The schedule for the 2020 conference is underway. Please see below for the 2019 conference schedule.
Undergraduate Judaic Studies Conference 2019, Comparative Literature Library, Bingham Hall, Yale University (February 17th, 2019).
9-9:30: Breakfast
9:30-9:45: Opening Remarks
9:45-11: Session 1: Talmudic and Biblical Personae
Theo Motzkin, “The Mouthpiece of God: Josephus’ Idealized Portrayal of Moses and his Mechanics of Prophecy and Divine Revelation” (Harvard University)
Avigayil Halpern, “‘Leave him, as I will respond:’ The Caesar’s Daughter and Rabbinic Views of Women” (Yale University)
Reuven Herzog, “Zooming in and Out: Stories of Judith in the Construction of Jewish and Christian Identity” (Yeshiva University)
11-11:15: Break
11:15 – 12:30: Session 2: Judaism and the Premodern Public
Aaron Forman, “The Paris Talmud Trial of 1240: Camouflaged Prejudice and Contextualized Interpretation” (Carleton College)
Arielle Solomon, “The Story of Print’s Influence on the Halakhic Sphere in Early Modern Ashkenaz” (Columbia University)
Sam Mellins, “Between a Psak and a Hard Place: The Italian Jewish Community in the 1550s and the Battle over the Printing of the Zohar” (University of Chicago)
12:30 – 2: Lunch
2-3:15: Session 3: Literature, Prophecy, Modernity
Sam Glauber-Zimra, “Magnetic Maskilim: Preliminary Remarks on Mesmerism in the Literature of the Haskalah” (Columbia University)
Jacob Kaplan-Lipkin, “Ambiguity and Argument: Reading An-sky Philosophically” (Stanford University)
Hannah Srour, “Drawing Aside the Curtain: Boundaries and Reconciliation in Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy” (McGill University)
3:15 – 3:30: Break
3:30 – 4:45: Session 4: Twentieth-Century Race and Ethnicity
Olivia Rosenzweig, “Explaining Rapid Arabic Language Decline Amongst Mizrahi Jews in Israel” (University of Chicago)
Gidon Halbfinger, “You Don’t Mess with Israel-Palestine: Why ‘Zohan’ Stands Alone as Hollywood’s Treatment of a Divisive Conflict” (Columbia University)
Alona Weimer, “James Baldwin, Brandeis University, and the Question of Jewish-American Whiteness” (Brandeis University)
5-6: Keynote: Professor Susannah Heschel, “Against Wissenschaft”
6:30: Dinner for Conference Presenters and Organizers
