David Brodsky lecture: Writing and the Art of Talmudic Maintanence

		in the Columbia University Seminar on Religion and Writing
		Writing and the Art of Talmudic Maintenance: How the Shift from Orality to Writing Concretized Talmud as Text rather than Process David Brodsky, New York University Abstract Abstract Talmudic literature developed when orality was the dominant form of transmission of holy texts in Babylonia. With the Muslim conquest, writing began to be privileged over orality. This presentation will argue that this shift had a major effect on the ossification of talmud as a text rather than a genre, a form, a process. The first two chapters of Kallah Rabbati are the only extant text that derives from amoraic Babylonia, proving to be an older sister to the Babylonian Talmud, which also developed in amoraic Babylonia, but was not concretized until the post-amoraic period (indeed, David Weiss Halivni has recently pushed its redaction well into the Islamic Period). Comparisons of parallel passages between Kallah Rabbati and the Babylonian Talmud reveal the talmudic passages to be a product of the oral transmitters, who were re-producing the text as they re-cited it. Parallels with Geonic (i.e., early medieval) literature, once writing had begun to take hold, reveal a text that had ossified after a specific performative moment. While errors and changes still arose, they no longer lent themselves to the kinds of re-creation of the passages that orality had once fostered. Rather, writing seems to have marked the shift from talmud as genre to Talmud as a concretized text. Faculty House 7:00 PM, 04/23/2013

Conference Report

from Shlomo Berger:

On Men and Women Reading Yiddish: Between Manuscript and Print

Amsterdam 19 February 2013

An international workshop organized by Shlomo Berger (University of Amsterdam) and Lucia Raspe (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main / Universität Potsdam) was convened in Amsterdam in order to discuss to what extent the transition from manuscript to print brought about changes in reading habits and audiences of Old Yiddish literature, especially as regards gender.

Presentations included case studies of particular books or genres, such as translations of Judith into Yiddish (Ruth von Bernuth), collections of mayses or stories (Claudia Rosenzweig), or Yiddish grammars of Hebrew (Irene Zwiep), examinations of how and for whom the religious canon was made accessible through tkhines or prayers of supplication (Simon Neuberg), translations of the penitential liturgy (Lucia Raspe) and of Rashi’s commentary on the Pentateuch (Edward Fram), a gendered reading of the bilingual Sefer hahayyim (Avriel Bar-Levav), as well as more methodological considerations of the enduring production of manuscripts in the age of print (Emile Schrijver) and the emergence of the anonymous reader for printed books as understood by book producers and as interpreted by the reading public (Shlomo Berger).

From the roundtable discussion that concluded the workshop, several conclusions may be drawn. While in the age of transition from handwritten to printed books during the sixteenth century the question of gender remained of particular relevance, as manuscripts were often dedicated to women – in fact, not one Yiddish manuscript has been preserved that was expressly written for a man – in the age of print matters changed, if only because of commercial considerations. A Yiddish book was read by males and females alike; nevertheless, paratexts of printed books continue to specify groups of potential readers: males and females, married men and women, youngsters and girls. Indeed, this norm may merely reflect a topos, but it also hints, sometimes even bluntly refers to a gender differentiation which necessitates close attention to the question of how the dynamics of the respective medium shaped the content and reception of the text with each individual work.

The organizers hope to publish the lectures in an edited volume in due course.

UPenn Rosenbach Lectures

The A.S.W. Rosenbach Lectures in Bibliography, 2013 Rosenbach Lectures 

Paul Needham, Librarian, The Scheide Library 

The First Quarter Century of European Printing 

Lecture Dates: March 18, 19, 21, 2013 All lectures begin at 5:30pm 

Class of 1978 Pavilion, Special Collections Center Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, 6th floor 3420 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 

March 18, 2013: The 1450s: Bookmaking Inventions 

March 19, 2013: The 1460s: Slow Diaspora 

March 21, 2013: 1470-1475: The Sowing of Printing Shops 

Registration is requested but not required. Please RSVP HERE.     

Since 1998, Paul Needham has served as the Curator of the Scheide Collection at the Princeton University Library, before which he worked at Sotheby's and the Pierpont Morgan Library. He is on faculty at the University of Virginia's Rare Book School. Widely acknowledged as the leading expert on Johannes Gutenberg and the early history of printing, Dr. Needham has written or contributed to more than 90 publications. His most recent book is Galileo Makes a Book: The First Edition of Sidereus nuncius, Venice 1610 (Akademie Verlag, 2011). For more information: (215) 898-7088; jpollack@upenn.edu. 

List of Past Rosenbach Lectures: Rosenbach Lectures for 2007-2011 are available through the Penn Libraries Scholarly Commons repository. View and download available podcasts. The Rosenbach Fellowship in Bibliography, established by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania in 1928, honors a gift for that purpose from A.S.W. Rosenbach, one of America's greatest book dealers and collectors. Its intention is to further scholarship and scholarly publication in bibliography and book history, broadly understood. Rosenbach Fellows typically present a series of three lectures over a period of one to two weeks while in residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Because of a continuing commitment to the series by the University of Pennsylvania Press, many of these lectures have been published as book-length studies. The Rosenbach Lectures are the longest continuing series of bibliographical lectureships in the United States. The series began in 1931, with Christopher Morley as the first Rosenbach Fellow. Over the years, lecture topics have included fifteenth-century printing, the relationships between print and manuscript, papermaking, book illustration, American reading and publishing, and medical and scientific texts. Among recent lecturers are Robert Darnton, Anthony Grafton, Peter Stallybrass, David D. Hall, Paul Saenger, Michael Warner, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, and Alberto Manguel.

Lectures on the Hebrew Book in Venice

IL LIBRO EBRAICO:

dal manoscritto ai nuovi media

Ciclo di lezioni (Marzo-Aprile 2013)

Lunedi 4 marzo

Il libro ebraico dal manoscritto alla stampa

Giuliano Tamani

(Universitא Ca’ Foscari Venezia)

Introduce:

Simon Levis Sullam

Lunedi 11 marzo

Prima del libro: manoscritti ebraici

nelle biblioteche veneziane

Natascia Danieli

(Universitא Ca’ Foscari Venezia)

Introduce:

Paolo Eleuteri

*L’incontro si terrא presso la Biblioteca-Archivio “R. Maestro”

Mercoledל 20 marzo

La societא cristiana e il libro ebraico:

editori, censori, inquisitori

Saverio Campanini

(CNRS, Parigi)

Introduce:

Mario Infelise

Mercoledi 3 aprile

Donne ebree autrici e lettrici

Cristiana Facchini

(Universitא di Bologna)

Introduce:

Adelisa Malena

Mercoledi 17 aprile

Libri celebri di Venezia ebraica:

le opere di Leon Modena e Simone Luzzatto

Giuseppe Veltri

(Universitא di Halle)

Introduce:

Shaul Bassi

Lunedi 22 aprile

Il Talmud e altri libri ebraici nell’era digitale

Gianfranco Di Segni

(Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, Roma)

Introduce:

Gadi Luzzatto Voghera

9-11 Giugno 2013

International Conference:

THE JEWISH BOOK: Histories, Media, Metaphors

Universitא

Ca’Foscari

Venezia

Dipartimento di Studi

Umanistici

Seminario

Interdipartimentale

di Studi Ebraici

con il sostegno della

Rothschild Foundation

Gli incontri si tengono dalle ore 17 alle ore 19, presso il Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici,

Universitא Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Palazzo Malcanton Marcorא, Dorsoduro 3484/d, Sala Morelli

(*l’incontro di Lunedi 11 marzo, si terrא presso l’Aula Didattica del Museo Ebraico, Calle del Forno 1107, Ghetto Vecchio).