Jewish Studies Event

“The Arab Spring: The Youth Revolts of the Arab World Aren't Over

The youth revolts of 2011 and after in the Arab world have permanently changed the face of the region.  While most observers have mainly interpreted them through the lens of high politics, this talk argues that the big story here is the rise of a new generation of young Arabs, the Millennials, who have innovated in grassroots organization (including, but not limited to new ways of using social media for politics).  It is too soon to know thow he political struggles that they initiated will end.  But it is certain that a new generation, with distinctive values and aspirations, has announced its arrival on the scene.

 

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UKAA Auditorium @ W.T. Young Library

"Religion, Identity and Competing Visions of Islam in Post-Soviet Central Asia"

For several decades, studying Islam in Central Asia meant beginning with questions, analytical categories, and conceptual frameworks rooted in Soviet and Russian studies; this approach, combined with a lack of basic understanding of the historical experience of Central Asian Muslims prior to the Soviet era, led to host of misconceptions surrounding the character of Muslim religious life in the Soviet era, the impact of Soviet policies and realities, and trends in the renegotiation of religious identities in the post-Soviet age.  Recent years have brought, in some circles, growing awareness of the need for approaches drawn from Islamic studies and from a  historically-grounded understanding of the history of Muslim religiosity in Central Asia.  This lecture will discuss some of the misconceptions rooted in the ‘Sovietological’ approach to Islam in the region, and the lessons to be drawn from viewing the region through the lens of Islamic studies, with a particular focus on the ways in which religiosity was manifested in Soviet times, and on the ways in which religiosity shaped or interacted with notions of ‘national’ identity.

Professor Devin DeWeese, Indiana University, focuses his teaching and research on the religious history of Islamic Central and Inner Asia, chiefly in the post-Mongol era, with special attention to problems of Islamization, the social and political roles of Sufi communities in the region, and hagiographical literature in Persian and Chaghatay Turkic. 

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UKAA Auditorium

"My Father’s Paradise: How a Jewish Kid from Los Angeles Traveled to Wartime Iraq in Search of Roots, Identity and His Father's Improbable Life Story "

 

In his talk, Sabar will weave the remarkable story of the Kurdish Jews and their dying Aramaic tongue with the moving tale of how a consumate Californai kid came to write a book about his family's past in Iraqi Kurdistan. The book, "My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq," won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography, one of the highest honors in American letters.



Sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program

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UKAA Auditorium @ WT Young Library

The Significance of Being First; Competing: Jewish and Arab Discourses

Dr. Ilan Troen is the Stoll Family Chair in Israel Studies and Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University. He has authored 11 books in American, Jewish and Israeli history.
 
Ilan Troen will examine the ways in which claims to the Holy Land are made. This complex and contentious subject is at the root of the Arab/Israeli conflict. Historical claims are now perhaps the most significant and contentious. In the case of the land of Israel/Palestine those claims are mixed with the religious traditions of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, and even secular Jews and Arabs reference continuities with the ancient past as a means of claiming priority. The presentation will attempt to clarify this extraordinarily complex issue.

Sponsored by Jewish Studies Program and the Department of History

 

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UKAA Auditorium @ WT Young Library

“Islamist Thought and the Egyptian Revolution”

“Political Islam, the Muslim Brotherhood and Egyptian Politics”

7:00 pm  W.T. Young Auditorium

Associate Professor of Islamic Law, University of Toronto, Faculty of Law

Scholar of Islamic Law and Islamist/Reformist Thought

Author of the book: Muslim Reformists, Female Citizenship and the Public Accommodation of Islam in Liberal Democracy

Articles: “Islamic Politics and Secular Politics: Can They Co-Exist” and “Judicial Institutions, the Legitimacy of the Islamic State Law and Democratic Transition in Egypt”

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WT Young Library Auditorium

"Pilgrimage in a Tourist Age: The Case of Birthright Israel and the Shaping of Jewish Identity"

Since 1999 hundreds of thousands of young North American Jews have visited Israel on an all-expense-paid 10-day pilgrimage-tour known as Birthright Israel. The most elaborate of the state-supported homeland tours that are cropping up all over the world, this half-billion-dollar venture seeks to deepen the ties binding the Jewish Diaspora to Israel. But unlike Jewish pilgrimages of millennia past, Birthright Israel adopts and adapts the practices of modern mass tourism. What happens when a state looks to tourism to create a new pilgrimage ritual for the 21st century? How does the act of touring shape identity? How do the organizers of Birthright seek to turn the identity-shaping potentials of tourism to the service of building Jewish identity, and how are their efforts complicated by inherent aspects of tourism itself?

Shaul Kelner is Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University and Director of Vanderbilt's Program in Jewish Studies. He studies the cultural politics of American Jewish identity.

Prof. Kelner has been a Fellow of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Institute for Advanced Studies, and a visiting scholar at Tel Aviv University. He is the author of Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism (NYU Press, 2010), which received awards from the Association for Jewish Studies and American Sociological Association.

Date:
Location:
UKAA Auditorium @ WT Young Library
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