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 20 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 the modern Yiddish press, and the other from a medieval Jewish historian) and where scholars from numerous fields take part in the conversation.

Our presenters for the 2021 meeting of the AJS are Ayelet Brinn, the Ivan and Nina Ross Family Fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and Brendan Goldman, the Hazel D. Cole Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington. Brinn will share a paper entitled “‘Women and Men Who are Like Women’: Female Pseudonyms in the Interwar American Yiddish Press.” Goldman’s paper is entitled “‘[The Jews’] Hands Shall be Shackled and They Shall be Cursed’ (Quran 5.64): Carceral State Logic and its Non-Muslim Victims in Medieval Egypt.” 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 Jordan Katz, Assistant Professor at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Jason Lustig, Lecturer and Israel Institute Teaching Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin’s Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies.

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

Chairs

• Jason Lustig, University of Texas at Austin

• Jordan R Katz, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Individual Presentations

• “Women and Men Who are Like Women”: Female Pseudonyms in the Interwar American Yiddish Press - Ayelet Brinn, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute

• “[The Jews’] Hands Shall be Shackled and They Shall be Cursed” (Quran 5.64): Carceral State Logic and its Non-Muslim Victims in Medieval Egypt - Brendan G Goldman, University of Washington