabato Morais’ Italian Sephardic Program in Victorian America
Joshua Levisohn, Harvard University/CAJS
Vilna Maskilim and the Homeland of Hebraic Culture

REPRESENTATIONS OF GENDER AND CULTURAL IDENTITY
Chair: Beth Wenger, University of Pennsylvania

Ross Brann, Cornell University/CAJS
Mapping Representations of Jews and Muslims
Tova Rosen, Tel-Aviv University/CAJS
Circumcised Cinderella: The Fantasies of a Fourteenth-Century Jew
Katrin Tenenbaum, La Sapienza, University of Rome/CAJS
Judaism, Gender, and the Problem of Diversity in the Haskalah

Lunch Break

SHIFTING CONTEXTS OF HEBREW POETRY IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN TIMES – I
Chair: Kathryn Hellerstein, University of Pennsylvania

Rina Drory, Tel-Aviv University/CAJS
The Social Context of Love and Love Poetry
Eleazar Gutwirth, Tel-Aviv University/CAJS
Hebrew Poetry or Jewish Poetry in Christian Spain?
Elisabeth Hollender, University of Duisburg/CAJS
The Aesthetics of the Ashkenazi Piyyut

SHIFTING CONTEXTS OF HEBREW
POETRY – II
Chair: Kathryn Hellerstein, University of Pennsylvania

Alessandro Guetta, National Institute of Oriental Languages, Paris/CAJS
The Crisis of Medieval Knowledge in the Work of the Fifteenth-Century Poet and Philosopher, Moses da Rieti
Dvora Bregman, Ben-Gurion University/CAJS
Their Rose in Our Garden: Romance Poetics in Italian Hebrew Literature

AT THE INTERSECTION OF EARLY MODERN CULTURES
Chair: Ben Nathans, University of Pennsylvania

Fania Oz-Salzberger, Haifa University
A Republic of Letters? A Tower of Babel? Texts and Ideas on the Move in the European Enlightenment

IMAGINING THE JEWISH ENLIGHTENMENT
Chair: David Ruderman, University of Pennsylvania/CAJS

Richard Cohen, Hebrew University/CAJS

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN VISIONS OF TRANSFORMATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES – I
Chair: Jonathan Skolnik, Columbia University/CAJS

Allan Arkush, State University of New York, Binghamton/CAJS
Dohm and the Jews Revisited
Adam Sutcliffe, University of Illinois/CAJS
Spinoza, Spinozism and the Self-Fashioning of the Enlightenment Philosopher
Alyssa Sepinwall, California State University, San Marcos/CAJS
Jews, Haitians, Women and Dialect-Speakers: The Abbé Grégoire and the Problem of Difference

JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN VISIONS OF
TRANSFORMATION – II
Chair: Jonathan Skolnik, Columbia University/CAJS

Nancy Sinkoff, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey/CAJS
Benjamin Franklin in Jewish Eastern Europe
Mordechai Zalkin, Ben-Gurion University/CAJS
“The Society for the Dissemination of the Haskalah among Russian Jews” (1863-1885): An Impossible Mission?

CONCLUDING SESSION AND SUMMARY
Chair: Richard Cohen, Hebrew University/CAJS

Raymond P. Scheindlin, Jewish Theological Seminary of America/CAJS
David Sorkin, University of Wisconsin