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Faculty Invites: Events

Events are sponsored by the Humanities Institute Faculty Invites program, under the Humanities in the World initiative. 
 
The “Reimagining Jewish Life in the Modern Middle East, 1800-Present: Culture, Society, and History” Workshop. Thursday, April 28 at 5:30 P.M. The workshop aims to study Jewish populations in the region of the Middle East and North Africa as part of the local societies and immediate environment, and not as isolated communities. The 35 participants of the workshop come from the MENA region, Europe, and North America, with expertise in all the studied societies, languages, and religious and cultural traditions. This is the second workshop, and the first in-person, and during this meeting we will work toward the collaborative writing of a multi-author monograph. Keynote Speaker: Hanan Hammad, Professor of History and Founding Director of Middle East Studies at Texas Christian University Lecture Title: “Unknown Past: Layla Murad, the Jewish-Muslim Star of Egypt” Description: In this talk, Professor Hanan Hammad employs the life and legacy of Layla Murad, one of the most beloved and remembered Arab singing stars in the twentieth century, to analyze politics of sexuality, ethnicity, socio-cultural interaction between Muslims and Jews, and the crucial role popular culture played in constructing an exclusive Arab-Islamic Egyptian identity. Born into a Jewish family in 1918 and converted to Islam in the late 1940s, Layla Murad provides an excellent example to showcase that Jews of Egypt and the Arab East broadly lived within a web of emotional, social, and institutional relations thus with multiple and fluid identities, rather than a narrow religious identity. This talk event is co-sponsored by the Penn State Department of History, Penn State LA College of the Liberal Arts Deans’s Office, Penn State Jewish Studies Program, The Herzog Center at Ben-Gurion University, and The University of Chicago. This event is co-sponsored by the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center. This publication is available in alternative media on request. Penn State is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. Penn State encourages qualified persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact John Christman at 814-865-0495 or jpc11@psu.edu, in advance of your participation or visit. U.Ed. LBS 22-424.
 
This talk was the keynote lecture for the “Reimagining Jewish Life in the Modern Middle East, 1800-Present: Culture, Society, and History” Workshop. The workshop studied Jewish populations in the region of the Middle East and North Africa as part of the local societies and immediate environment, and not as isolated communities. The 35 participants of the workshop came from the MENA region, Europe, and North America, with expertise in all the studied societies, languages, and religious and cultural traditions. This was the second workshop, and the first in-person, and during this meeting we they worked toward the collaborative writing of a multi-author monograph.
 
The workshop was co-sponsored by Penn State Department of History, Penn State LA College of the Liberal Arts Dean’s Office, Penn State Jewish Studies Program, The Herzog Center at Ben-Gurion University, and The University of Chicago.
 
 

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