Event

There exists a strong scholarly consensus that polemic has played a central role in Jewish history. Whether we consider polemics involving Samaritans, Christians, Qaraites, Muslims, Haskalah thinkers, Zionists, “the nations,” or contemporary group identity formation, polemical forms of argumentation and representation have been widespread in thinking about Jews and Judaism. However, this scholarly consensus often obfuscates rather than clarifies, preventing the category of polemic from receiving careful scrutiny. The label “polemic” can render certain aspects of a text unproblematic or irrelevant, because scholars frequently view polemic as a dishonest form of argumentation that bears little or no relationship to a writer’s “real” views. To move this situation forward, scholars must begin to ask the following questions. How can scholars identify polemic and delimit its boundaries? Does the label polemic imply that a given author actually held different views? How is that view identified? Are there limits to polemic, either based on reasonableness or believability? Do consumers of polemic share the scholarly skepticism of polemic or recognize the rhetorical strategies at play? What role does relationship with a real or imagined “Other” play in constructing identity?

This one-day graduate student conference at the University of Pennsylvania, organized by graduate students Marc Herman, Rachel Ellis, and Phillip Fackler, will focus on these and similar questions. It will feature Dr. Elisheva Carlebach as the keynote speaker and students of different periods and disciplines in the study of Judaism and Jewish history who will bring different data to bear on these theoretical questions. 

Click here for a printable schedule: Warring Words 

Full schedule:

Warring Words:
Rethinking Polemic in the Study of Jews and Judaism
Graduate Student Conference, University of Pennsylvania

Thursday, March 20, 2014
Cafe 58 (Room 124)
Irvine Auditorium, 3401 Spruce Street

8:45 am  Breakfast

9:15 am  Opening Remarks: Professor Tayla Fishman, University of Pennsylvania

9:30 am  Session 1: Problematizing Polemics

Old New (Altneu) Nation: Polemics against Gentiles in the Bavli and the Reconstitution of the Jewish Ethnos
Simcha Gross, Yale University

Capistrum Christianorum et Muslimorum? Jewish Silencing and Lack Thereof in Medieval Polemic
Meghan Elizabeth Zibby, University of Colorado Boulder

The Afterlife of a Polemic in Rabbinic Interpretive Tradition: The Case of mYadayim 4:6
Shlomo Zuckier, Yale University

Discussant: Professor Annette Yoshiko Reed, University of Pennsylvania

11:00 am  Coffee Break

11:15 am  Session 2: Parsing Polemics

Here he comes in the likeness of a Jew…’ An Intra- and Inter-Faith Polemic in Marcin Czechowic’s Jewish Chats
Magdalena Luszczynska, Hebrew University

Should Nahum Goldmann Go to Cairo? The American Jewish Press, the Goldmann Affair, and the Limits of Zionist Discourse
Judah Bernstein, New York University

Ignatius of Antioch against ‘Judaizing’ Christians: Polemic and the Refinement of Creedal Interpretation
Alexander B. Miller, Fordham University

Discussant: Dr. Anne O. Albert, Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

12:45 pm  Lunch

1:30 pm  Keynote Address: Professor Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University

2:30 pm  Coffee Break

2:45 pm  Session 3: Putting Polemics in their Place

A Sordid God: Toledot Yeshu and Liturgical Time in Early Modern Europe
Shai Alleson-Gerberg, Hebrew University

Antisemitism and Catholic Colonial Algeria in the Time of Dreyfus: Recovering the Conspiratorial World of La Croix de l’Algerie et de la Tunisie, 1899
Bob Isaacson, The George Washington University

Between Christianity and Islam: Solomon Ibn Adret’s Maʾamar ʿal Yishmael
Ezra Blaustein, University of Chicago

Discussant: Professor Matthew Goldish, Ohio State University, Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

4:15 pm  Closing Remarks

Dinner By Invitation

Sponsored generously by University of Pennsylvania’s Jewish Studies Program, SASGov, the Middle East Center, and the Departments of History, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, English, Classics, Ancient History, and Comparative Literature.