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
