And God Laughed: Humor in the Bible – Joel Kaminsky (Smith College)
Since the Hebrew Bible is a sacred text for Jews and Christians many readers naturally assume it cannot contain any humor. This talk will explore several biblical narratives that employ humor to make serious theological points. Becoming aware of such biblical humor can enrich our understanding of these stories and of certain theological ideas the […]
The Pope at War: The Continuing Controversy over the Silence of Pope Pius XII during the Shoah – David I. Kertzer
Pope Pius XII’s decision not to speak out against the German attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe has long generated bitter controversy. The opening of the Vatican archives for his papacy in 2020 permits new insight into the reasons why the pope acted as he did. Focusing on the pope’s actions in October 1943 […]
Arnold J. Band Symposium
This symposium will bring together colleagues and students of Prof. Arnold Band to reflect on his wide-ranging impact and influence on their scholarly work. Prof. Band was known for his pioneering research in Hebrew and Jewish literature, though his range of interests expanded far beyond those domains. Panelists will reflect on how Prof. Band, the […]
Digital Mapping, Digital Humanities, and the Holocaust – Tim Cole
This talk draws on over ten years of experimenting with digital humanities methods – in particular digital mapping – to study the Holocaust. As well as suggesting the ways that a range of digital methods can uncover new knowledge through distant reading the archive, mapping spatial patterns, or digital reading against the grain, the talk […]
Ethics of the Algorithm: Digital Humanities and Holocaust Memory
The Holocaust is one of the most documented—and now digitized—events in human history. Institutions and archives hold hundreds of thousands of hours of audio and video testimony, composed of more than a billion words in dozens of languages, with millions of pieces of descriptive metadata. It would take several lifetimes to engage with these testimonies […]
Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism – Magda Teter
In 2017 in Charlottesville, antisemitism and anti-Black racism converged as white supremacists, in a highly choreographed and violent protest against the removal of a statue honoring a Confederate general, carried Confederate flags and chanted “Jews will not replace us.” In this talk, Magda Teter, the author of Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism […]