Posen
Foundation Announces Two Major Initiatives at AJS Conference in LA
LOS
ANGELES, Dec 22, 2009 - At a reception last night at the 41st Annual
Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies at the Hyatt Regency
Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles, The Posen Foundation announced the
public launch of two new and important initiatives:
• The
forthcoming publication of Volume X of The Posen Library of Jewish
Culture and Civilization: An Anthology of Primary Sources, Documents,
Texts, and Artifacts, with Yale University Press, the first of ten
1,000-page volumes collecting all global expressions of Jewish culture,
from ancient times to the present; and
• A newly designed and
expanded online journal, Secular Culture & Ideas, which has
distinguished itself as a beacon for intelligent, insightful, and
cutting-edge writing on secular Jewish culture and history.
These
are only two of the latest and most visible of The Posen Foundation’s
recent projects, which include a number of international initiatives in
Jewish education and the study of secular Jewish culture.
The
Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization
In this
ambitious and far-reaching project, a distinguished board composed of
the world's leading scholars of Jewish history, literature, philosophy,
religion, and culture was appointed to identify and assemble the primary
sources, documents, texts, and artifacts constituting Jewish culture
and civilization, from ancient times to the present. For the purposes
of The Posen Library, expressions of Jewish culture will include
hundreds of chronologically, geographically, generically,
linguistically, and thematically organized extracts from historical,
philosophical, religious, legal, literary, exegetical, political,
folkloristic, artistic images, and artifacts. All volumes will be richly
illustrated with images of illuminated manuscripts, architecture,
religious objects, folk art, design, drawings, paintings, sculpture,
photography, film, and other arts, high and low, including music and
theater. According to James E. Young, editor-in-chief, “A special
effort will be made to include works that have been traditionally
neglected and marginalized by prevailing canons.”
Secular
Culture & Ideas www.secularjewishculture.org
With a new
URL, a new design, and an expanding trove of articles, essays and
interviews, the online journal Secular Culture & Ideas opens
an exciting public window onto the best and most vibrant writing today
on secular Jewish culture, history, and ideas.
Edited by the
Center for Cultural Judaism, the site now has an editor’s blog, “Secular
News & Notes,” and a large, navigable archive, which includes theme
issues, interviews with literary luminaries such as Tony Kushner and
Rebecca Goldstein, and a large collection of articles that are
frequently used by other Posen Foundation educational projects.
Myrna
Baron, who has overseen the website’s relaunch, notes that “The beauty
of this site is that it not only brings to a broader public on the web a
treasure trove of articles on secular Jewish culture, but with the
joint Posen Library announcement tonight, we see how Secular Culture
& Ideas can also serve as a focal point of Posen Foundation
initiatives.” Currently the site has articles about The Posen Library by
volume editors Deborah Dash Moore (Volume X) and David Roskies (Volume
IX), and Editor-in-Chief James Young. The site also has featured
articles translated from the Hebrew language New Jewish Time: Jewish
Culture in a Secular Age, as well as articles from Contemplate:
The International Journal of Secular Jewish Thought. We’ve also
featured excerpts from readings on syllabi in the Posen Project grant
program. “University students shouldn’t be the only ones who have access
to these wonderful articles,” Baron continued.
The website will
continue to spotlight secular Jewish history, ideas, values, and
identity. The focus on global Jewry—and not just Israel or “the
Diaspora”—is a hallmark of Secular Culture & Ideas. So is the
emphasis on the diversity of secular Jewish cultures.
In addition
to interviews with Tony Award winning playwright Tony Kushner, Pulitzer
Prize winner Natalie Angier, and author Rebecca Goldstein, notable new
and recent articles featured in Secular Culture & Ideas
include essays by David Biale on Spinoza; Naomi Seidman on the
latter-day shtetl of Boro Park, Brooklyn; Ted Merwin on Jews in the
entertainment industry; Aaron Lansky and Michael Wex on the renaissance
of Yiddish; Ilan Stavans on resurrecting Hebrew; and Caryn Aviv and
David Shneer on the contentious idea of “Diaspora.” “It’s important to
acknowledge the variety of Jewish life and thought, both throughout the
world and through the millennia,” said Baron. “Similarly, many popular
assumptions—say, that Yiddish is dying—are simply incorrect, and we hope
to correct them.”
For information on the Posen Foundation
initiatives, contact Myrna Baron at myrna@culturaljudaism.org or
212-564-6711 x301.
# # #
Volume Editors & Forthcoming Volumes /
The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization
James
E. Young, Editor-in-Chief
Editors &
Forthcoming Volumes
I. 2000 B.C.E.–120 C.E. Jeffrey Tigay
II. 120 C.E.–800 C.E. Seth Schwartz and Carol Bakhos
III.
800–1096 Menahem Ben-Sasson
IV. 1096–1500 Ora Limor and
Israel Yuval
V. 1500–1750 Yosef Kaplan
VI.
1750–1880 Elisheva Carlebach
VII. 1880–1918 Eli Lederhendler
VIII. 1918–1939 Todd Endelman and Zvi Gitelman
IX.
1939–1973 David Roskies and Samuel Kassow
X. 1973–2005
Deborah Dash Moore and Nurith Gertz
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