MJSA 35rd ANNUAL CONFERENCE
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Hosted by The Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies, York University, Toronto
The thirty-fifth annual conference of the Midwest Jewish Studies Association (MJSA) was held October 29-30, 2023 in-person and in English.
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Our plenary speaker was Dr. Rachel Harris, the Elaine and Herbert Gimelstob Eminent Scholar Chair in Judaic Studies at Florida Atlantic University, who spoke on: “How the IDF Created the Israeli Film Industry: a 1950s Focus on the History of Israeli Cinema."
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The 34th MJSA Conference --2022
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18-19 September 2022
The University of Nebraska
Omaha, NE
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Annual academic conference for faculty and students primarily in the Midwest but open to all interested faculty and students.
On Sunday, September 18th at 7:00 pm The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band from Chicago will be performing Eastern European Jewish folk music, Jewish-American jazz and dance music and film music and theater songs. Come to enjoy an exuberant evening and plan to dance in the aisles! Featured guest artists include Cantor Pavel Roytman and vocalist Lisa Fishman.
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THE 33rd ANNUAL CONFERENCE -- 2021
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The Midwest Jewish Studies Association
In the Virtual World
PROGRAM AND SCHEDULE
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Conflict within and outside the Jewish Community
Chair: David Koffman, York University
Sunday October 3
8am PT / 10am CT / 11 am ET / 4pm Dublin / 5pm Paris / Monday 2am Sydney
“Conflict as a Window on Communities in Flux”
Natalie Wynn, Trinity College Dublin
“Fauda - the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict »
Rina Cohen Muller, INALCO
"Revisiting Jews and Liberalism in the lead-up to Revolution"
David Meola, University of South Alabama
Literature
Chair: Charlyn Ingwerson, Drury University
Sunday October 3
11am PT/ 1pm CT/ 2pm ET / 7pm Dublin / 8pm Paris / Monday 5am Sydney
“Exponential Imagery: Sivan Har-Shefi’s Poetic Signature”
Laura Wiseman, York University
“Madre de Israel: the development of Three Plays of Jewish Thessaloniki”
David A. Crespy, University of Missouri
The Category of “Exigent Circumstances” in Jewish Legal Literature
Matthew Goldstone, Academy for Jewish Religion
Holocaust Studies
Chair: Laura Wiseman, York University
Sunday October 3
1pm PT / 3pm CT / 4pm ET / 9pm Dublin / 10pm Paris / Monday 7am Sydney
“Oslo and the Rescue of Norwegian Jewish Children during the Holocaust”
Paul R. Bartrop, Professor Emeritus, Florida Gulf Coast University
“An Intentional Representation of Bios”
Nadine Sheinberg, York University
“Transnational Films about Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and National Populists”
Lawrence Baron, San Diego State University
“Yehudit Arnon’s Zionist Dances in Post-War Hungary”
Gdalit Neuman, York University
Jews and Science Fiction
Chair: Shuli Zerin, Independent Scholar
Monday October 3
8am PT / 10am CT / 11 am ET / 4pm Dublin / 5pm Paris / Tuesday 2am Sydney
“Di Geheyme Shlikhes: A Revisiting of Leybl Botwinik’s Classic of Yiddish Science Fiction”
Stephen M. Cohen, Independent Scholar
“Why are Science Fiction Anthologies Ashkanormative?”
Mara W. Cohen Ioannides, Missouri State University
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INQUIRIES
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Please direct all inquiries to: Dr. Mara W. Cohen Ioannides at (maraioannides@missouristate.edu).
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2020 MJSA Graduate Student Paper Award
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Allison Davis is the author of Line Study of a Motel Clerk (Baobab Press, 2017), a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Poetry and the Ohioana Book Award. She holds fellowships from Stanford University's Wallace Stegner program, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Severinghaus Beck Fund for Study at Vilnius Yiddish Institute. Her research examines the implications of reading Objectivist poet Charles Reznikov in interminority frameworks. She is a PhD candidate in English and Creative Writing at the University of Tennessee
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ABSTRACT:
Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down Meets “I Do This, I Do That”: Reconnecting Objectivism and the New York School
Keywords: poetry, Jewish studies, queer studies, urban studies
The poems of Objectivist Charles Reznikoff and the New York School’s Frank O’Hara insist that marginalized experiences—both their own and others’—belong in America’s public spaces and discourse. Reznikoff records New York’s streets as the Jewish child of immigrants in collections including Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down (1941), while O’Hara records these streets from a queer experience in his famous “I do this, I do that” poems. There is no scholarship connecting these poets, however, because the categorization of Objectivists as second-wave Imagists—and the resulting erasure of their Jewish heritage—has inhibited their inclusion in postmodern discourse. By repositioning Objectivists as postmodern forerunners, my research reveals what’s concealed when poets are segregated too insentiently into different avant-garde “schools.” In this paper, I argue that the urban Judaism of Objectivist writers can be a useful liminal lens through which to explore New York School’s urban queerness and vice versa. I explore how both poets address their minority status (Fredman, 2001 and Lehman, 1998) and their privilege in relationship to other minorities (Nielsen, 1988 and Friedlander, 2001). This comparative examination of the walking poems of Reznikoff and O’Hara constructs new avenues for exploring the urban poetics of outsiders in experimental poetry by encouraging a reading across and not just through minority experiences.
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MJSA 2020 Virtual Conference
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October 18-21, 2020
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Abbreviations: PDT (Pacific Daylight Time, GMT – 7); CDT (Central Daylight Time, GMT – 5), EDT (Eastern Daylight Time, GMT – 4); BST/IST (British Summer Time, GMT + 1), Israel DST (Daylight Savings Time, GMT + 3); IST (India Standard Time, GMT + 5:30)
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Sunday October 18
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The Other in Jewish Worlds
Chair: Rina Cohen Müller, Institut National des Langue et Civilisations Orientales
9am-11:30am PDT, 11am-12:30 pm CDT, 12pm-1:30pm EDT, 4pm-5:30pm GMT, 5pm-6:30 pm BST, 7pm-8:30pm Israel DST, 10:30pm-12:00am IST
“Excluded ‘Others:’ Arab Christians in Israel and Palestine”,
Charlyn Ingwerson, Drury University
“'Indian Motherland' to 'Jewish Fatherland': Indian-Jewishness and Indian-Israeliness in Israel,” Mansheetal Singh, Charles University
Jews in Film
Chair: Rachel Harris, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne
12:00pm-1:30pm PDT, 2pm-3:30pm CDT, 3pm-4:30pm EDT, 4pm-9:30pm GMT, 5pm-6:30pm BST, 7pm-8:30pm Israel DST, 9:30pm-11:00pm IST
“The Pioneering American Jewish Women Directors of the 1970s”,
Lawrence Baron, emeritus San Diego State University
“Tragic Love Stories in Israeli Cinema”,
Carrie Bettel, York University
Ancient Israel
Chair:
3:00-4:30pm PDT, 5:00pm-6:30pm CDT, 6:00pm-7:30pm EDT, 10:00pm-11:30pm GMT, 11:00pm-12:30am BST, 1:00am-2:30am Mon. Oct. 19 Israel DST, 3:30am-5:00am Mon. Oct. 19 IST
“Re-examining King David through new Archaeology Finds”,
Mike Pytlik, Oakland University
“The Whispering Of Many” On The Demonization Of Jeremiah’s Opponents In Jer 20:10”,
Cristiana Conti-Easton, York University
Monday October 19
American Literature
Chair:
9am-11:30am PDT, 11am-12:30 pm CDT, 12pm-1:30pm EDT, 4pm-5:30pm GMT, 5pm-6:30pm BST, 7pm-8:30pm Israel DST, 10:30pm-12:00am IST
“The Disappearance of Hebrew Women Writers in America”,
Michal Fram Cohen, Open University of Israel
“Onfang fun Khemye: The First Chemistry Book in Yiddish”,
Stephen M. Cohen, Independent Scholar
“The Jewish Woman Immigrants’ expression of Jewish Womanhood in America: Four Stories and their Women”,
Mara W. Cohen Ioannides, Missouri State University
Queer Studies
Chair:
12:00pm-1:30pm PDT, 2pm-3:30pm CDT, 3pm-4:30pm EDT, 7pm-8:30pm GMT, 8pm-9:30pm BST, 10pm-11:30 pm Israel DST, 12:30am-2:00am Mon. Oct. 19 IST
“Jewish Texts and Queer Intimacies in Aciman’s Call Me by Your Name,”
Shlomo Gleibman, York University, Canada
“Going To and Fro and Walking Up and Down Meets ‘I Do This, I Do That’: Reconnecting Objectivism and the New York School”,
Allison Davis, University of Tennessee
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Tuesday October 20
Jewish Theology
Chair: Peter Haas, emeritus Case Western Reserve University
9:15am-11:45am PDT, 11:15am-12:45 pm CDT, 12:15pm-1:45pm EDT, 4:15pm-5:45pm BST, 5:15pm-6:45pm GMT, 7:15pm-8:45pm Israel DST, 10:45pm-12:15am IST
“An Integrated Approach To The Role Of Tikkun Olam In Remix Judaism”,
Roberta Kwall, DePaul University College of Law
“Freedom and Creativity: a Bergsonian Reading of Rav Kook’s writings”,
Gila Amati, Oxford University
Feminist Theory
Chair: Charlyn Ingwerson, Drury University
Tuesday Oct. 20
1:00pm-2:30pm PDT, 2:00pm-3:30pm CDT, 3:00pm-4:30pm EDT, 7:00pm-8:30pm GMT, 8:00pm-9:30pm BST, 10:00pm-11:30pm Israel DST, 12:30am-2:00am Wed. Oct. 21 IST
“Revisioning the Christian Conservative Canon from a Jewish Feminist Perspective: Alicia Ostriker’s Appropriation of T.S. Eliot in ‘Dancing at the Devil’s Party’”,
Daniel Morris, Purdue University
“Dedication by Sivan Har-Shefi”,
Laura Wiseman, York University
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European History
Chair: David Meola, University of South Alabama
9:00am-11:30am PDT, 11:00am-1:30 pm CDT, 12:00pm-2:30pm EDT, 4:00pm-6:30pm GMT, 5:00pm-7:30pm BST, 7:00pm-9:30pm Israel DST, 9:30pm-12:00am IST
“Irish Jewish Myths of Origin”,
Natalie Wynn, Trinity College
“Apostasy as a Bargaining Chip for Jewish Women in the Responsa of the Rishonim,”
Jacob Aaron Lackner, University of Oklahoma
“Empathy and Its Inadequacies: Instances of Poetry in Oral Holocaust Testimonies”,
Anna Veprinska, University of Toronto
Rewriting Jewish History Across the Ages
Chair:
1:00pm-2:30pm PDT, 2:00pm-3:30pm CDT, 3:00pm-4:30pm EDT, 7:00pm-8:30pm GMT, 8:00pm-9:30pm BST, 10:00pm-11:30pm Israel DST, 12:30am-2:00am Wed. Oct. 21 IST
“‘The Text is Lacking’: Rewriting Early Rabbinic Traditions”
Matthew Goldstone, Academy for Jewish Religion
“Rewriting Tradition in Medieval Ashkenaz”
Jesse Abelman, Yeshiva University
“‘As Brutal as the Nazis’: Jewish Toughness, Historical Revisionism, and Rising Antisemitism”
Miriam Eve Mora, City University of New York
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