Book History at AJS

This blog grew out of a meeting held last year at the December 2007 meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies in Toronto. Although we are not convening a meeting this year at the conference to be held in a few weeks in Washington, our discussions last year and the informal networking that went on resulted in a number of sessions proposed with significant "history of the book" content. In addition, a number of sessions look to be of interest to readers of this blog.

Here is a selection of such sessions:

Session 1.5 PATRONAGE, TRUST, AND AGENCY: NETWORKS OF EUROPEAN JEWRY
Chair and Respondent: Matthias B. Lehmann (Indiana University)
includes:
"Livornese Hebrew Printing, Patronage, and Jewish Intellectual Networks in the
Eighteenth Century"
Francesca Bregoli (University of Oxford)

3.2 JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN LEARNING DURING THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES:
PARALLELS AND POINTS OF CONTACT
Chair: Martin I. Lockshin (York University)
"The Process of Reading in Twelfth-Century Jewish and Christian Biblical Exegesis"
Michael A. Signer (University of Notre Dame)
"Tosafists, Cathedral Masters, and Their Critics"
Ephraim Kanarfogel (Yeshiva University)
"Jewish Knowledge of Christianity in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries"
Daniel J. Lasker (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev)
"Echoes of the Eve/Mary Dichotomy in the Zohar"
Sharon Koren (HUC-JIR)

3.3 RABBINIC REDACTORS AND THEIR READERS
Chair: Judith R. Baskin (University of Oregon)
"Confusing the Heavenly and Human Fathers: Rabbinic Power and Powerlessness in
BT Massekhet Ta’anit"
Julia Watts Belser (Missouri State University)
"In Front of the Text: Reading Self in Rabbinic Literature"
Serguei Dolgopolskii (University of Kansas, Lawrence)
"Literary Structure and Thematic Coherence in a Chapter of Bavli"
Devora Steinmetz (Independent Scholar)
"Jacob ibn Habib’s Critique of Medieval Intellectual Culture: A View of the Ein Yaakov through the Lens of the Talmud"
Marjorie S. Lehman (Jewish Theological Seminary)

4.10 READING THE MEDIEVALS: CASE STUDIES IN RECEPTION HISTORY
Chair: Miriam Bodian (Touro College)
"Scripturalization of Rashi’s Torah Commentary in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times"
Eric Lawee (York University)
"Leon Modena as Reader and as Read"
Yaacob Dweck (Princeton University)
"A New Guide? The “Modern Maimonides” Motif in the Maskilic Reception of Spinoza"
Daniel B. Schwartz (George Washington University)
"Who Asks the Question? Rashi’s Constructed and Constructing Readers"
Devorah Schoenfeld (St. Mary’s College of Maryland)
Respondent: Adam B. Shear (University of Pittsburgh)

5.4 JEWS AND NEW MEDIA I: SOCIAL SOFTWARE
Sponsored by the Working Group on Jews, Religion, and Media, Center for Religion and Media,New York University
Chair: Ilana Abramovitch (Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY)
Discussants: Marcy Brink-Danan (Brown University)
Nathaniel Deutsch (Swarthmore College)
Janice Fernheimer (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Edward Portnoy (Rutgers University)
Brigitte Sion (New York University)
Chava Weissler (Lehigh University)

7.4 JEWS AND NEW MEDIA II: ARCHIVES AND THE CULTURAL MARKETPLACE
Sponsored by the Working Group on Jews, Religion, and Media, Center for Religion and Media,New York University
Chair: Andrea Lieber (Dickinson College)
Discussants: Ari Davidow (Jewish Women’s Archive)
Ayala Fader (Fordham University)
Samuel Heilman (Queens College, CUNY)
Emily Alice Katz (Jewish Th eological Seminary)
Elkanah Shmotkin (Jewish Educational Media)
Francesco Spagnolo (Judah L. Magnes Museum)

Hope to see some of you at these sessions. And please e-mail or comment if I missed any.