Jewish Modernity in the Feminine

The conference Jewish Modernity in the Feminine will explore how 20th and 21st century women intellectuals and authors from Else Lasker-Schüler to Helène Cixous more or less explicitly redefined their own identity as Jewish women intellectuals. Aiming at an exploration of how gender and origins defined the lives, and particularly the wartime and/or post-war fates, of these outstanding female figures, the conference focuses on the impact these factors had on their various intellectual journeys and their oeuvre as a whole. It invites international scholars to reflect on the variety of multifaceted and singular philosophical and artistic paths; the literary journeys and autobiographical narratives; and political, historical, and existential writings in which these women reflect on the nexus of Judaism/Jewishness, Femininity/Womanhood and Modernity.

The female figures whose lives and works will be discussed include prominent and highly acclaimed philosophers such as Hannah Arendt and Simone Weil, less well-known thinkers such as Margarete Susman, Rachel Bespaloff and Sarah Kofman, and present-day figures such as Hélène Cixous; eminent German poets such as Else Lasker-Schüler and Ilse Aichinger, and American writers and poets such as Grace Paley, Adrienne Rich and Cynthia Ozick; women who played a special role in the history of ideas and political thought such as Emma Goldman; more marginal but pioneering figures who played a significant role in the world of Jewish learning such as Nechama Leibowitz, or in the relationship between Judaism and Christianity such as Edith Stein; and widely acknowledged intellectuals such as Eliane Amado Lévy-Valensi and Susan Sontag. All these Jewish women were compelled, if sometimes only indirectly and sometimes involuntarily, to confront their belonging to a community, a religion, a gender, while reinventing these categories and themselves. Above all, they have had to rethink, reformulate, restate, but also renounce, disclaim and deconstruct pre-established roles and stereotypical models associated with Judaism and womanhood. This intellectual, aesthetic and existential challenge in turn contributed greatly to the lasting importance of their work, their thinking and their writing.

Conference conceptualized by Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp) and Orietta Ombrosi (Sapienza, Università di Roma), with the financial support of the Literature Department and the University and Community Department of the University of Antwerp.

Wednesday 5 December 2018

• 09.30-09.45 Registration
• 09.45-10.00 Welcome words and introduction
  Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp)
  Orietta Ombrosi (Sapienza, Università di Roma)
   
• 10.00-12.30 Session I
  Chair: Orietta Ombrosi (Sapienza, Università di Roma)
   
• 10.00-10.40 Ilana Pardes (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
  The Book of Ruth and the Question of Migration: From Cynthia Ozick to Bonnie Honig
• 10.40-11.20 Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp)
  Women and Strangers: Else Lasker-Schüler's Bible in the Feminine
   
• 11.20-11.50 Coffee break                  
   
• 11.50-12.30 Anke Gilleir (KU Leuven)
  Woman, Intellectual, German, Jew (or vice versa): Reflections on Margarete Susman
   
• 12.30-14.00 Lunch (speakers only)
   
• 14.00-16.15 Session II
  Chair: Arthur Cools (University of Antwerp)
   
• 14.00-14.40 Birgit R. Erdle (Lichtenberg Kolleg Göttingen)
  Towards a Minor Language: Ilse Aichinger's Counter-Hermeneutics
• 14.40-15.20 Martine Leibovici (Université Paris Diderot 7)
  Emma Goldmann (1869-1940), la dissidente
• 15.20-16.00 Catherine Chalier (Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre)
  Eliane Amado Lévy-Valensi. « La révélation faite à Israël concerne l’humanité entière »
   
• 16.00-16.15 Coffee break        
   
• 16.15-17.45 Session III: UCSIA/IJS Chair for Jewish-Christian Relations
  Chair: Dominiek Lootens (University Centre Saint-Ignatius Antwerp, UCSIA)
  Leora Batnitzky (Princeton University)
  On the Continued Challenge of Edith Stein for Jewish-Christian Dialogue
  Response: Marion Grau (Norwegian School of Theology)
   
• 17.45-18-15 Coffee break
   
• 18.15-19.30 Session IV: A Literary Evening with Michal Ben-Naftali & Dalia Rosenfeld
  Chair: Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp)
  Dalia Rosenfeld (Bar Ilan University) & Michal Ben-Naftali (Tel Aviv University)
   
• 20.00 Conference dinner (speakers only)

Thursday 6 December 2018

• 09.00-11.15 Session V
  Chair: Chiara Caradonna (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
   
• 09.00-09.40 Laura Sanò (Università degli Studi di Padova)
  Rachel Bespaloff. A Thought in Exile
• 09.40-10.20 Agata Bielik-Robson (University of Nottingham)
  Amor Mundi: The Marrano Background of Hannah Arendt’s Love for the World
• 10.20-11.00 Annabel Herzog (University of Haifa)
  Simone Weil, on Roots and Void
   
• 11.00-11.15 Coffee break
   
• 11.15-12.35 Session VI
  Chair: Michele Chinitz (CUNY Graduate Center, New York)
   
• 11.15-11.55 Carola Hilfrich (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
  Queering Gender, Genre, Genealogy: The Cixous Idiom of Thinking
• 11.55-12.35 Orietta Ombrosi (Sapienza, Università di Roma)
  Sarah Kofman: A Feminine Deconstruction of Judaism
   
• 12.35-14.00 Lunch (speakers only)
   
• 14.00-16.30 Session VII
  Chair: Vivian Liska (University of Antwerp)
   
• 14.00-14.40 Dana Rubinstein (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
  And Just Give Them the Answers? Nechama Leibowitz: The Morah and Her Challenge
• 14.40-15.20 Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
  Grace Paley: The American Jewish Comedy in the Female Voice
• 15.20-16.00 Nancy K. Miller (CUNY Graduate Center, New York)
  Identities in the First Person: Susan Sontag, Adrienne Rich, and Me
• Conclusion by Vivian Liska

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