Works in Progress Group in Jewish Studies

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

This session is an informal, highly collegial gathering in which a group of AJS participants workshops two pre-distributed papers. All are welcome. We have met each year at the AJS for the past seventeen years. We are proud to provide a space that combines serious intellectual exchange with a warm, relaxed atmosphere that can be particularly inviting for junior scholars or first-time attendees of the conference.
We aim to engage with current research in any and all fields of Jewish Studies and to allow presenters to share papers in progress with a welcoming and critically productive group of colleagues. Works-in-Progress is always an interdisciplinary environment where we discuss two papers from different disciplines within Jewish Studies (this year is by a specialist on medieval Jewish texts, and the other from a modern Jewish historian) and where scholars from numerous fields take part in the conversation.

Our presenters for the 2018 meeting of the AJS are Alma Heckman, the Neufeld-Levin Chair of Holocaust Studies and Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Marc Herman, The Rabin-Shvidler Joint Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Jewish Studies at Columbia University and Fordham University. Heckman will share a paper entitled “The Growth of the Left in Morocco, Demographic Upheaval and Jewish Reactions.” Herman’s paper is entitled “Maimonides’ Presentations of the Oral Torah in their Islamic Contexts.” Both papers represent cutting-edge research in their respective fields, and exemplify the disciplinary diversity of the Works-in-Progress group.
The co-chairs of the Works-in-Progress session are Jessica Marglin, Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Southern California, and Rena Lauer, Assistant Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History, School of History, Philosophy, and Religion, Oregon State University.
In late November, in preparation for our meeting during the AJS, we will circulate the two papers. Those interested in attending should contact one of the co-chairs in order to receive the papers in advance.

Sub Unit

• Interdisciplinary, Theoretical, and New Approaches

Cosponsor

• AJS

Chair

• Jessica M. Marglin, University of Southern California

Individual Presentations

• The Growth of the Left in Morocco, Demographic Upheaval and Jewish Reactions - Alma Rachel Heckman, University of California, Santa Cruz

• Maimonides’ Presentations of the Oral Torah in their Islamic Contexts - Marc Daniel Herman, Yale Univeristy