Science and Transformation in Jewish Culture

Science and Transformation in Jewish Culture

During this two-day colloquium, scholars from around the world will join our fellows to explore the ways that science and Judaism have long been mutual catalysts of change, exploration, and self-reflection. Panels are divided according to four analytical rubrics: transmission, expertise, praxis, and institutions, opening avenues for the nuanced interdisciplinary conversations across a wide range of case studies, premodern and modern.

APRIL 22–23 2018

Class of 1978 Pavilion

Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center

3420 Walnut Street

Philadelphia, PA

SUNDAY, APRIL 22

1:30 pm | WELCOME

Steven Weitzman, Ella Darivoff Director, Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies

1:45 pm | TRANSMISSION

Chair: Francesca Bregoli, Queens College

Debra Glasberg Gail, Katz Center
Rabbis as Disseminators of Scientific Knowledge: Issac Lampronti and the Paḥad Yitzḥak

Assaf Tamari, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute 
Sifra de’Asia Kartinah: The Zoharic Sages’ Encounter with “Kabbalistic Medicine” and Its Ramifications

Gad Freudenthal, French National Center for Scientific Research/Katz Center 
Old French Cosmology in Early-Modern Garments: From Gautier of Metz Image du monde (1245) to Sefer Yedi‘at 'olam (Yiddish, 1719), to Sefer tsel ha-‘olam (Hebrew, 1733 et seq), to Tsel ha-‘olam (Tatar, 1830s)
 

Respondent: Gianna Pomata, Johns Hopkins University
 

3:45 pm | COFFEE BREAK
 

4:15 pm | PRAXIS
Chair: Christine Hayes, Yale University/Katz Center

 
Tamar Rabinowitz, Brooklyn College/Katz Center
"Hullo, Are You Dere?" Jewish Immigration, the Telephone, and the Technology of Americanization

 
Agata Paluch, Free University Berlin/Katz Center
Active Matter: Objects of Knowledge in Practical Kabbalah

 
Josefina Rodríguez-Arribas, Institut für Jüdische Studien – Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität 
Astrolabe Diagrams in Medieval and Early Modern Hebrew Manuscripts

 
Respondent: Andrew Berns, University of South Carolina
 

6:30 pm | DINNER (BY INVITATION)
Terrace Room, Claudia Cohen Hall 
249 South 36th Street 

 
MONDAY, APRIL 23

 8:30 am | COFFEE & LIGHT BREAKFAST 
 
9:00 am | EXPERTISE
Chair: Talya Fishman, University of Pennsylvania

 
Y. Tzvi Langermann, Bar Ilan University/Katz Center
In Search of Ancient Authority: Sefer yetsira and Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer in the Kuzari and Other Medieval Texts

 
Maud Kozodoy, Independent Scholar 
Text, Expertise, and Authority: Medieval Jewish Physicians and Their Manuscripts

 
Tal Golan, University of California, San Diego
In Search of Modern Authority: Zionism and Science

 
Respondent: Harun Küçük, University of Pennsylvania 

 
11:00 am | COFFEE BREAK 
 

11:30 am | STATES & INSTITUTIONS
Chair: Yitzhaq Feder, University of Haifa/Katz Center

 
Natalia Aleksiun, Touro College/Katz Center
Mapping Sick Jewish Bodies: Medical Discourse and Race in the Second Polish Republic

 
Sofia Grachova, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews/Katz Center 
Pathologies of Civility: Eastern European Jews, Medicine, and the State in the Long Nineteenth Century

 
Anat Mooreville, Katz Center
The Mass Trachoma Project: North African Jews, the JDC, and Global Health (1948–1956)

 
Respondent: David Barnes, University of Pennsylvania
 

 
1:30 pm | LUNCH BREAK 
 

3:00 pm | CONCLUDING PANEL
Chair: Steven Weitzman

 
Panelists
Adelheid (Heidi) Voskuhl, University of Pennsylvania/Katz Center

Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Arizona State University

Annette Yoshiko Reed, New York University

J. H. (Yossi) Chajes, University of Haifa/Katz Center

 
5:00 pm | CLOSING RECEPTION
Arthur Ross Gallery
Fisher Fine Arts Library
220 South 34th Street