In This Issue 2015 Spring Review

2015 SPRING REVIEW September 2015 edition news CJS IN THIS ISSUE Faculty & Staff News ........ 1 Visiting Scholars ............ 4 Lectures & Events .......... 6 News from the Center for Friends of the CJS ......... 10 Jewish Studies at From the CJS Mailbox . 12 Harvard University Student News ............ 17 www.harvard.edu/~cjsOnline n CENTER at cjs.fas.harvard.edu FOR JEWISH STUDIES WELCOME, SANDY CANTAVE VIL It is a great pleasure to introduce our Staff Assistant,Sandy Cantave Vil, and to formally welcome her to the Center for Jewish Studies. Before we were able to officially offer her this position, Sandy did an outstanding job covering this role on a temporary basis DIRECTOR for nearly a year during an extended employee leave. We are all Jay M. Harris thrilled to have Sandy here on a more permanent basis. ADMINISTRATION Sandy comes to our office with many years of experience at Har- Rachel Rockenmacher, Administrator vard, including her most recent role as Production Manager of Sandy Cantave Vil, Staff Assistant the Sourcebooks Office. Sandy has been formally recognized for Dena Davis, Assistant her outstanding work at Harvard as recipient of an Impact Bonus CHAIR, FRIENDS OF THE Award, as well as her selection to participate in Harvard’s Faculty CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES of Arts and Sciences Mentoring Program for high-potential em- Peter J. Solomon ployees. She brings some wonderful computer, organizational and events planning skills, as well as exceptional poise, warmth and MEMBERS OF THE CJS professionalism. We are thrilled to have Sandy join our team. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Shaye J.D. Cohen, Luis Girón Negrón, Peter Gordon, Jay M. Harris, Jon Levenson, Peter Machinist, Eric Nelson, David Stern SANDY CANTAVE VIL ADVISORY COMMITTEE Irit Aharony, Charles Berlin, Noah Feldman, Marshall Goldman, Stephen Greenblatt, Jeffrey Hamburger, Kevin Madigan, Kay Shelemay, Doris Sommer, Susan Suleiman, D. Andrew Teeter CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES Harvard University 6 Divinity Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 PHONE: 617.495.4326 FAX: 617.496.8904 E-MAIL: [email protected] WEB: cjs.fas.harvard.edu FACEBOOK: facebook.com/ CenterForJewishStudies TWITTER: @HarvardCJS PHOTOGRAPHY: Marcus Halevi DESIGN: Erin Dowling Design FACULTY & STAFF FACULTY JAY HARRIS ERIC NELSON WELCOME, THANK YOU, JAY HARRIS ERIC NELSON by Eric Nelson by Jay M. Harris It is my pleasure to announce that Professor Jay M. I am delighted to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions Harris has assumed the directorship of the Center for Jewish of Eric M. Nelson, who stepped down as the Director of the Studies on July 1, 2015. Professor Harris, who served a term Center for Jewish Studies at the end of the academic year. as director of CJS from 2001-2006, has been a member of the Harvard faculty since 1989. He is currently the Harry Eric is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Government at Austryn Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies and Dean of Harvard University. His research focuses on the history of Undergraduate Education. In 2000, he was named a Har- political thought in early-modern Europe and America, and vard College Professor, a five-year appointment recognizing on the implications of that history for debates in contem- outstanding undergraduate teaching and mentoring. Harris porary political theory. His interests include the history of has also authored or edited nine books and was editor of the republican political theory, the relationship between the Association for Jewish Studies Review from 2000 to 2004. history of political thought and the history of scholarship, theories of property, and the phenomenon of secularization. Harris holds a B.A. from Columbia University, awarded in Although only 38, Nelson has already published prodi- 1978; master’s degrees from Columbia and the Jewish Theo- giously, and has established himself as one of the stars in the logical Seminary, awarded in 1980 and 1983, respectively; world of political thought. He is the author of The Royalist and a Ph.D. from Columbia, awarded in 1985. After various Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding (Harvard/ teaching appointments at Columbia, the Jewish Theolog- Belknap, 2014), The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and ical Seminary, Princeton University, and the University of the Transformation of European Political Thought (Harvard/ Pennsylvania, he joined Harvard as an assistant professor Belknap, 2010), and The Greek Tradition in Republican of Jewish studies in 1989. Harris was named the Harris K. Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2004). He has also Weston Associate Professor of the Humanities in 1991, and edited Hobbes’s translations of the Iliad and Odyssey for the the Wolfson Professor of Jewish Studies in 1994. Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes (The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 2008). His books have received I have benefited immensely from Jay’s counsel and dedicated several prizes, and his essays have appeared in a wide range service during the last three years, and I know you will all be of scholarly journals and edited volumes. Nelson received as delighted as I am to welcome him back as our director. his AB summa cum laude from Harvard University (1999) cjs.fas.harvard.edu/ n CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES 1 THANK YOU, ERIC NELSON (continued) and his PhD from The University of Cambridge (2002). He Eric’s time as Director was particularly busy, as we undertook has been awarded fellowships by the John Simon Guggenheim four searches for new colleagues, in addition to maintaining Memorial Foundation and the American Council of Learned our wide array of programs, public lectures, and cross-de- Societies. He has also been a Junior Fellow in the Harvard partmental collaborations. Eric’s wisdom and administrative Society of Fellows, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and acumen helped guide the Center through this whirlwind, and a British Marshall Scholar. He is currently at work on a long- he leaves his directorship with the Center in excellent shape. term project on property rights and the theory of justice; he is We will miss him during his well-deserved leave this academic FACULTY & STAFF FACULTY one the brightest young stars in the world of political theory. year; we look forward to his return to the Executive Commit- tee, so that we may once again draw on his wise counsel. n VISITING LECTURERS The Center for Jewish Studies was pleased to welcome two visiting lecturers during the 2014-15 academic year. Dr. Dara Horn Schulman, was our Weinstock Visiting Lecturer in Jew- ish Studies during the spring semester of 2014, and Dr. Rachel Fish of Brandeis University was our Rohr Visiting Lecturer in Modern Israel Studies for the spring semester of 2015. With the support of visiting professorships, the Center is able to host leading scholars in Jewish studies to supplement the courses offered by our full-time faculty. DARA HORN SCHULMAN Weinstock Visiting Lecturer in Jewish Studies Dara Horn Schulman was born in New Jersey in 1977 and received her Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University in 2006, studying Hebrew and Yiddish. In 2007 she was chosen by Granta magazine as one of 20 “Best Young DARA HORN SCHULMAN American Novelists.” Her first novel, In the Image, published by as one of Booklist’s Best Books of 2013 and was longlisted for W.W. Norton when she was 25, received a 2003 National Jewish the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. In addition to Book Award, the 2002 Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and the the Weinstock Visiting lectureship at Harvard, she has taught 2003 Reform Judaism Fiction Prize. Her second novel, The courses in Jewish literature and Israeli history at Sarah Law- World to Come, published by W.W. Norton in 2006, received the rence College and City University of New York. She has lec- 2006 National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the 2007 Harold tured at over two hundred universities and cultural institutions U. Ribalow Prize, was selected as an Editors’ Choice in The New throughout North America, in Israel and in Australia. She lives York Times Book Review and as one of the Best Books of 2006 in New Jersey with her husband and four children. by The San Francisco Chronicle, and has been translated into eleven languages. Her third novel, All Other Nights, published During her semester at Harvard, Dr. Shulman taught Litera- in 2009 by W.W. Norton, was selected as an Editors’ Choice in ture 147. “Why The Jews?” The Modern Jewish Experience in The New York Times Book Review and was one of Booklist’s 25 Literature in the Department of Comparative Literature, and Best Books of the Decade. In 2012, her nonfiction e-book The Yiddish 200r. Literature and Belief: The Case of Modern Jewish Rescuer was published by Tablet magazine and became a Kindle Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and bestseller. Her fourth novel, A Guide for the Perplexed, was Civilizations. n published by W.W. Norton in September 2013, and was selected With content from http://darahorn.com/about-dara-horn/ 2 CJS NEWS n Spring Review 2015 RACHEL FISH & STAFF FACULTY Rohr Visiting Lecturer in Modern Israel Studies Rachel Fish is Associate Director of the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University, where she teaches the Myra Kraft Seminar on Israel at the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. In 2013, she completed her doctoral degree in the Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department at Brandeis University. Her dissertation, “Configurations of Bi- nationalism: The Transformation of Bi-nationalism in Palestine/Israel 1920’s-Present,” examines the history of the idea of bi-nationalism and alternative visions for constructing the State of Israel. Rachel has worked as an educator and consultant in various capacities in the Jewish community and higher education, teaching about Zionism and Israeli history at Brandeis University, UMASS Amherst and the Me’ah Adult Jewish Education program.

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