Fall Term 2009
Seminar Schedule

Secularism and Its Discontents

Seminars are held at the Center on Wednesdays at noon unless otherwise noted. If you are interested in attending a seminar please rsvp to allenshe@sas.upenn.edu. Seminars are open to Penn faculty and graduate students and other invited guests.

September 17 Thursday 4:30pm light dinner follows	Rethinking an Organizing Principle of Modern Jewish Life: Initial Reflections on Secularism and its Discontents Warren Breckman / UPenn; David Myers / University of California, L.A.; Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin / Ben-Gurion University; Andrea Schatz / King's College, London
September 23 2:30pm	Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin / Ben-Gurion University Secularism, Nationlism, Orientalism from a Jewish Perspective
September 30	Andrea Schatz / King's College London East of the Enlightenment: Language, Secularism and the "Orient" in the Early Haskalah
October 7	Daniel Schwartz / George Washington University Spinoza and the Master Narratives of Jewish Secularization: A Very Short History
October 14	Eva Lezzi / University of Potsdam Christian-Jewish Love Affairs Under Siege: Reform, Conservative and Neo-Orthodox Perspectives in the Nineteenth Century German-Jewish Literature
October 21	Galili Shahar / University of Florida The Un-Sacred: The New Hebrew and the Dialectic of Secularization
October 28	Michal Ben-Horin / University of Florida Secularism and New Music: Arnold Schoenberg's Moses und Aron
November 4	Scott Ury / Tel-Aviv University Revolutionary Reconfigurations of Time and Community in Turn of the Century Eastern Europe
November 11	David Myers / University of California, Los Angeles The Political Theology of Satmar Hasidim: Between Sacred and Profane
November 18	Yael Zerubavel / Rutgers University Ancient Figures, Biblical Landscapes, and the Symbolic Reenactment of Antiquity in Secular Israeli Culture
December 2	Yael Feldman / New York University Martyr or Warrior? Re-Inventing 'Isaac' as a Military Hero in Jewish Palestine
December 9	Ilana Pardes / Hebrew University The Song of Songs in Israeli Culture: Agnon's Botany of Love
December 16	Workshop on "The Bible and Secularism" Keynote speaker: Jonathan Sheehan, UC Berkeley 10:30 am - 6:30 pm; full schedule forthcoming Registration for this seminar is required.