HBI lectures meet from 12:30 to 2pm in the Liberman-Miller Lecture Hall at HBI. A kosher lunch will be provided. RSVP here.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Tamar Biala
Topic: Women’s Midrash on Alternative Families
Tamar Biala is engaged with Jewish feminism as a writer and lecturer. She received her B.A. in Jewish Thought at Hebrew University and M.A. in Women’s Studies at the Schechter Institute/Jewish Theological Seminary, where she wrote an M.A. thesis on feminist theology’s critique of divine transcendence under the direction of Professor Tamar Ross. Biala taught at Jerusalem’s IASA (a high school for gifted children), and taught for a number of years at the Hartman Institute. She also studied and taught in a number of pluralistic Batei Midrash in Israel.
Over the last decade she has published two volumes of Midrashim written by contemporary Israeli women, Dirshuni – Midreshei Nashim (Yediot Acharonot, 2009, 2018); Volume 1 was co-edited with Nehama Weingarten-Mintz. She is now preparing an English edition of Dirshuni. Biala is currently an HBI Research Associate. She was a 2013 and 2015 HBI Scholar in Residence and winner of the HBI Translation Prize.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
Sivan Rajuan Shtang
Topic: Gender and Ethnicity in Mizrahi Feminist Contemporary Photography
Sivan Rajuan Shtang (Ph.D.) is a visual culture scholar. Rajuan Shtang has a B.F.A. in Fine Arts from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, an M.A. and Ph.D. in Hermeneutics and Culture from Bar Ilan University. Her work deals with gendered and racial aspects of visual culture and art, taking particular interest in feminism, queer theory, and multiculturalism. During the last few years, she conducted pioneered research on contemporary Mizrahi (eastern Jews) feminist fine art, and on queer feminist fine art in Israel. Sivan is a lecturer at Shenkar – Design, Art and Engineering Academic College and at Sapir Academic College, Israel. She is currently at work on a new book on contemporary Mizrahi feminist art.
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Ben Steiner
Topic: Ketubot as Enforceable Contracts under American Law: The Case of Charleston, South Carolina
Benjamin Steiner is a fifth-year doctoral student in the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at Brandeis University. His dissertation focuses on the ketubah as a window into social and cultural change in America and England, among Jews and between Jews and their neighbors. He has also published articles on the history of Conservative Judaism. Steiner is a fall 2019 HBI Scholar-in-Residence.
