Events
Please check this page regularly for an update on our upcoming 2012-2013 events.
HERZOG CENTRE RESEARCH SEMINARS, AUTUMN 2012
Friday 2nd November, 10-11.45, IIIS
Prof. Tessa Rajak, “The Maccabaean Martyrs in Jewish Memory: Jerusalem and Antioch”
Tessa Rajak is Professor of Ancient History Emeritus in the University of Reading, Senior Research Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford and a Member of the Jewish Studies Unit at the Oriental Institute, Oxford. Prof. Rajak has served as Horace W. Goldsmith Visiting Professor in Judaic Studies and Classics at Yale (2006-7) and as a Member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2003-4). She has also been a Visiting Professor at the Max Weber Kolleg of Erfurt University, at Macquarie University in Sydney (2002 and 2009) and at the Humboldt University and the Freie Universität, Berlin (1999). She was a Member of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem during 2000-1. Between 1998 and 2003 she edited the Journal of Jewish Studies (Oxford).
Tessa Rajak has written extensively on ancient cultural and religious history, and her main interest is in the interaction of Hellenistic and Roman societies with Jews and early Christians. Her most recent book is Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford University Press, revised paperback edition 2011. She has also published The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome (Brill, Leiden, 2001); and Josephus: The Historian and His Society (2nd edition, Duckworth, London, 2003). She is co-editor of Jewish Perspectives on Hellenistic Rulers, (University of California Press, Berkeley, 2007); Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin, (Oxford University Press, 2002);and The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (Routledge, London, 1992). She is currently writing a book on the impact of the historian Josephus on Jews and Christians through the ages for Harvard University Press, and introductions and commentaries on the Fourth Book of Maccabees for de Gruyter, Berlin and for Yad Ben Zvi, Jerusalem.
Friday 30th November, 2.10-3.30, IIIS
Prof. Gary Rendsburg, "La longue durée in Jewish Life, Culture, and History"
Gary Rendsburg serves as the Blanche and Irving Laurie Professor of Jewish History in the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. His teaching and research focus on ‘all things ancient Israel’ – primarily language and literature, though just as importantly history and archaeology. Prof Rendsburg is the author of six books and about 130 articles; his most popular book is The Bible and the Ancient Near East, a general survey of the biblical world, co-authored with his teacher, the late Cyrus H. Gordon. Prof Rendsburg has excavated at Tel Dor and Caesarea. Currently he is resident at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Yarnton Manor, serving as visiting fellow, while working on his current book project, How the Bible Is Written.
Friday 7th December, Neil Hoey Theatre, Long Room Hub, 1.00-3.00
Dr Lars Fischer, “Socialists grappling with the Shoah: Early Post-War Responses?”
Dr Lars Fischer is the Academic Director of the Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge and an Honorary Research Associate in the UCL Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He was educated at Queen Mary, University of London, and UCL and previously held lectureships in modern European History at King’s College London and German History at UCL. His publications include a monograph on The Socialist Response to Antisemitism in Imperial Germany, published by Cambridge University Press in 2007 (paperback 2010). He serves on the council of the Royal Historical Society.