"No Direction Home: Re-imagining Jewish Geography"
Conference - March 25 and 26, 2007
Berman Center for Jewish Studies, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa.

An interdisciplinary group of scholars, writers, artists and cultural critics will examine the far-reaching changes in the definition, interpretation, and imagining of diaspora as reflected in contemporary Jewish art, music, literature, and scholarship. Employing diaspora as a critical tool, conference participants will come together to re-examine and re-imagine Jewish history and explore alternative ways of thinking about Jewish group identity and culture.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Sunday, March 25

8:30 AM          Registration (Sinclair Auditorium, 7 Asa Drive)

8:50 AM         Welcome, Laurence J. Silberstein, Director of the Berman Center

9:00 AM         SESSION I, “The End of Jewish Diaspora”

                        Joint Presentation, Caryn Aviv and David Shneer, University of Denver

10:15 AM       Break

10:45 AM      SESSION II, “Are New Jews New? Jewish Diasporic Culture, Then and Now”

                     “Jewish Cultural Creativity in Alexandria”
                     Benjamin Wright, Lehigh University

                     “The Old Jews” 
                     Jonathan Boyarin, University of Kansas

"Reading Art in Jewish Renewal"
Chava Weissler, Lehigh University

12:30 PM     Box Lunch (Dubois Gallery, Maginnes Hall Lobby, 9 Asa Drive).

1:30 PM       SESSION III, “Uncertain Travelers: Meditations on the Journey” (Sinclair Aud.)

Panel Discussion: Authors Ruth Knafo Setton, Lehigh University; and Jael Silliman, Ford Foundation

2:45 PM      SESSION IV - “Smooth Spaces/New Faces: Desert and Diaspora”

“The Virus of Diaspora in Yehoshua's The Liberated Bride"
Ranen Omer-Sherman, University of Miami

“Deterritorializing/Reterritorializing Critical Reflections on Diaspora”
Laurence Silberstein, Lehigh University

4:00 PM        Afternoon session ends

5:15 PM        Artists’ Reception and Exhibitions (Main Gallery, Zoellner Arts Center)

                        Far from Zion: Jews, Diaspora, Memory, by Jason Francisco

                        Diaspora: Multiple Narratives, by Paul Gardère

                        Diaspora: Dreams of the Golden Mountain, by Pok Chi Lau (video)      

6:00 PM         Dinner break

7:45 PM         SESSION V - “Diaspora and Diversity: Jews, Asians, Haitians” (Sinclair)

Panel Discussion: Jason Francisco, photographer; Paul Gardère, artist; Pok Chi Lau, photographer

Monday, March 26 (Sinclair Auditorium)

9:15 AM         Registration

9:30 AM         SESSION VI - “Visualizing Diaspora”

“Back to the Future: Cybermaps and the New Atlas of Jewish Geography”
Shelley Hornstein, York University

“Modern Artist, Modern Jews: Bruno Schulz’s Diasporas”
Carol Zemel, York University

“Diaspora, Jewish Artists and the Geographies of Visual Culture”
Susan Chevlowe, Jewish Theological Seminary

11:15 AM       Break/Brunch

12:00 PM       SESSION VII - “Diasporas, Home and Belonging”

“From My Father’s Visual Archive: A Lost American Jewish Home" Laura Levitt, Temple University

"Choosing Diaspora "
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Queens College, City University of New York

“The Parisian Pletzel as ‘Makom’ or the Jewish Quarter as ‘Non-Territory’”
Joelle Bahloul, Indiana University

1:45 PM          Conference ends

For more information, contact Shirley Ratushny, Berman Center, 610-758-3352, fax 610-758-4858, e-mail inber@lehigh.edu, or visit http://www.lehigh.edu/~inber/inber.html.

To register, please complete the Registration Form and return it to the Berman Center along with your check payable to Lehigh University. The registration fee is waived for LVAIC students and Lehigh faculty. Lehigh students do not need to register.

ACCOMMODATIONS

A block of rooms has been reserved for conference registrants at the Comfort Suites (www.comfortsuitesbethlehem.com), 120 W. Third Street, Bethlehem, Pa. The hotel is near Lehigh’s campus and the South Bethlehem bus terminal. For more information, call 610 882-9700. To receive the reduced conference rate of $72/night plus tax, please identify yourself as attending the Berman Center conference at Lehigh University. Deadline for the conference rate is February 23.

TRAVEL

The local airport is A-B-E. Shuttle service is available from the airport to the Comfort Suites. Flying to Newark or Philadelphia airports may cost less than using A-B-E. There is regular bus service between Newark Airport/New York City and Bethlehem on TransBridge Lines (see www.transbridgebus.com or call 610 868-6001 or 1-800-962-9135). There is limited bus service between Philadelphia and Bethlehem on Carl R. Bieber Tourways (see www.biebertourways.com or call 1-800 243-2374 for schedule information). The South Bethlehem terminal is one block from Lehigh’s campus and the Comfort Suites.

Driving time between Philadelphia and Bethlehem is about 1-1/2 hours and between New York City and Bethlehem, about 2-1/2 hours.