This symposium explores whether and how narrative theory can provide an integrated approach for uniting the various heterogeneous disciplines that now constitute the composite field of Jewish Studies. Our speakers are distinguished in their fields and we are certain they will spark new ideas about narratives and interdisciplinarity.

University of Kansas Program in Jewish Studies
Hall Center for the Humanities
“Narratives of Jewish Life and Culture, and Jewish Studies”
3 April 2011 (Sunday, all day) - 4 April 2011 (Monday, morning)
HALL CENTER FOR THE HUMANITIES

Keynote Address: Sunday April 3, 4 pm

“FREUD, JEWISHNESS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS”*

Eliza Slavet, University of California, San Diego

HALL CENTER CONFERENCE ROOM The National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) has awarded Racial Fever: Freud and the Jewish Question by Eliza Slavet the 2010 Gradiva Award

Narrative theory turns our attention to the importance of narratives — stories, accounts — in structuring our perceptions of ourselves, cultural artifacts, and our physical and social worlds. As disciplinary boundaries have become increasingly blurred, and understood as cultural constructions, scholars have come to understand that disciplines themselves have a meta-story of the methods, focus, scholarship, and goals of their fields.

Focusing this conference on narratives within and across the discipline of Jewish Studies provides us with an inclusive conceptual model that can move the field beyond classic boundaries to produce a truly integrated interdisciplinary or even transdisciplinary, program that coheres by virtue of its thematic emphasis.

In addition to the keynote address by Eliza Slavet, the conference will have four panels in which two scholars from outside of KU present papers and a KU faculty member responds.

The conference proceedings will be published as an edited book by an academic press. FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Professor Lynn Davidman, lynndavidman@ku.edu. Or, Melanie Cohavi, Office Administrator of the Program in Jewish Studies, mcohavi@ku.edu or (785) 864-4664.

CONFERENCE ON NARRATIVES OF JEWISH LIVES AND JEWISH STUDIES Hall Center for the Humanities

Sunday April 3, 2011

8:30 Breakfast and greetings

9:00 Session I NARRATIVES AND PERFORMANCE: INTERDISCIPLINARY
APPROACHES TO TEXTUAL AND POLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONS.

Caryn Aviv, Posen Lecturer in Secular Jewish Culture, Center for Judaic Studies, University of Denver
(S)Torah in Flagrante: Radical Approaches to Exploring Narrative through Jewish Ritual Theater.

Joyce Antler, Samuel Lane Professor of American Jewish History and Culture, Brandeis University
Women's Liberation and Narratives of (Jewish) Identity: How Radical Feminists Tell the Story of a Profound Social Transformation

Respondent: Cheryl Lester, Associate Professor of American Studies and English

Session II: MINORITY DISCOURSES CHALLENGING HEGEMONIC REPRESENTATIONS AND “TRUTHS” EMERGING CONSCIOUSNESS, SUBALTERN IDENTITIES, AND CHALLENGES TO HEGEMONIC NARRATIVES
Joelle Bahloul , Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University
Narratives of Post-Colonial Exile: Sephardi and Mizrahi Diasporic Consciousness”

Amy Horowitz, Scholar in Residence, Lecturer, Melton Center for Jewish Studies and International Studies, The Ohio State University ’This land is my land, your land is my land:’ Dualing (Dueling) Narratives With(In) Israeli and Palestinian Jerusalem

Respondent: A Faculty Member at KU

1:00 Lunch

2:00 Session III WHAT’S THE STORY? NARRATIVITY IN THE FIELD AND BEYOND IT

Jonathan Boyarin, Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Thought, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The Shul That Wouldn't Sit Still (for Its Ethnographic Portrait)

Naomi Seidman, Professor of Jewish Culture, Graduate Theological Union, University of California at Berkeley
The End of the Story: Secularization, Assimilation, and Jewish Narrativity

Respondent: A Faculty Member at KU

4:00 KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Eliza Slavet, Visiting Scholar, Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego
FREUD, JEWISHNESS AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS

Respondent: David Smith, Professor of Sociology

The National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) has awarded Professor Slavet’s recent book: Racial Fever: Freud and the Jewish Question the 2010 Gradiva Award

5:30 Reception *****************

Monday April 4

9:00 Session IV MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO NARRATIVE READINGS OF THE BIBLE

Bernard M. Levinson, Berman Family Chair of Jewish Studies & Hebrew Bible, Professor of Classical & Near Eastern Studies, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota
Disciplinary Narratives: Analyzing the Study of the Old Testament in Nazi Germany

Michah Gottleib, Assistant Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University
Biblical Narratives in German-Jewish Philosophy

Respondent: Molly Zahn, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies