“Sephardic Culture: An Introduction”
Mediterranean Studies Summer Skills Seminar
8—11 July 2024 • Remote

The Summer Skills Seminar,  “Sephardic Culture: An Introduction”  will be held via Zoom from Monday, 8 July to Thursday, 11 July 202 from 9am to 11am and noon to 2pm MDT.

Registered Participants enter here.

Course overview
This Summer Skills Seminar provides participants with the an overview of main currents in Sephardic Studies including historial and cultural trends, texts, sources for the period 900-1700 CE, and attending to the potential of this field to enhance your own research and teaching. It is designed with academics in mind, particularly graduate students, postdocs, and professors working in disciplines such as history, literature, religious studies, but all intersted parties are welcome to apply. Participants will receive a completion certificate which may be listed on your CV and other documents such as grant/fellowship applications. The seminar is held via zoom over four days, with two two-hour sessions each day. Particpants are expected to prepare readings in advance of the sessions, which will be a blend of lecture, pair and group discussion, group close readings, and in-class activities.

The Jewish Communities of the Iberian Peninsula left behind a rich legacy in historical documentation and writings in the area of rabbinics, polemic, poetry, historiography, travel narrative, mysticism, philosophy, and more. Their expulsion from Spanish territories at the end of the fifteenth century lead to a diasporic network of communities in the Mediterranean, Western Europe, and beyond (The Americas, Africa, Asia).

This four-day intensive skills seminar will provide participants with a broad overview of main historical and cultural trends of Premodern Sephardic Studies paired with close readings of representative texts in English (versions in original languages and/or Spanish will be also made avaialable). The seminar is organized both chronologically and generically: we will trace the development of poetry, prose, historiography, and mysticism from Sephardic al-Andalus (900-1200), to Sephardic Christian Iberia (1200-1500), to the Sephardic Diaspora (1500-1700).

The goal is to provides attendees with a basic preparation for including Sephardic sources in teaching and research and provide them with a bona fide (in the form of a certificate of completion for those who attend the full seminar), which may be advantageous in securing grants or other funding for research and travel. Preparation in Sephardic studies can be a way for scholars working in Hispanic, Mediterranean, or Jewish studies (or other fields) to distinguish their research and/or teaching profiles, and put them in discussion with new interlocutors.

This Summer Skills Seminar builds on the experience of earlier editions, which participants signaled as “transformative” in terms of their research, and which provided them with an opportunity to network and lay the foundations for future collaborations. For information and participant reviews of our former Skills Seminars (Ladino/Judezmo & Aljamiado) see here.

Faculty

[photo and bio staementment needed] The course will be conducted by Prof. Charlie Samuelson (Dept. of French and Italian, University of Colorado Boulder), a specialist of medieval French literature. His research uses close textual analysis and looks to both medieval learned culture and modern theory to take to task entrenched notions about the gender and sexual politics of medieval texts. His monograph, Courtly and Queer: Deconstruction, Desire, and Medieval French Literature appeared in 2022 with the Ohio State University Press. He is currently working on a new project about representations of sexual consent in medieval French literature and culture.

Fees
$1000 for Full Professors, Librarians,  Professionals, Independent Scholars;
$750 for tenured Associates;
$500 for non-tenured Associates and Assistants & Graduate and Undergraduate students;
$350 for Adjuncts, Lecturers & Contingent faculty.
Members of University of Colorado departments may be eligible for a discount.
Faculty and students who both nationals of and both reside and study in low per capita-GDP countries may apply for a reduction (see the application form).
Payment information will be provided at the time of acceptance.
Fees are non-refundable.

Application & Information
[prequisites/ background reading]
Please note: sessions will not be recorded; synchronous attendance is required.

The regular application period is until April 15.
Applicants will be advised of acceptance on April 21.  Payment of no less than 50% of the course tuition is due on April 28, with the balance due on May 7. Applicants waiting on a grant or subvention may request an extension for the second payment.
Late applicants may be accommodated if space remains. Full payment will be due within three days of acceptance, including a $50 surcharge for late applications.
All payments are final and non-refundable. A letter of confirmation/ receipt will be provided by the Mediterranean Seminar.

Apply via this form.
For further information or inquiries, contact mailbox@mediterraneanseminar.org subject: “Summer Skills Information”)

Important dates:
Application period: 15 April 2024
Acceptance/stand by notifications: 21 April 2024
Full payment: 7 May 2024 (subject to extension for late applicants/ or pending grants)
NOTE: Numbers are limited; participants are encouraged to apply early. [download poster]

Proposed Program

Monday, 8 July 2024: History, Language, Culture, Timeline
9am—11am & noon—2pm
1. Historical and Cultural Trends
2. Sources, Research, Pedagogy
[Readings: Gerber, Benbassa, Díaz Mas, Ray, Goldish, Faur, Hamilton (excerpts)]

Tuesday, 9 July 2024: Sephardic al-Andalus (900-1200)
9am—11am & noon—2pm
1.     Historical and cultural trends
2.     Poetry and Prose: Hanagid, Jarcha, al-Harizi
3.     Mysticism and Historiography: Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Daud
[Readings: Gerber, Cole, Hanagid, Jarcha, al-Harizi, Ibn Daud, Ibn Gabirol (excerpts]

Wednesday, 10 July 2024: Sephardic Christian Iberia (1200-1500)
9am—11am & noon—2pm
1.     Historical and cultural trends
2.     Poetry and Historiography: Shem Tov de Carrión and Torrutiel
3.     Mysticism and Travelogue: Zohar, Benjamin of Tudela
[Readings: Gerber, Díaz Mas, Shem Tov de Carrión, Torrutiel (excerpts)]

Thursday, 11 July 2024: Sephardic Diaspora (1500-1700)
9am—11am & noon—2pm
1.     Overview of historical trends, language use
2.     Revisit sources, research, pedagogy: future research projects and courses
[Readings: : Benbassa, Díaz Mas, Kaplan, Popular (Spanish) poetry, Hebrew poetry (excerpts), Orobio de Castro, Isaac Cardoso, Ibn Verga, Joseph Hakohen, Joseph Karo, Moses Cordovero (excerpts)]

Selections taken from

  • al-Harizi, Judah. The Tahkemoni. Translated by Victor Reichert, Raphael Haim Cohen, 1965.

  • Benbassa, Esther, and Aron Rodrigue. Sephardi Jewry: A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th-20th Centuries. University of California Press, 2000.

  • Benjamin of Tudela. The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Travels in the Middle Ages. Translated by Michael A. Signer and Marcus N. Adler, J. Simon, 1983.

  • Bregman, Dvora. The Golden Way: The Hebrew Sonnet during the Renaissance and the Baroque. Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006.

  • Cardoso, Isaac. Las Excelencias de Los Hebreos (Amsterdam 1679). Edited by David A. Wacks and Sol Miguel-Prendes, Translated by David A. Wacks, Open Iberia/América, 2020. hcommons.org, https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:28339/.

  • Cordovero, Moses ben Jacob. Moses Cordovero’s Introduction to Kabbalah: An Annotated Translation of His Or Ne`erav. Translated by Ira Robinson, Ktav, 1994.

  • Davis, Moshe, and Michel Abitbol. “University Teaching of Jewish History: Sephardic and Oriental Jewry.” Newsletter (World Union of Jewish Studies) no. 25, 1985, pp. 66–64.

  • De León, Moshe. The Zohar = Sefer Ha-Zohar. Edited & translated by Daniel C. Matt, vol. 1, Stanford University Press, 2004.

  • Díaz Mas, Paloma. Sephardim: The Jews from Spain. Translated by George K. Zucker, University of Chicago Press, 1992.

  • Faur, José. “Introducing the Materials of Sephardic Culture to Contemporary Jewish Studies.” American Jewish Historical Quarterly, vol. 63, no. 4, 1974, pp. 340–49.

  • Gerber, Jane S. The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience. The Free Press, 1992.

  • Goldish, Matt. “Teaching Undergraduates the History of Early Modern Sephardic and Eastern Jews.” AJS Perspectives, Spring 2005, pp. 12–13.

  • Hamilton, Michelle M. “Hispanism and Sephardic Studies.” Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2009, pp. 179–94, https://doi.org/10.1080/17546550903136082.

  • Ibn Daud, Abraham ben David. A Critical Edition with a Translation and Notes of the Book of Tradition (Sefer Ha-Qabbalah). Edited & translated by Gerson D. Cohen, Routledge & Keegan Paul, 1969.

  • Kaplan, Yosef. “Bom Judesmo: The Western Sephardic Diaspora.” Cultures of the Jews: A New History, edited by David Biale, Schocken Books, 2006, pp. 638–69.

  • Karo, Joseph. A Maggid [Preacher] of Righteousness. Translated by Yechiel Bar Lev, Yechiel Bar Lev, 2009.

  • Lazar, Moshé. The Sephardic Tradition Ladino and Spanish-Jewish Literature. Selected And ... Norton, 1972.

  • Loewe, Raphael. Ibn Gabirol. Halban, 1989.

  • Orobio de Castro, Isaac approximately, and Myriam Silvera. Prevenciones divinas contra la vana idolatría de las gentes. Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2013.

  • Perry, T. Anthony. The Moral Proverbs of Santob de Carrión: Jewish Wisdom in Christian Spain. Princeton University Press, 1987.

  • Raphael, David T. The Expulsion 1492 Chronicles: An Anthology of Medieval Chronicles Relating to the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal. Carmi House Press, 1992.

  • Ray, Jonathan (Jonathan Stewart). Jewish Life in Medieval Spain: A New History. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023.

  • Scheindlin, Raymond P. The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel, and the Soul. Jewish Publication Society, 1991.

  • Scheindlin, Raymond P. Wine, Women, & Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life. Jewish Publication Society, 1986.