ARCHIVE
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2008-03-05
"The Romance of Exile: Palestinian Refugees" - Cancelled
Laleh Khalili is Lecturer in the Politics of the Middle East, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She is author of the new book, "Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration". 7:30 pm in Griffin 6.
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2008-02-26
"Through the Pages of the Past: The Jewish Book in its Diasporic Context"
David Stern, Ruth Meltzer Professor of Classical Hebrew Literature, University of Pennsylvania. Stern is author of several books including "Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature"; "Rabbinic Fantasies"; and "Midrash and Theory". 7:30 pm in Griffin 7.
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2008-02-21
Michael Hoffman, award-winning translator of Joseph Roth, will deliver a lecture entitled "'If you are heartsore, the best remedy s to change your whereabouts': Joseph Roth at large in Europe in the 20s and 30s". 7:30 pm in Griffin 7.
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2008-01-17
"A Taste of Home: Foods of the Jewish Diaspora"
Our own Darra Golstein, editor of "Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture" will give a lecture and demonstration on the food of Jewish Exile. Followed by a tasting. Tickets $10; $3 for students.
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2007-11-06
"What kind of Liberation and Democracy? Iraqi Women Between Dictatorship, Wars and Occupation"
Nadje Al-Ali, MA Director Gender & Identity in the Middle East Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies, The University of Exeter. Author of "Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present". Sponsored by the W. Ford Schumann '50 Program in Democratic Studies, the Jewish Studies Program, Women and Gender Studies, and the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. Brooks-Rogers at 7:30 pm. Book signing to follow.
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2007-11-01
"Exile as Metaphor"
André Aciman is Chair of The City University of New York Graduate Center’s doctoral program in Comparative Literature and Author of the memoir "Out of Egypt: A Memoir, False Papers: Essays on Exile and Memory". His is also author of a new novel, "Call Me By Your Name" (2007). Griffin 7 at 7:30 pm
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2007-10-17
Nathan Englander, author of the acclaimed short-story collection "For the Relief of Unbearable Urges," will be reading from and discussing his new novel "The Ministry of Special Cases." Book signing to follow. Griffin 3 at 8:00 p.m.
"The fate of Argentina’s Jews during the 1976-83 'Dirty War' is depicted with blistering emotional intensity in this stark first novel from the author of the story collection For the Relief of Unbearable Urges (1999)....A political novel anchored, unforgettably, in the realm of the personal. Englander’s story collection promised a brilliant future, and that promise is here fulfilled beyond all expectations." - Kirkus Reviews
“A mesmerizing rumination on loss and memory.. a family drama layered with agonized and often comical filial connections that are stretched to the snapping point by terrible circumstance… Englander is masterly at establishing this trio, with their mix of affection and mutual disappointment … [the novel] builds with breathtaking, perfectly wrought pacing and calm, terrifying logic." - Los Angeles Times
“Who is this Nathan Englander, at 37 so young in novelist years, but already possessed of an old masters voice? …. One reads this novel in awe of Englander’s talent" - New York Times Book Review
For Press Release, see http://www.williams.edu/admin/news/releases/1532
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2007-09-06
"Reaching Eden: Children of the Spanish Civil War and Soviet Redemption," Daniel Kowalsky, Queens University Belfast
This talk explores the lives of 3000 Basque children evacuated to the Soviet Union in 1937. Rescued from the rapidly shrinking Northern Front of the Spanish Civil War, they were given a hero's welcome in Stalin's Russia and installed in well-appointed orphanages. They were also a captive subject for the Soviet media, who exploited their presence relentlessly. Following the fall of the Republic in spring 1939, the children were stranded in the USSR, and were soon swept up in the massive dislocation that accompanied the German invasion of 1941. Following WWII, which not all of the Spanish refugees survived, their exile remain unresolved. Yet many were adults by then, and even when repatriation was finally made possible, in the 1950s, some elected to stay in their adopted home.
Daniel Kowalsky (Burns, Oregon, 1966) studied at the University of Oregon and the University of New Mexico prior to receiving his Ph.D. in 2001 from the University of Wisconsin. He has taught in the history departments at Washington University in St. Louis, The American University in Cairo and the University of Bristol. He is currently Lecturer in European History at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland. Kowalsky’s doctoral thesis, entitled “The Soviet Union and the Spanish Republic: Diplomatic, Military and Cultural Relations, 1936-1939,�? was awarded in 2002 the American Historical Association’s Gutenberg-e Prize. In late 2003 and early 2004, Kowalsky’s revised dissertation was published on both sides of the Atlantic: with Columbia University Press (Stalin and the Spanish Civil War), and Editorial Crítica (La Unión Soviética y la guerra civil española: una revision crítica).