Seaport Hotel -> World Trade Center: Directions | Shuttle Schedule
PDFs: Full Program Book (updated with new locations) | Floor Plans only | Addendum to the Published Program | Location Key Table for Published Program
Updated Program ErrataSaturday, December 16, 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM, Atrium (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Sunday, December 16, 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Atrium (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
By prepaid reservation only.
Sunday, December 16, 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Sunday, December 16, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Sunday, December 16, 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
1.1 Roundtable: Teaching the Holocaust in the Age of Trump
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
1.2 Contested "Knowledge" in Contemporary Jewish Life
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
1.3 Jews on Trial after the Holocaust
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
1.4 Jewish Youth and Social Change: From Colonial Expansion to Modern Multiculturalism
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
1.5 New Perspectives on Jewish Resistance: Reconsidering the Holocaust
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
1.6 Rethinking Jewish “Subcultures": Algerian, Parisien, Viennese, and Beyond
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
1.7 Seminar: Twentieth-Century Jewish Literature Revisited: Graduate Student Works-in-Progress
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
1.8 Towards Global Jewish Peoplehood: What We Can Learn from Jewish Community Studies around the World
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor, World Trade Center)
1.9 Misreading the Bible in Antiquity
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
1.10 Potpourri: Modern Literature, Aesthetics, and Politics in Europe
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor, World Trade Center)
1.11 Modern Uses of an Ancient Bible
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor, World Trade Center)
1.12 Aharon Appelfeld’s "Secret" Languages
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor, World Trade Center)
1.13 Roundtable: Approaches to Rabbinics Research: Between the United States and Israel
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor, World Trade Center)
1.14 Fragmented Experience: Toward a Poetics of Trauma and Melancholia
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
1.15 Roundtable: New Directions in Jewish Political Thought
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
1.16 [Canceled]
This session has been canceled.
1.17 Roundtable: Chairs and Professors of Israel Studies and Israel/Palestine Studies: Opportunities and Challenges
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
1.18 Roundtable: Teaching in Translation, Teaching as Translation
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
1.19 Seminar: Reading Hasidic Texts: New Perspectives from History to Hermeneutics
Plaza B (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
Sunday, December 16, 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM, Plaza A (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
By prepaid reservation only.
Sunday, December 16, 11:30 AM – 12:00 PM, Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Meeting includes a vote on nominations to the 2018-2019 AJS Board of Directors. Open to all AJS members.
Sunday, December 16, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM, Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Members of the AJS Diversity and Inclusion Task Force host a conversation on what we all can do to create a more welcoming and accessible AJS. Open to all AJS members.
Sunday, December 16, 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM, Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
The Professional Development Task Force examines how the AJS might provide support for its members in their careers, both in and outside the academy, and through all stages, from graduate school to retirement.
Sunday, December 16, 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM
2.1 Roundtable: Antisemitism in Contemporary America
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
2.2 How Jews Think about Being Jewish
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
2.3 Ritual Bodies, Ritual Spaces in Nineteenth-Century Europe
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
2.4 Jews, Race, And Racism: Thinking through Jews and Otherness
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
2.5 Imagined Bodies in Rabbinic Literature
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
2.6 Postwar Trials, Resistance, and Childhood: New Perspectives on Survivors' Networks
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
2.7 Digital Humanities: Resources and Educational Exhibits
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
2.8 Seminar: Anarchist Diasporism/Diasporic Anarchism: Jewish Antistatism and Statelessness
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
2.9 Negotiating the Limits of the Zionist Collective
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
2.10 Graduate Student Lightning Session: Judaism in Antiquity
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
2.11 Inner-Biblical Relationships and Interpretation
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
2.12 Roundtable: Getting It Published: The Realities of Academic Publishing
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
2.13 German Jewish Thought and Social Science
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
2.14 Gender and Genre: Power and Postscriptivism of Form in Modern Jewish Poetry and Prose
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
2.15 Recruiters, Activists, and Volunteers: American Jews and the Military
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
2.16 New Approaches to Hebrew Literature
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
2.17 The Moral Hermeneutics of David Novak
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
2.18 Roundtable: Making "Plan B" the New "Plan A": Strategies and Advice for Entering Careers Outside of the Tenure Track
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Sunday, December 16, 2:00 PM – 2:30 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Made possible by funding from Jordan Schnitzer and Arlene Schnitzer through the Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Family Fund of the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation.
Sunday, December 16, 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
The 2018 plenary lecture will be delivered by incoming President of Williams College, Maud Mandel, and will take place on Sunday afternoon, in an earlier and dedicated time slot. We hope that this new time slot will make it possible for many more members to participate. The plenary will also include the announcement of the 2018 Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards and special programming to mark this anniversary occasion. Seating at the plenary is limited and will be filled on a "first come, first served" basis.
Sunday, December 16, 4:15 pm – 6:45 pm, Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Sponsored by the Association for the Scientific Study of Jewry
ASSJ will honor Sklare Award winner Arnold Eisen. The reception will follow the Sklare lecture.
Sunday, December 16, 4:15 PM – 5:45 PM, Amphitheater Lobby (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Join with conference attendees to have on-the-spot discussions about a number of field-related issues that you raise.
Sunday, December 16, 4:15 PM – 5:45 PM
3.2 Visions of Yiddish: Toward a History of Modernist Yiddish Literature and Art
Harborview 3 (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
3.3 Jewish Lives and Deaths across the Modern Mediterranean
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
3.4 Hasidic Literature, Media, and Secular Modernity
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
3.5 Early Modern Jewish Books in the Mediterranean
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
3.6 Tradition and Crisis Reconsidered
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
3.7 Seminar: Can Paul Come to AJS? When Pauline Studies Meets Jewish Studies
Waterfront 1 (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
3.8 Seminar: The Politics of Writing the Self into Jewish Studies
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
3.9 The Nature of Zion(ism): Moving Beyond the Nature Culture Dichotomy
Cambridge 2 (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
3.10 Taboo in Kabbalah and Jewish Magic
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
3.11 Pragmatism, Ethics, and Jewish Philosophy: A Hypothesis
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
3.12 Roundtable: Teaching through Film: Jewish Humor
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
3.13 Roundtable: Transnationalism and Jewish Theatre
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
3.14 Roundtable: Biblical Interpretation and Public Scholarship
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
3.15 Flipped Panel: Compelling Reading: Access, Discipline, and Marginality in
Reading Rabbinic Texts
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Access flipped panel papers (AJS member login required)
3.16 Roundtable: Holocaust Studies across the Curriculum
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
3.17 What Is Commentary?
Federal 1 (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
3.18 Roundtable: Law, Narrative, and Theology in Modern Feminist Midrash
Federal 2 (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Sunday, December 16, 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Featuring music and light food, the AJS 50 and Forward party will take place on Sunday evening in lieu of the gala dinner. The cost of the party is included in your conference registration fee, but we do ask that when you register for the conference, you RSVP for the party using the party registration link.
Everyone who registers/RSVPs in advance of the conference will receive one free drink at the party!
By prepaid reservation only.
Sunday, December 16, 7:30 PM, Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Directed by Danny Ben-Moshe (2018, 76 minutes, Australia/India | English and Hindi with English subtitles)
Award-winning Australian director Danny Ben-Moshe revisits a chapter in the early history of Indian cinema, the world's largest film industry, in this fascinating documentary, eleven years in the making. When the screen presence of Hindu and Muslim women was considered taboo in the new medium, Bene Israelis and Baghdadi Jews stepped in to fill their roles, emerging as Bollywood’s first megastars. Interviews with the actors' family members and friends, rare archival footage from silent films such as the 1927 Wild Cat of Bombay, retro-style music, and animation combine to revive the songs and dances typical of a Bollywood production, paying tribute to Indian cinema's golden age icons.
Presented by Joan Roland, Professor of History, Pace University
Distributor’s contact information: Menemsha Films (website, Facebook, Twitter)
Sunday, December 16, 9:00 PM, Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Directed by Asaf Galay (2018, Israel/USA, 80 minutes | English)
The acclaimed novelist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, three National Book Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize, is the subject of this first documentary film on the man considered by many as one of the greatest prose stylists of the twentieth century. Marking the centennial of his birth, the film features interviews with his family, friends, and writers including Martin Amis, Philip Roth, and A. B. Yehoshua. Highlighting Bellow's impact on American literature and his identities as a writer, polemicist, “serial husband,” father, Chicagoan, and Jew, director Asaf Galay is known for innovative films about modern Jewish culture; his recent documentary, The Hebrew Super Hero, concerns the development of comic books in Israel.
Presented by Hannah Pollin-Galay, Senior Lecturer in Yiddish and Holocaust Studies, Department of Literature, Tel Aviv University
Distributor’s contact information: website
Sunday, December 16, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM, Seaport Ballroom B (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
Sponsored by the Association for Jewish Studies
AJS graduate students are invited to this networking reception.
Sunday, December 16, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM, Seaport Ballroom C (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
The Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies invites all conference participants to attend a dessert reception in honor of past and present fellows at the Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies.
Monday, December 17, 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM Plaza B (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
Open to all members of the AJS Women's Caucus. By prepaid reservation only.
Monday, December 17, 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM, Plaza A (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
By prepaid reservation only.
Monday, December 17, 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM, Atrium (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 9:00 AM – 1:30 PM, 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
4.1 Assessing the Proceedings of the AAJR: Early Modern and Modern
Harborview 2 (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
4.2 Jewish Icons: The Image of Early Modern Court Jews in Jewish History and Art
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
4.3 Exhibiting Jewishness in Cultural Performances: Between the Local and the Global
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
4.4 Jewish Name Changing throughout the Ages
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
4.5 Potpourri: Israeli Public Politics and Performance
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
4.6 Political and Spiritual Renewal: 1960 to the Present
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
4.7 Seminar: Twentieth-Century Jewish Literature Revisited: Graduate Student Works-in-Progress
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
4.8 Seminar: The Role of Emotions and Nature of Emotional Life in Jewish Mystical Tradition
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
4.9 Graduate Student Lightning Session: Rabbinic Literature and Culture
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
4.10 Between Prejudice and Humanitarianism in the Post-Nazi Racial State World
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
4.11 Roundtable: Holocaust Discourse in the Era of Extreme Nationalism
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
4.12 Religion and Jewish Education in Poland, 1915–1939
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
4.13 The Prophets as Sources of Philosophic Inquiry
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
4.14 Ancient and Medieval Biblical Reception
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
4.15 Graduate Student Lightning Session: Comparative Ashkenazic/Sephardic Studies
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
4.16 Methods and History in the Redaction of the Bavli
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
4.17 What is the Place of Philology and Source Criticism in Talmudic Studies? Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
4.18 Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Innovations
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
4.19 Roundtable: Jewish Studies in the Age of Trump
Plaza B (Plaza Level, Seaport)
Monday, December 17, 9:30 am – 1 pm
Meet in lobby at 9:30am, estimated time back at hotel, pending T, is around 1pm. $30
From the lobby, guide will take guests to the T. Tour participants must buy a T ticket. The tour will officially start after the T ride.
Tour will not end at the hotel. Guests are responsible for their travel back to the hotel.
Highlights include*:
*Subject to change as needed.
Monday, December 17, 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Monday, December 17, 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM
5.1 Assessing the Proceedings of the AAJR: Ancient and Medieval
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
5.2 Hierarchies and the Rhetoric of Esotericism
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
5.3 Jewish Music: Engaging with the Past, Looking into the Future
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
5.4 Politicization of the Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century in Eastern Europe
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
5.5 Trauma Between Remembering and Forgetting in Israeli Literature and Culture
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
5.6 Post-Holocaust Yiddish Publishing and Theater
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
5.7 Digital Humanities: Talking about Jewish Past in the Turbulent Present: International Case Studies
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
5.8 Seminar: (Re)consructing the Religious Thought and Practices of Women in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
5.9 Roundtable on Feminism, Antisemitism, and
Anti-Zionism
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
5.10 Critical Animal Studies and the Study of Judaism in Late Antiquity : Animals as Technology / Animals and Technology
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
5.11 Roundtable: How to Write Jewish History?
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
5.12 Roundtable: "Jewry's Stepchildren"? Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews and the Boundaries of Modern Jewish History
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
5.13 Immanence and Jewish Political Thought
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
5.14 Roundtable: "A Part" or "Apart": Research on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Jewish Life
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
5.15 Placing Childhood: Jewish Youth and Space in the Twentieth Century
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
5.16 The Purposes of Hebrew: New Approaches to Understanding Hebrew Education in America
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
5.17 Halakhah and Aggadah in Rabbinic Literature
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
5.18 Catastrophe, Theory, History: Thinking German Jewish after the Holocaust
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM, Plaza B (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
By prepaid reservation only.
Monday, December 17, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM, Plaza A (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
By prepaid reservation only.
Monday, December 17, 12:00 PM – 1:15 PM, Cambridge 2 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Title IX informational meeting for Jewish Studies program directors and department chairs. By pre-registration only.
Monday, December 17, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM, Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
The AJS Membership Engagement Task Force will be holding an open discussion regarding membership issues, including issues related to governance transparency, membership communication, advocacy in the public sphere, and conditions of contingent faculty. Open to all AJS members.
Monday, December 17, 1:15 PM – 3:45 PM
6.1 Roundtable: Past, Present, Future of American Jewish Studies
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
6.2 Reshaping American Jewish Womanhood: How #MeToo, Renewal, and Lilith Inform Gender, Identity, and the Body
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
6.3 The New Jew: Between Germany and Zion
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
6.4 Lessons from the Archives: Early Modern Sephardic Diaspora
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
6.5 Raging Pain, Radiating Glory: Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece in German Jewish Thought
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
6.6 Translation and Yiddish: New Approaches
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
6.7 Seminar: Photographs as Objects, Photographs as Thoughts: On the Materiality and the Ethics of Photography in Jewish Contexts
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
6.8 New Crossroads in Iberian and Jewish Studies I: Re-encounters, Returns, and Recoveries in the Iberian Peninsula and the Atlantic World
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
6.9 The City as Realm of Cultural Encounter and Translation in Yiddish and Hebrew Literature
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
6.10 Diaspora Jewry and Israel/Palestine in Transnational Perspective
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
6.11 The Politicization of Holocaust Memory in Post-Fascist Germany and Italy
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
6.12 Roundtable: Pioneering Franco-Jewish/Sephardic History: Celebrating the Scholarship of Frances Malino
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
6.13 Antifascist Jews—Jewish Antifascism?
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
6.14 Medieval Biblical Exegesis in Context: Navigating the Shoals of Intellectual, Religious, and Social Forces
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
6.15 Roundtable: The Temporal Turn in Ancient Judaism and Jewish Studies
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
6.16 Spiritual Experience and Literary Form: Creativity, Practice, and Awareness in Hasidic Thought and Society
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
6.17 Communal, Rabbinic, and Judicial Authority in Flux: Law as Lived in the Early Modern Kehillah
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
6.18 Contemporary Halakhic Discourse in Israel
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 2:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM
7.1 Lightning Session: Transnational Potentials in
(American) Jewish Studies and Its Various Subfields
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
7.2 Digital Jewish Culture: Documentation to Interpretation
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
7.3 Politics and Identities on the Israeli Stage
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
7.4 Competing Voices and Textual Traditions in Thirteenth-Century Kabbalah
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
7.5 Questioning Redemptive Narratives in Artistic Productions of the Holocaust
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
7.6 Lightning Session: Jewish Orthodoxies / Social Science
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
7.7 Seminar: Can Paul Come to the AJS? When Pauline Studies Meets Jewish Studies
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
7.8 Lightning Session: Jewish Troubles in the Sephardic Atlantic World
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
7.9 Culturally Bound: Women’s Friendship and Gendered Attachments
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
7.10 Orthodoxy and Zionism in Israel and America
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
7.11 Drawing Cohen into the Conversation: A Centennial Commemoration of Hermann Cohen
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
7.12 Roundtable: Racial, Ethnic, and National Identity Construction among Latin American Jews
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
7.13 Inward Acculturation in Medieval Law and Exegesis
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
7.14 The Hidden Abode: The Representation of Work in Israeli Culture
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
7.15 Rereading the Self: Reflection's Dynamics (Biblical/Rabbinic)
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
7.16 New Trends in Religious Zionist Philosophy and Practice
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
7.17 Legal Resistance and Noncompliance in Babylonian Talmudic Sources
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
7.18 Forging an Intergenerational Holocaust Testimony
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 4:30 PM – 5:00 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Sponsored by Jewish Book Council's Sami Rohr Prize
Join us in celebrating AJS members who have published books in 2018. Open to all conference registrants.
Monday, December 17, 4:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Latin American Jewish Studies Association
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Jews, Film, and the Arts
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Israel Studies
Cambridge 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Bible and Biblical Interpretation
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Holocaust Studies
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
8.1 Jewish Tango and Diasporic Dancing
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
8.2 Roundtable: The Feuilleton and Modern Jewish Cultures
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
8.3 Secret Identity Politics: Jewish Texts, Jewish Lives, and Super Jews
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
8.4 Listening to Jewish Music in the Americas: Reconceptualizing Jewish American Music Research in the Twenty-First Century
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
8.5 The Past and Future of Jewish Archives
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
8.6 Designing Holocaust Museums: Object, Form, and Ideology
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
8.7 Seminar: Russian and Soviet Jewish Immigrant Experience in Europe, Israel, and the United States
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
8.8 New Crossroads in Iberian and Jewish Studies II: Reinterpretations, Reincorporations, and Representations of Spain's Jewish Past
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
8.9 Who's Afraid of Numbers? Jewish Studies and the Prospects of Digital Humanities
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
8.10 American Christianity and the State of Israel
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
8.11 Roundtable: 50 Years of Linguistic Research / Jewish Studies
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
8.12 Politics of Hate? Crafting European Belonging through Anti-Jewish Hatreds Old and New
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
8.13 Roundtable: It Can't Happen Here? Rethinking Antisemitism and Americanism
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
8.14 Christian Influences on Medieval Jewish Philosophy and Theology
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
8.15 Roundtable: Shifting Positions: The Power of the Self in Jewish Memory, Ritual, and Law
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
8.16 Jewish Reproduction and Everyday Ethics: Anthropological Perspectives
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
8.17 Graduate Student Lightning Session: Modern American Jewish History
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
8.18 Potpourri: Mysticism and Rabbinic Literature
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Monday, December 17, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM, Seaport Ballroom A (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
The Israel Institute welcomes conference participants to learn about grant opportunities for faculty and students, including funding for developing new courses about Israel.
Monday, December 17, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM, Seaport Ballroom B (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
JTS's Office of Alumni Affairs welcomes all alumni, faculty, and conference guests. Mingle with JTS deans, faculty, graduate students, and alumni. Open to all conference registrants.
Monday, December 17, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM, Seaport Ballroom C (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
Sponsored by The Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, The Ohio State University’s Melton Center for Jewish Studies, The University of Pittsburg’s Jewish Studies Program, UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, and Yale University’s Judaic Studies Program. All are welcome.
Monday, December 17, 6:30 PM – 7:30 PM, Flagship Ballroom (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
The Katz Center is celebrating twenty-five years of advanced research. Open to all fellows, past and present, as well as all conference registrants.
Monday, December 17, 7:30 PM, Plaza A (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
By prepaid reservation only.
Monday, December 17, 7:30 PM, Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Directed by Ran Tal (2017, Israel, 72 minutes | English and Hebrew with English subtitles)
A strikingly creative documentary exploration of the Israel Museum—its galleries, storerooms, employees, and visitors that boldly unlocks the mysteries of this major cultural institution through an ironic, comprehensive gaze. Singing security guards, blind patrons, and a Haredi inspector share the screen with curators, Palestinian guides, and an American museum director. Accomplished Israeli film maker Ran Tal has assembled footage of the museum's daily routine into a cinematic collage—observant, sensitive, and diverse. Nominee, Ophir Award for Best Documentary.
Presented by Yaniv Feller, Jeremy Zwelling Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies, Wesleyan University.
Distributor’s contact information: Menemsha Films (website, Facebook, Twitter)
Monday, December 17, 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Flagship Ballroom (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
We invite alumni, past fellows and affiliates, and friends and colleagues to a reception to honor Professor Shaye Cohen on the publication of a Festschrift in his honor.
Sponsored by Jewish Book Council's Sami Rohr Prize
Monday, December 17, 8:30 PM, Hotel Bar
Join hosts Saul Hankin and Josh Lambert for our third annual AJS trivia competition, where your knowledge of Jewish history and culture will be tested. Meet new people! Have a drink! Win fantastic prizes!
Monday, December 17, 9:00 PM, Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Directed by Judith Wechsler (2017, USA, 60 minutes | English)
In 1980, age 21, literary and cultural critic Svetlana Boym (1959–2015) left the USSR for the United States. After graduate studies at Boston University and Harvard, she became the Carl Hugo Reisinger Professor of Slavic and Comparative Literature at Harvard University. A brilliant writer and scholar of ambitious scope and great imagination, she explored motifs of exile, nostalgia, the diasporic imagination, and forms of freedom in her books, essays, and artmaking. Interweaving videos, interviews, photographs, and photomontage with the subject's original texts and film excerpts, this moving documentary pays tribute to her legacy. Director Judith Wechsler was awarded the Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres for her filmmaking and publications on nineteenth- and twentieth-century art.
Presented by Catherine Portuges, Professor Emerita, Film Studies/Comparative Literature, University of Massachusetts–Amherst.
Distributor: Circulating Film Library, Museum of Modern Art, NY. attn: Kitty_Cleary@moma.org 11 West 53rd St, NY, NY 10019 (website)
Monday, December 17, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM, Seaport Ballroom B (Mezzanine Level, Seaport Hotel)
Brandeis University welcomes all alumni, faculty, students, and conference guests to celebrate the founding of the AJS at Brandeis. Open to all conference registrants.
Monday, December 17, 9:30 PM – 10:30 PM, Plaza Ballroom C (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives and the American Jewish Historical Society welcome all fellows, faculty, and guests. Celebrate these world-renowned repositories of the American Jewish past and learn about upcoming programs. Open to all conference registrants.
Tuesday, December 18, 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM, Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Our Task Force will be raising awareness of the issue of sexual misconduct and how to change the culture of the AJS and Jewish Studies to more fully address concerns around this issue. Open to all AJS members.
Tuesday, December 18, 7:30 AM – 8:30 AM, Plaza A (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
By prepaid reservation only.
Tuesday, December 18, 8:00 AM – 12:30 PM, Atrium (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Tuesday, December 18, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM, Commonwealth Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Tuesday, December 18, 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
9.1 Roundtable: Digital Pedagogy and Public Engagement
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
9.2 Relational Identity: The Formation and Expression of Raced and Gendered Modern North American Jewish Identity
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
9.3 The JDC and the Jewish Communities of North Africa: A Burgeoning Field of New Research
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
9.4 From Buczacz to Berlin: S. Y. Agnon and the Diasporic Imagination
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
9.5 Jewish Youth during and after the Holocaust
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
9.6 Second Temple Literature and the Bible
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
9.7 Seminar: The Politics of Writing the Self into Jewish Studies
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
9.8 Seminar: Reading Hasidic Texts: New Perspectives from History to Hermeneutics
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
9.9 Graduate Student Lightning Session: Jewish Cultures
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
9.10 Potpourri: Social Science and Community
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
9.11 Roundtable: Queer Jewish Studies: The State of the Field
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
9.12 Rabbinic Pieties
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
9.13 Roundtable: Israel/Palestine Studies as Academic Framework
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
9.14 Class and Nation in Jewish Radicals’ Thinking, Politics, and Identity
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
9.15 Jews, Inheritance, and Postwar American Literature
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
9.16 Locale, Empire, and Nation: Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Jewish Spatial Identifications
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
9.17 New Approaches in the Study of Sefer Hasidim
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
9.18 Toward 1948
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Tuesday, December 18, 10:15 AM – 11:45 AM
10.1 Crossing the Great Divide: Looking at the United States from North of the Border
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
10.2 Jewish Women Strike Back: Tracing and Reclaiming Jewish Women in Film and Television
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
10.3 Roundtable: Unlocking Holocaust Testimony: Scholarship, Teaching, and Public History in the Digital Age
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
10.4 Graduate Student Lightning Session: Modern Jewish History in Europe and Israel
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
10.5 Past is Present? Reconsidering Jewish Refugees and Immigration Policies of World War II in Light of Contemporary Refugee Crises
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
10.6 Food, Theater, and Vampires: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Relationships with Israel
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
10.7 CANCELLED Seminar: Russian and Soviet Jewish Immigrant Experience in Europe, Israel, and the United States
10.8 Seminar: (Re)constructing the Religious Thought and Practices of Women in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
10.9 Reframing Normative Judaism: Queer Jewish Ritual in the United States
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
10.10 Twentieth-Century American Jews as Activists
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
10.11 Modernization and the Hasidic Renaissance in
Interwar Poland
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
10.12 Roundtable: Reaching Beyond the Academy
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
10.13 Roundtable: Multiple Paths: The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, 1906–1947
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
10.14 Roundtable: Gender and the Identity Politics of “Off the Derekh” Lives and Narratives
Skyline Room (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
10.15 Messianism and Kabbalah Scholarship: The Life and Works of Isaiah Tishby
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
10.16 Socialist Revolution and Zionism between the
World Wars
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
10.17 Medieval Jewish Moneylending and the "Jewish Economic Function" Reconsidered
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
10.18 Jewish Literatures in South America and North Africa
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
10.19 Roundtable: The Role of Jewish Studies within Colleges and Universities
Plaza B (Plaza Level, Seaport)
Tuesday, December 18, 11:45 AM – 12:45 PM, Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
Presented by SUNY Press
Rafael Chaiken, the editor for Jewish Studies at SUNY Press, gives an introduction to the process of preparing a book proposal and finding a publisher. Open to all.
Tuesday, December 18, 11:45 AM – 12:45 PM, Plaza A (Plaza Level, Seaport Hotel)
By prepaid reservation only.
December 18, 12:45 PM – 2:00 PM
11.1 Jewish Women and Autobiographical Acts
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
11.2 Jews in the American Progressive Era: Cultural and Political Encounters in the Era of Mass Migration and Urban Reform 1900-1920
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
11.3 Roundtable: Jews on TV: Exploring Representations of Jewish Identity on American and Israeli Screens
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
11.4 Negotiating Jewish Rights between International Ideals and National Constraints, 1848–1968
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
11.5 Re(de)fining the Boundaries of the “Jewish Community” in Cairo Geniza Documents
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
11.6 Jewish Comics and Graphic Novels
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
11.7 Seminar: Photographs as Objects, Photographs as Thoughts: On the Materiality and Ethics of Photography in Jewish Contexts
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
11.8 Seminar: The Role of Emotions and the Nature of Emotional Life in Jewish Mystical Tradition
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
11.9 American Judaism and the “Unity” Impulse
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
11.10 Realia and Rulers in Jewish Antiquity
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
11.11 Law and Ritual: Ideology and History
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
11.12 Lightning Session: Contemporary German Jewish Literature and Culture
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
11.13 Roundtable: Alternatives to Zionism in the Post-48 Era
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
11.14 Gender and Jewish Inter/Nationalism across the Twentieth Century
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
11.15 Roundtable: Shifting Boundaries: Jewish Literatures
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
December 18, 2:30 PM – 4:00 PM
12.1 New Approaches to Yiddish Music and Writing
Harborview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
12.2 Israeli Scholarly Comparative Perspectives on American Jewry and American Jewish Studies
Harborview 3 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
12.3 Performing the Jewish Archive Internationally: Reconstructions of a Musical Revue from the Terezin/Theresienstadt Ghetto in Australia and South Africa
Amphitheater (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
12.4 Situating Ancient Judaism in Ancient and Modern Contexts
Harborview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
12.5 Historical Memory during the Holocaust and in Its Aftermath
Cityview 1 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
12.6 Potpourri: Jewish Language, Literature, and Writing
Cityview 2 Ballroom (Plaza Level, World Trade Center)
12.7 Seminar: Anarchist Diasporism/Diasporic Anarchism: Jewish Antistatism and Statelessness
Waterfront 1 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
Access seminar papers (AJS member login required)
12.8: Taking Stock of Capital among North American Jews
Waterfront 2 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
12.9 Graduate Student Lightning Session: Philosophy, Mysticism, Theology
Cambridge 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
12.10 1948 and Beyond: Carving an Israeli Identity
Waterfront 3 Ballroom (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
12.11 Roundtable: Theory and Practice of Talmud Commentary
Beacon Hill 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
12.12 Jewish Hegelians
Beacon Hill 2 & 3 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
12.13 Rethinking Hebrew Literary Modernity through Dvora Baron
Cambridge 1 Complex (Harbor Level, World Trade Center)
12.14 Works-in-Progress Group in Jewish Studies
Backbay 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
12.15 Aesthetics as Jewish Modernity: Poetics and Music in Haskalah Thought
Backbay 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
12.16 Roundtable: Beyond the Pale: Teaching East European Jewish History and Culture outside the Jewish Studies Classroom
Federal 1 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
12.17 Literature and Communal Norms in the Late Middle Ages
Federal 2 Complex (Mezzanine Level, World Trade Center)
Wednesday, December 19, 9 am – 4 pm
$50 includes (kosher) lunch (Seating limited)
NOTE: Writing Beyond the Academy is reserved for AJS members who have obtained a PhD.
This day-long program, led by Columbia University School of Journalism professor, Sam Freedman, will offer participants a number of strategies, tips, and exercises on how to translate their work from an academic landscape to the wider public in a number of formats (op-ed, book proposal, personal essay, etc). Additional guest speakers may be added at a later date. Click here to see what previous participants said about the week-long version of the program: https://vimeo.com/228266538
All refunds after November 15 will be charged a $20.00 processing fee.
