The Berlin Center for Intellectual Diaspora
Workshop on Talmud and Contemporary Thought
Exile
November 30 - December 3, 2023, Antwerp
Institute of Jewish Studies Antwerp in cooperation with the University of Lille
The Workshop on Talmud and Contemporary Thought is an annual intellectual encounter, which explores ways of how the Talmudic tradition of text may offer a medium for contemporary thought, in the sense of thought that engages on issues of contemporary social, political and cultural concern. The workshop revolves around a Talmudic text, which serves as a medium and environment for thinking together politico-theoretical questions of contemporary concern. The program is based on readings of these texts in view of the guiding questions, which are presented by different participants as a basis for group discussions. A unique feature of the workshop is that it brings together intellectuals with various backgrounds, some more Talmudic, some from other disciplines, in an attempt to enrich conversations and broaden horizons.
The theme for the 2023 workshop is Exile. Exile is existence removed or in distance from one’s own home, land or state. The nature of the distance may vary, as well as the quality of the relinquished owning, and the essence of the lost place. Exile is often understood in geo-political terms as being forcefully removed from one’s home country, through expulsion or loss of one’s place, loss of ability to be where one belongs. But exile may also arise from the complete disappearance of one’s home, or of the possibility of home, such that the collective or even human condition itself becomes exilic, alienated. Exile is accordingly not only a geographical or political condition, but can also be epistemological, ontological or metaphysical: in the disappearance of truth, the loss of reality, the concealment of God. This workshop will reflect on the use of exile as a category in contemporary thought, especially in political thinking.
The Berlin Center for Intellectual Diaspora is a public forum of Jewish-Catholic inspiration for discussions, encounters and debates on questions of contemporary politics, religion, society and culture: http://intellectualdiaspora.org/.
Participants: Elad Lapidot (University of Lille), Daniel Boyarin (University of Berkeley), Luca Di Blasi (University of Bern), Lena Salaymeh (EPEH Paris), Amir Engel (Hebrew University & Humboldt University Berlin), Jayne Svenungson (Lund University), Layla Seri (Lund University), Willem Styfhals (KU Leuven), Sarah Hammerschlag (University of Chicago), and Yael Attia (University of Potsdam).