New Beginnings: Summer School on Jewish Studies
The week will investigate how Jews and Judaism conceptualized, experienced, imagined, celebrated, but also warded off the possibilities and limitations, promises and dangers of beginning anew. We will explore conceptual questions (What is a beginning? What is a new beginning? How do beginnings relate to ends?), historical questions (the effort to create new beginnings through and in the aftermath of migration and revolution), normative questions (when are new beginnings legitimate, or even required?), legal questions (how does the law, secular and religious, relate to starting afresh?), cultural questions (the effects of technical innovation such as the invention of print), and familial/personal expressions (conversion, birth, new beginnings as a literary and artistic theme).
The week will also give participants an opportunity to think about the beginnings of their own scholarly careers with professionalization sessions and opportunities for dissertating students to share research.
Target group are graduate students at any institution worldwide, in any subfield of Jewish studies, past or present.
Detailed programme
Sunday, July 9th, 2023
- 17.00-19.00 Guided visit through the Jewish neighborhood of Antwerp
- 19.00 Dinner at Hoffy's
Monday, July 10th, 2023
- 09.30-10.30 Greetings & orientationVivian Liska, Steven Weitzman, Aaron Segal
- 10.30-11.00 Break
- 11.00-12.30 Ilana PardesKingship and Its Discontents: Foundational Scenes in the David Story
- 12.30-13.15 Lunch
- 13.15-14.45 Steven WeitzmanThe Origin of the Jews: Jewish Studies and Genetics
- 14.45-17.00 Visit Kazerne Dossin - Veerle Vanden Daelen
- 17.00-17.30 Return to Antwerp
- 18.00-20.00 Dinner
Tuesday, July 11th, 2023
- 08.30-10.00 Ruth Kara-Ivanov KanielNew Beginning in Kabbalah and Psychoanalysis
- 10.00-10.30 Break
- 10.30-11.30 Wrap up by students
- 11.30-12.30 Professionalization #1 - Steven WeitzmanOn public scholarship
- 12.30-13.30 Lunch
- 13.30-15.00 Vivian LiskaThe Tower of Babel and New Beginnings - with Kafka, Hegel and Brueghel
- 15.00-15.15 Break
- 15.15-16.00 Professionalization #2 - Faculty panelLife-work challenge
- 16.00-18.00 Museums & public scholarship
- 18.00-20.00 Dinner
Wednesday, July 12th, 2023
- 08.30-10.00 Leora BatnitzkyMigration, New Beginnings, and Loss: Identity, Trauma, and Politics in Joseph's Story and Beyond
- 10.00-10.30 Break
- 10.30-12.30 Visit Red Star Line Museum
- 12.30-13.45 Lunch
- 13.45-15.15 Alana VincentHannah Arendt's New Beginnings
- 15.15-15.45 Break
- 15.45-16.30 Wrap up
- Free night
Thursday, July 13th, 2023
- 08.30-10.00 Michal Kravel-ToviYou are a Jew Now: Scripting Jewish Conversion
- 10.00-10.30 Break
- 10.30-12.00 Theodor DunkelgrünHow Jews became a People of the Printed Book
- 12.00-13.00 Lunch
- 13.00-15.30 Visit Plantin-Moretus Museum
- 15.30-16.30 Break
- 16.30-18.30 Students presentations
- 18.30-20.00 Festive dinner
Friday, July 14th, 2023
- 08.30-10.00 Aaron SegalGod and the Need for Temporality
- 10.00-10.30 Break
- 10.30-11.15 Wrap up
- 11.15-12.45 Professionalization #3 - Steven WeitzmanOn teaching
- 12.45-13.30 Lunch
- 13.30-14.30 Conclusion