Taking Care: New Approaches in Jewish Studies to Health, Medicine, and the Body
Katz Center
420 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19106
At the weekly Ruth Meltzer Seminars, Katz Center fellows share their research in an intellectually rigorous workshop setting. Seminars are limited to fellows and invited guests only.
Featuring
Joshua Teplitsky
University of Pennsylvania
Joshua Teplitsky is the Joseph Meyerhoff Associate Professor of Modern Jewish History and the Ruth Meltzer Director of the Jewish Studies Program at Penn. His research focuses on the history of Jewish life in early modern Central Europe within the wider context of Jewish/Christian interaction and minority experience. He is also a codirector of the digital humanities project, “Footprints: Jewish Books through Time and Place.” This ongoing collaborative project traces the movement of Jewish books between 1450 and 1800.
Teplitsky received his Ph.D. in Hebrew and Judaic studies from NYU in 2012.
Natalia Aleksiun
University of Florida
Natalia Aleksiun is the Harry Rich Professor of Holocaust Studies at the University of Florida, where she teaches courses on the Holocaust and its aftermath, Eastern Europe, Jewish childhood, and the history of medicine. She serves as editor of East European Jewish Affairs and has written extensively on the history of Polish Jews and the Holocaust. She is completing a monograph on the so-called “Cadaver Affair” in medical schools in East Central Europe between two world wars.
Aleksiun holds doctoral degrees from Warsaw University and New York University.
Seçil Yilmaz
University of Pennsylvania
Seçil Yilmaz is a historian of sexuality, gender, and medicine of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey. Her research and teaching focuses on the broad fields of social and intellectual history at the intersections of medical humanities, life sciences, feminist, and queer studies. She traces the stories of uneven and unconventional engagements and interactions of global, local, and indigenous historical agents framed by colonialism, imperialism, and modern governance.
Seçil Yilmaz completed her Ph.D. at the Graduate Center, CUNY. Following her PhD, she was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University’s Society for the Humanities (SHC) and Near Eastern Studies (NES) as a member of the cohorts on the topic of “Skin” and “Corruption.” She is the co-curator of the podcast series on Women, Gender, and Sex in the Ottoman World at Ottoman History Podcast.
