Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. Mizrahi Prose and Poetry: Meet the Authors (October 3, 2022 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97305 97305-21794289@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 3, 2022 12:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Offering a glimpse into the vital Mizrahi literary landscape, this panel will gather several Mizrahi authors of different generations, backgrounds, and experiences. These well-known authors will be reading from their invaluable work and engaging the audience in a conversation about their specific texts as well as about their more general struggles and challenges. While aiming at giving a flavor of the wide-ranging aesthetics, generic, and stylistic scope of Mizrahi creativity, the panel, more broadly, hopes to give a sense of the intricacies of the Mizrahi story. The reading will be accompanied with English translation to facilitate the discussion with the audience.

This is a virtual event.
Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/n8bxy

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Livestream / Virtual Tue, 27 Sep 2022 14:21:38 -0400 2022-10-03T12:00:00-04:00 2022-10-03T14:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Judaic Studies Livestream / Virtual Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies
Religious, Spiritual, and Secular Identities on Campus (October 25, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/96873 96873-21793522@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 25, 2022 10:00am
Location: LSA Building
Organized By: LSA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

This workshop focuses on the role of religious and spirituality identities as an important aspect of DEI work on campus. Participants in this workshop will develop an understanding the variety and complexity of religious, secular, and spiritual (R/S/S) identities on our campus; understand why support for religious pluralism and spiritual development is important on a public college campus; learn about key religious accommodations and resources and how to access them in their work to support faculty, staff, and students; and discover ways to get involved in DEI work around R/S/S identities.

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Understand the importance of religious, secular, and spiritual identity in faculty, staff, and students’ lives and in DEI work on our campus;

2. Identify the main religious groups on our campus and how their proportions differ among faculty, staff, and stud;ents; understand the limitations of the way we collect data about religious background;

3. Name the key religious accommodations and resources available to faculty, staff, and students; identify areas in which they can influence religious accommodations and in which there is more work to be done;

4. Understand what is acceptable and what is unacceptable regarding religious expression on a public university campus and barriers you may encounter around R/S/S DEI

5. Name three concrete steps they can take in within their sphere of influence to create greater equity and inclusion for students, faculty, and staff who hold minoritized religious identities

6. Name ways to get more involved in DEI work around R/S/S identities on campus

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 15 Aug 2022 14:13:35 -0400 2022-10-25T10:00:00-04:00 2022-10-25T12:00:00-04:00 LSA Building LSA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workshop / Seminar Sunrise Copacabana
LRCCS Noon Lecture Series | Moral Theory and Early Confucianism: Toward a Unified Account (October 25, 2022 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/96541 96541-21792869@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 25, 2022 12:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies

Early Confucian ethical and political thought has provoked a remarkable range of readings over the last two decades, especially regarding the fundamental structure of Confucian ethics. This talk attempts to sort through these debates, especially regarding role ethics and virtue ethics, but with some attention to other interpretations, in the service of sketching the outlines of a general and synthetic account of early Confucian ethical theory, which can at the same time account for the areas of debate within and beyond the Ru social group.

Aaron Stalnaker is professor and chair of Religious Studies at Indiana University, with courtesy appointments in Philosophy and East Asian Languages and Cultures. He has written two book-length studies in comparative ethics: "Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority" (Oxford University Press, 2020) and "Overcoming Our Evil: Human Nature and Spiritual Exercises in Xunzi and Augustine" (Georgetown University Press, 2006). He has also published articles in a number of venues, including the "Journal of Religious Ethics," "Soundings," "Philosophy East and West," "Dao," and "International Philosophical Quarterly." He founded the Comparative Religious Ethics group within the American Academy of Religion, and is currently Associate Editor of the "Journal of Religious Ethics" and co-chair of the Confucian Traditions Unit at the AAR.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at chinese.studies@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 05 Aug 2022 11:10:59 -0400 2022-10-25T12:00:00-04:00 2022-10-25T13:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies Lecture / Discussion Aaron Stalnaker, Professor and Chair of Religious Studies, Indiana University
Padnos Public Engagement on Jewish Learning Lecture: “Remnants of a Mighty Nation”: Jews Through the Eyes of American Christians (November 1, 2022 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97306 97306-21794290@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 1, 2022 7:00pm
Location: 1027 E. Huron Building
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The Stuart and Barbara Padnos Foundation has provided a gift to the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies to establish the Padnos Engagement on Jewish Learning fund. The initiative, which commenced last year, will facilitate annual public educational activities in Jewish Studies throughout the State of Michigan with a focus on the western part of the state.This lecture is in partnership with the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University.

The Padnos Public Engagement on Jewish Learning Event, to take place on November 1 at 7 pm, will feature Dr. Julian Levinson, Samuel Shetzer Professor of American Jewish Studies, University of Michigan. Dr. Levinson will present a lecture called “'Remnants of a Mighty Nation': Jews Through the Eyes of American Christians” at the Loosemore Auditorium at the Richard M. Devos Center on Grand Valley State University's Campus. The event will also be virtually simulcast via Zoom. Immediately following the lecture at approximately 8:30 there will be a light reception in the adjacent Lubbers Exhibition Hall.

Dr. Levinson prefaces his discussion: "What is it like to belong to a religious minority? For Jews in the United States, there have been countless challenges as well as unexpected benefits from living among a Christian majority. While some individual Christians have been highly critical of Jews for their beliefs and practices, others have been deeply respectful of Jews for being the original “chosen people,” for preserving the Hebrew language, and for maintaining traditions going back to the Bible. This talk will focus on the ways Jews were perceived in nineteenth-century America, when the origins of present-day Christian-Jewish relations were established. It will trace the formation of views that are still prevalent today, including the evangelical fascination with Israel. It will also consider how Jews have shaped their own identities in relation to the broader Christian environment."

This is a hybrid lecture.
Loosemore Auditorium, DeVos Center, Grand Valley State University
Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/DJN9M

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 30 Sep 2022 11:47:55 -0400 2022-11-01T19:00:00-04:00 2022-11-01T21:00:00-04:00 1027 E. Huron Building Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Julian Levinson
New on the Mizrahi Bookshelf: Meet the Scholars (November 8, 2022 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97307 97307-21794306@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 8, 2022 12:00pm
Location:
Organized By: Judaic Studies

The interdisciplinary field of Mizrahi studies covers a wide array of issues, approaches, and methodologies, illuminating in compellingly diverse ways the intricacies of the Mizrahi experience. This hybrid panel brings together scholars who published invaluable books over the past year, thus contributing to the expansion of knowledge about the historical, cultural, and socio-political dimensions of the Mizrahi experience. The authors will present their new texts, while also participating in a conversation with the audience about the significant issues raised by their books and the intellectual dialogue they hope to generate. Offering insight into this vital scholarly landscape, the panel also aims to give a sense of the challenges faced by critical scholars engaging the Mizrahi story within fresh perspectives.

Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/7e8NN

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 12 Oct 2022 15:36:49 -0400 2022-11-08T12:00:00-05:00 2022-11-08T14:00:00-05:00 Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies
"Where is Anne Frank" Film Screening (November 10, 2022 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/97308 97308-21794307@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 10, 2022 5:30pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Judaic Studies

Join the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies for the screening of "Where Is Anne Frank," a 2021 animated magic realism film directed by Israeli director Ari Folman. The film follows Kitty, Anne Frank's imaginary friend to whom she addressed her diary, manifesting in contemporary Amsterdam.

The screening will be accompanied by a discussion with the film's director, Ari Folman.

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Film Screening Wed, 09 Nov 2022 08:16:54 -0500 2022-11-10T17:30:00-05:00 2022-11-10T19:45:00-05:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Judaic Studies Film Screening Where is Anne Frank?
Faith and Feminism: Changing Roles of Women in American Judaism and Malaysian Islam (November 15, 2022 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/100766 100766-21800332@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 15, 2022 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Judaic Studies

What does it mean to think about faith and feminism together? Is there a place for feminism in Abrahamic, patriarchal religions? Conversely, is there space for faith within often secular feminist movements? Does being part of a majoritarian group (Muslims in Malaysia) versus being part of a minoritarian group (Jews in the United States) shape or hinder reformist efforts in any way? historian Karla Goldman and political sociologist Saleena Saleem address these questions as they discuss the changing roles of women in American Judaism and Malaysian Islam throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Join the Frankel Center for this hybrid lecture with Saleena Saleem in conversation with Professor Karla Goldman and moderated by Professor Adi Saleem Bharat. This event is co-sponsored with Asian Languages and Cultures.

This is a hybrid taking place in 2022 South Thayer Building.

Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/29GXm

*Saleena Saleem* is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Liverpool. She is a currently a Visiting Researcher with the Institute on Culture, Religion & World Affairs, Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. Her research interests are on decolonial feminism, ethno-religious politics, and gender in South-east Asia. Saleena holds a Master of Science in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Science in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University. She has held research positions at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, and at the Centre for Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

*Karla Goldman* is the Sol Drachler Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work, and Professor of Judaic Studies, College of LS&A. Her research focuses on the history of the American Jewish experience with special attention to the history of American Jewish communities and the evolving roles and contributions of American Jewish women. She directs the University of Michigan Jewish Communal Leadership Program, a collaborative effort between the School of Social Work and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies.

*Adi Saleem Bharat *is a scholar of modern and contemporary France. He is an Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He conducts research and teaches courses on race and religion in contemporary French society, with a particular focus on Jews and Muslims. He is currently working on a manuscript tentatively titled Beyond Jews and Muslims, which examines and challenges the construction of a polarized, oppositional category of “Jewish-Muslim relations” in media and political discourse in contemporary French society.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 27 Oct 2022 12:23:11 -0400 2022-11-15T16:00:00-05:00 2022-11-15T17:30:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Judaic Studies Lecture / Discussion Faith and Feminism
Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies Fall Symposium: “Mizrahi Studies at the Intersection: Rewriting Body, Language, and Cultural Memory” (November 30, 2022 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/97313 97313-21794308@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 30, 2022 10:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Judaic Studies

As an interdisciplinary formation, the field of Mizrahi Studies has generated engaged scholarship that questions the ready-made paradigms of knowledge production. A critical strain has been key to shaping a cross-border Mizrahi epistemology, performed in conversation with multiple fields such as ethnic and race studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and post/colonial studies. Yet the intellectual home of Mizrahi studies remains fraught with ambiguities, symptomatic of an in-between identity which does not always fit neatly into a single institutional space. The very name of the field, “Mizrahi,” exists in relation to other rubrics -- Sephardis, Arab Jews, Jews from Muslim countries, Middle Eastern Jews, Asian and African Jews, etc. -- each suggesting different mappings and frames of reference. Although not necessarily mutually exclusive, these diverse rubrics suggest the intricacies of a historically recent constructed identity and the multiple genealogies and orientations that mark this compelling area of inquiry. Critical Mizrahi scholars themselves, as writing subjects, have deepened the study of their own variegated communal stories and experiences across multiple geographies.

This symposium aims to address some of the key issues raised by Mizrahi studies as conceptualized through a transnational, transregional, multidirectional, and intersectional prism. Rather than produce a Mizrahi subject in isolation, the symposium will problematize any fixed understanding of Mizrahiness by highlighting the ways this concept is dynamically shaped by class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, nation, and so forth. The symposium strives to illuminate Mizrahi studies as a critical field not simply about the Mizrahim but also about decolonization of knowledge. It hopes to interrogate established categories by asking what constitutes legitimate knowledge when ways of knowing may themselves have to be reconceptualized in a discursive climate saturated with hierarchical, exclusionary, and even violent assumptions? Some additional questions posed by the symposium include: Which methodological paradigms and epistemic frameworks enable the shaping of fragmented memories into a broader and more relational narrative? What kind of obstacles do scholars face in the process of carrying out research involving archival documentation and oral transmission, when such data collection is entangled in histories of obscuring and silencing? What challenges does an academically normative discourse pose for those writing on subjects that touch on traumatic experiences and memories, at once personal, familial, and communal? And what lessons could be learned from more self-reflexive research practices and coping strategies in terms of future scholarship. In sum, this one-day symposium brings together a committed group of scholars working within the broadly construed field of Mizrahi studies, while also reflecting on critical interventions in the field itself.

Program:

9:00 Coffee/ Breakfast

10:00: Welcoming Words
Maya Barzilai, Director, Frankel Center for Judaic Studies
Ruth Tsoffar
Ella Shohat

Panel I, 10:30- 12:00: Reframing Mizrahi Memory
Ruth Tsoffar, Moderator
Orit Ouaknine-Yekutieli: "Movements of Return between Israel and Morocco: Discourses and Practices"
Daniel Schroeter: "Remembering Morocco: The Global Moroccan Jewish Diaspora"
Yali Hashash: “The Lost Academic Work of Mizrahi Women”
Erez Tzfadia: “Home and Citizenship: Mizrahiyut and Informality in Settler-colonial Spatiality”

Lunch: 12:00-1:00

Panel II, 1:00-3:00: Discourses of Mizrahi Belonging
Gal Levy, Moderator
Merav Aloush Levron: “Mizrahi Autoethnography and the Inter-generational Art of Memory”
Naphtaly Shem-Tov: “‘Fricha is a Beautiful Name: Performance as Theatrical Interruption”
Rafael Balulu: “Thoughts about the Possibilities of Metaverse for Mizrahi History and Aesthetics”

Coffee Break: 3:00-3:30

Panel III, 3:30- 5:00: Decolonizing the Mizrahi Body
Liron Mor, Moderator
Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber: “‘Maybe We Did Them a Favor:’ Reading the Kidnapped Babies Affair Through Intersectional Feminist Lens”
Inbal Blau (Maimon): "Healing the Wounds: Legal Perspective on Injustices against the Mizrahim"
Raz Yosef: “Ethnicity, Disidentification, and Queer Performativity: The Arisa Mizrahi Party Line Videos”

Discussion: 5:15- 5:45

Dinner: 6:00

This is a hybrid event.
Rackham East and West Conference Rooms
Zoom Registration: https://myumi.ch/wMPxz

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Conference / Symposium Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:22:49 -0500 2022-11-30T10:00:00-05:00 2022-11-30T17:30:00-05:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Judaic Studies Conference / Symposium Frankel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies
Spring 2023 MEMS Lecture. In the Aftermath of the Divine Winds: Religious Responses to the Mongol Threat and the Medieval Reimagining of Japan (March 10, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102062 102062-21803407@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 10, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS)

Twice in the late thirteenth century, the Mongol empire launched attack fleets against Japan. On both occasions, they were repelled by fortuitous storms. Scholarly accounts of the Mongol threat have focused on Japan’s military defense. However, massive efforts were also poured into ritual countermeasures: Sacred texts were copied and recited, buddha images commissioned, and enemy-subduing rites performed. The failure of the invasion attempts was attributed to the intervention of Japan’s local deities (kami) and catalyzed a conceptual inversion of Japan’s cosmological status, from “a marginal land in the last age” to a timeless, inviolable realm at the very center of the Buddhist world.

Bio: Jacqueline Stone is professor emerita of Japanese Religions in the Religion Department of Princeton University. She focuses on Japanese Buddhism of the medieval and modern periods. Her current research interests include traditions of the Lotus Sutra, particularly the Tendai and Nichiren sects; Buddhism and Japanese identity formation; and modern reinterpretations of Buddhist thought and practice. She is the author of Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (1999) and Right Thoughts at the Last Moment: Buddhism and Deathbed Practices in Early Medieval Japan (2016).

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 11 Jan 2023 14:42:46 -0500 2023-03-10T16:00:00-05:00 2023-03-10T17:30:00-05:00 Angell Hall Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Lecture / Discussion Battle engaged with Mongol forces
STS Speaker Series. Queering and Transing the Life Cycle in Jewish Ritual (March 13, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/102182 102182-21803655@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 13, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Science, Technology & Society

The term “life cycle ritual” is used widely in Jewish Studies. In this talk I trace the idea of the life cycle and its development, while considering the racialized, gendered, and sexual politics of the term, and the way it borrows from biological sciences. Scholars have argued that the concept of the life cycle in Judaism originates with the rabbis in late antiquity. Eunuchs and androgynes, who are found prolifically in rabbinic literature, can trouble the assumption that the rabbis are invested in an orderly cycle of life. I weave together trans and queer theory with Jewish sources to examine legal attempts to channel messy embodiment into a life trajectory.

Max Strassfeld is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. They are the author of Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature, which was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards in 2022.

Co-sponsors: Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies; Classical Studies; Center for Judaic Studies

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:05:04 -0500 2023-03-13T16:00:00-04:00 2023-03-13T17:30:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Science, Technology & Society Lecture / Discussion Prof. Max Strassfeld
In this Holy Place: Ritual Healing Sites in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (April 3, 2023 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/106526 106526-21814407@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, April 3, 2023 4:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Part of the Meet the Author Series. In the ancient Mediterranean world, the sick and injured visited sites associated with healing deities in order to be cured. In Palestine, ritual cures were often sought at sites associated with water, and especially at the thermal-mineral springs. This talk will show how evidence from Hammat Gader and Hammat Tiberias indicates that Jews and Christians bathed in these springs alongside devotees of Asclepius, hoping that a divine healer would appear to them in a dream and heal them. Join guest speaker Dr. Megan Nutzman April 3rd at 4:00-5:30pm in Tisch Hall, Room 1014.

Additionally, Dr. Nutzman will be leading a discussion about her book in a different location for a small group of faculty and graduate students at 9:00am. If you are interested please contact Deborah Forger at dkforger@umich.edu to register as space is limited.

*Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late antique Palestine*

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 21 Mar 2023 10:38:08 -0400 2023-04-03T16:00:00-04:00 2023-04-03T17:30:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Poster
Religious, Spiritual, and Secular Identities on Campus (April 11, 2023 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/96873 96873-21803853@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 10:00am
Location:
Organized By: LSA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

This workshop focuses on the role of religious and spirituality identities as an important aspect of DEI work on campus. Participants in this workshop will develop an understanding the variety and complexity of religious, secular, and spiritual (R/S/S) identities on our campus; understand why support for religious pluralism and spiritual development is important on a public college campus; learn about key religious accommodations and resources and how to access them in their work to support faculty, staff, and students; and discover ways to get involved in DEI work around R/S/S identities.

At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Understand the importance of religious, secular, and spiritual identity in faculty, staff, and students’ lives and in DEI work on our campus;

2. Identify the main religious groups on our campus and how their proportions differ among faculty, staff, and stud;ents; understand the limitations of the way we collect data about religious background;

3. Name the key religious accommodations and resources available to faculty, staff, and students; identify areas in which they can influence religious accommodations and in which there is more work to be done;

4. Understand what is acceptable and what is unacceptable regarding religious expression on a public university campus and barriers you may encounter around R/S/S DEI

5. Name three concrete steps they can take in within their sphere of influence to create greater equity and inclusion for students, faculty, and staff who hold minoritized religious identities

6. Name ways to get more involved in DEI work around R/S/S identities on campus

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 15 Aug 2022 14:13:35 -0400 2023-04-11T10:00:00-04:00 2023-04-11T12:00:00-04:00 LSA Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Workshop / Seminar Sunrise Copacabana