Lapidus Family Fund in American Jewish Studies
Thanks to a recent grant by Sidney and Ruth Lapidus and their family, the Program collaborates with the Program in Judaic Studies to offer courses and events related to American Jewish Studies.
Professor Esther Schor, Department of English, is Chair of the Committee on American Jewish Studies.
LOCATION CHANGED TO BOWEN HALL 222
Sunday
April 7, 2013
10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Lapidus Family Fund Conference in American Jewish Studies
Sunday
April 7, 2013
10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Lapidus Family Fund Conference in American Jewish Studies
American Jewish Culture:
'Fresh Vitality in Every Direction'
'Fresh Vitality in Every Direction'
Bowen Hall 222
on the Princeton University Campus
7:30 p.m.
Keynote by Francine Prose
author of My American Life
"American Jewish storytelling: King David, Grace Paley, Philip Roth and me"
on the Princeton University Campus
7:30 p.m.
Keynote by Francine Prose
author of My American Life
"American Jewish storytelling: King David, Grace Paley, Philip Roth and me"
Presenters:
Jonathan Freedman, Frankel Institute for Judaic Studies, University of Michigan
Eric Goldstein, History and Jewish Studies; Editor of American Jewish History, Emory University
Jonathan Karp, American Jewish Historical Society
Josh Lambert, Academic Director, The Yiddish Book Center
Tony Michels, Department of History, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Alana Newhouse, Editor-in-Chief, Tablet Magazine
Rachel Rubinstein, American Literature and Jewish Studies, Hampshire College
Our title is drawn from an 1881 letter from Emma Lazarus to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, voicing her new, expansive notion of American literature, and her vision of what it might yet become. Inspired by Lazarus's optimism, we have assembled a group of scholars and writers to join a conversation about contemporary American Jewish Culture, its historical frameworks, and where we might look for "fresh vitality" in the future. Our aim is to address the multiplicity of issues, texts, contexts, objects, regions, and methodologies in play in the field of American Jewish Studies.
Conference organizer:
Professor Esther Schor, Associate Chair, Department of English; Chair, Committee on American Jewish Studies
Conference organizer:
Professor Esther Schor, Associate Chair, Department of English; Chair, Committee on American Jewish Studies
Conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
LINK to registration.
Schedule:
10:00 a.m.
Opening remarks: Esther Schor, Professor of English; Chair, Committee on American Jewish Studies, Sidney Lapidus
10:15 – 11:45 a.m.
Panel I: American Jewish History: Immigrants, Ideas, and Ideology
Chair: Yaacob Dweck, Assistant Professor of History and the Program in Judaic Studies
Eric Goldstein, Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Emory University
“Sociability and Bright Talk”: East Side Cafés and the Jewish Immigrant Public Sphere
Tony Michels, George L. Mosse Associate Professor of American Jewish History, University of Wisconsin, Madison
The Crisis in American Marxism and the Jewish Turn in the 1940s and 1950s
Jonathan Karp, Executive Director, American Jewish Historical Society
The Unity Principle: An American Jewish Theory of Capitalism
1:30 – 3:00 p.m.
Panel II: (North) American Jewish Letters: Mapping the Future
Chair: Sean Wilentz, George Henry David 1886 Professor of American History
Jonathan Freedman, Professor of English and American Culture, Department of English
Language and Literature, University of Michigan
Language and Literature, University of Michigan
Rewriting Dystopia: Jewish Alternative Histories, High and Low
Rachel Rubinstein, Associate Professor of American Literature and Jewish Studies; Dean of Academic Support and Advising, Hampshire College
Cosmopolitan Shtetl: Montreal as the Center of the New Jewish World
Josh Lambert, Academic Director, The Yiddish Book Center; Visiting Assistant Professor,
English, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Strange Times”: The Millennial Boom in American Jewish Literature
3:15 – 4:45 p.m.
Round Table: New Directions in American Jewish Culture
Chair: Alana Newhouse, Editor-in-chief, Tablet Magazine
Closing Remarks: Hendrik Hartog, Class of 1921 Bicentennial Professor in the History of American
Law and Liberty; Director, Program in American Studies
Law and Liberty; Director, Program in American Studies
7:30 p.m., Keynote Address
Francine Prose
American Jewish Storytelling:
King David, Grace Paley, Philip Roth and Me
ENG 356/ JDS 377/ AMS 378
Topics in American Literature: American Jewish Writers
Esther Schor, Department of English
American Jewish writers are known to adopt a variety of personae: they may write as exiles, as citizens, as provocateurs, among other figures. Why these strategies—and what sort of mark have they left on the rich body of writing we have before us? on American letters? on modern Jewish literature? We’ll address these questions while considering the historic sweep of American Jewish writing from the 18th to the 21st centuries.
American Jewish writers are known to adopt a variety of personae: they may write as exiles, as citizens, as provocateurs, among other figures. Why these strategies—and what sort of mark have they left on the rich body of writing we have before us? on American letters? on modern Jewish literature? We’ll address these questions while considering the historic sweep of American Jewish writing from the 18th to the 21st centuries.