The Jewish Home: Boundaries, Domesticity and Power

Due to the health risks posed by the Coronavirus (COVID-19), the Gruss Colloquium is being postponed until next academic year, a new date to be announced.

26th Annual Gruss Colloquium

The Gruss Colloquium is the culminating event of our fellowship year focused on “The Jewish Home.” Over these two days, we will engage a series of questions meant to generate a discussion of Jewish domestic experience across time a space. How were (and are) intimacy and power between householders of different gender, status, generation, and religious affiliation negotiated in Jewish homes? How do Jewish homes, both enacted and imagined, force us to transcend narrow definitions presumptions and clichés of modern domesticity? And, just as we tend to use the metaphor of “nesting” when talking about homes, they are often also sites of violence, resistance and revolt.  Finally, an empty space is not a home; how have Jews used ritual objects to make a house, and in some cases, an institutional space, into a home? The conference will conclude with a round-table in which we will have the occasion to reflect on the year’s work, the contributions to the conference, and ways forward.