ANNOUNCEMENTS
Sefer Announces Summer Educational Programs
We are pleased to announce a cycle of summer educational programs, which will take place in July and August in Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Israel.
Center Sefer with the support of Avi Chai Foundation and Genesis Philanthropy Group (as part of the program of Charities Aid Foundation “Jewish Communities”) will organize the fifteenth international student conference in Jewish studies. The conference will take place in Moscow, on July 10-11, 2010. The conference is intended for students, graduate students and young scholars (35 and younger), who do their research in various areas of Jewish history, culture, and civilization.
The conference will include sessions on biblical and Semitic studies, Jewish thought, Jewish history, ethno-cultural contacts, Israel studies, Jewish literature, art and music, sociology and psychology, etc.
We invite students, graduate students and young scholars to send their paper proposals to the conference. We also ask instructors to pass this information to their students and graduate students, encouraging them to participate in the conference. Participation in the conference and Moscow stationary school allows one to apply for a month-long study program at Hebrew University in Jerusalem (“Eshnav”).
This year, the conference will take place as part of the summer school in Jewish studies near Moscow. We encourage all potential conference participants to apply to the summer school as well.
Presentations at the conference are limited to fifteen minutes.
Applications to participate in the conference (including completed application form, similar to the application form for summer school, title of your paper, and a half page to page-long summary with brief bibliography and primary sources) should be submitted by May 20, 2010.
The best papers will be published in the volume of collected articles “Tirosh: Studies on Judaica” in 2011. Those who want their articles (not necessarily papers from the last-year conference) published already this year, in the tenth volume of the “Tirosh,” should send the text of article to students@sefer.ru as soon as possible (marked “Tirosh # 10” in the subject line of message). Detailed guidelines on articles’ formatting can be found here.
Center Sefer and Chais Center for Jewish Studies in Russian, Hebrew University in Jerusalem, with the support of Avi Chai Foundation, Genesis Philanthropy Group (as part of the program of Charities Aid Foundation “Jewish Communities”), and other charitable foundations also plan the following summer schools in Jewish studies:
- The stationary summer school near Moscow (July 6-13) is a week-long study program which allows students and graduate students of state and private universities to take intensive courses on the history of the Ancient Near East, medieval Jewish history, Jewish history and culture in Eastern Europe, Jewish thought, and Israel studies. For the first time this year, the courses will be offered exclusively by Sefer’s alumni: young scholars, who, not long time ago, attended the schools of Sefer in the capacity of students, and who now teach in universities in Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. The school will also include master classes, a brain ring, intensive introductions to Yiddish and Hebrew, and the demonstration of Israeli films. At the selection of applicants, the preference will be given to the participants in the Fifteenth International Student Conference in Jewish studies.
A list of courses at Moscow summer school in Jewish studies:
- The field summer school in Ivano-Frankivsk (July 21 – August 10) continues the last-year project to document and make available to the public the Jewish past of Galicia and Bukovina initiated by Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The project is based on the integrated and documentary approach to Jewish history (see http://www.jewishgalicia.net/ for details). Galicia is one of the most interesting centers of Eastern European Jewry. It reflects the evolution of Jews from Poland-Lithuania, who came under the Austrian rule and continued to develop along parallel, yet different, track compared to those inside the borders of the Russian Empire.
The participants will have to collect and process material in the shtetl Nadvorna (Nadvirna, Nadvurna) of Ivano-Frankivsk region, which will be posted on the project’s site. Nadvorna, which is well-known among the scholars of Eastern European Jewish history and used to be the seat of a famous Hasidic dynasty, is a well-preserved shtetl with an interesting cemetery. This year’s school will focus its work on two areas: epigraphy and ethnography. Students and graduate students who apply to the school will be expected to have expertise in epigraphy and ethnography, and have skills of practical work in these areas.
- The field summer school in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (August 12-20). For the first time this year, in continuation of school-expeditions to Bukovina, Poland, Moldova and Romania, Center Sefer in cooperation with Chais Center, organizes school in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The participants will visit three historically significant regions of Eastern Europe (Czechia, Moravia, Slovakia) and learn about the historical, spiritual, and cultural heritage of Jews, who lived there for many centuries, as well as the contribution of Central European Jews to the World civilization and unique monuments of their material culture. Only students and gradate students whose work (dissertations, senior thesis and research paper projects) is directly related to this region are eligible for the school.
Those who want to attend these schools should complete the participant’s form and present rationale for their participation in a particular school. The application should include the following:
Which of the three summer schools would you like to attend? You may apply to different schools, indicating priorities, but you can only participate in one field school and in Moscow stationary school.
Which of the courses would you like to take at Moscow summer school? Please, put them in order based on your preferences (6 out of 18 courses, 2 out of 6 offered for each session). There will be a competitive enrollment for each course, based on the number of applicants and their qualification for requirements indicated in course annotations.
