About this Event
29 East Ave, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
Tradition is often invoked in one of two ways: either as the rhetorical foil for a better-defined term such as "modernity," or as the buttress for a conservative position. This symposium brings together scholars who are envisioning the futures of tradition: its value as a creative and critical term. Papers will examine how we have ourselves used; found it necessary to critique; or are developing this concept in our research. Bringing together scholars of the Hebrew Bible, late ancient and modern Judaism, Christianity, and classics, it offers a unique venue for collaboration on evolving methods for thinking through tradition.
Speakers will reflect on the following lines of their works-in-progress: How is tradition linked to innovation, creativity, and change? What are the semantic histories of "tradition" in specific languages or jargons? How is tradition represented in art and literature? What is the structure, development, and transfer of a traditional style of thought? How would we describe the practices of transmitting tradition? What have been the uses and abuses of tradition in modernity? Is tradition timeless or temporal, and how is it linked to other theoretical categories like history, memory, and culture? Members of the Cornell academic community are warmly invited to join for the rounds of discussion that will follow each pair of 30-minute papers.
Sponsored by Jewish Studies Program, Department of Near Eastern Studies and Society for the Humanities
Masks are required to attend. Please take an antigen test before arriving at the symposium. Cornell members can get tests for free at these locations.
Please adhere to Cornell University’s COVID-19 guidelines. Stay informed at covid.cornell.edu.
Schedule:
Sunday, September 11, Room 201
4:00 p.m. Welcome & Introduction James Redfield (Saint Louis University)
Panel 1:
- Tradition/Treason: The Betrayal of Time (Nitzan Lebovic, Lehigh University)
- As the Story Goes: A Future of Jewish Tradition at Present (Jonathan Boyarin, Cornell University)
- Moderator: Jason Sion Mokhtarian (Cornell University)
6:00 p.m. Roundtable of pre-circulated papers by doctoral candidates/recent PhDs
- Ghosts of Weddings Past: Generation and Tradition in Berdichevsky’s Unrealized Weddings (Tamar Gutfeld, Cornell University)
- Re-circumcisions: Tradition and Identity in Susan Handleman's The Slayers of Moses (Sam Catlin, University of Chicago)
- Dialectical Abnormality? Jewish Alienation and Jewish Emancipation Between Hegel and Marx (Emir Yiğit, Cornell University)
Monday, September 12, Room 201
10:00 a.m. Panel 2:
- Abolitionist Counter-Traditions of the Creation of Adam (Kerry Marie Sonia, Colby College)
- The Song of Deborah and Martin Noth’s Tradition History (Lauren Monroe, Cornell University)
- Moderator: Seth Strickland (Cornell University)
12 p.m. Break for Lunch
1:00 p.m. Panel 3:
- Problematizing Knowledge: Ancient Greek Problemata and the Construction of a New Scholarly Tradition (Kenneth Yu, University of Toronto)
- The Idea of Tradition in Greek Inventories (Athena Kirk, Cornell University)
- Moderator: Grant Kaplan (Saint Louis University)
3:00 p.m. Panel 4:
- Tradition and Talmudic Scholarship, Ancient and Modern (Moulie Vidas, Princeton University)
- The Reference of Tradition: Law and Theological Speech in Late Antiquity (Emanuel Fiano, Fordham University)
- Moderator: Mayer Juni (Cornell University)
5:00 p.m. Panel 5:
- Traditional Readers, Unfit Subjects: Hermeneutics and Imperial Violence (Alexandra Zirkle, SUNY Buffalo)
- Moderator: Nechama Juni (Carleton College)
Concluding Reflection moderated by James Redfield
Masks are required to attend. Please take an antigen test before arriving at the symposium. Cornell members can get tests for free at these locations.
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