Latin American Jewish Studies Association (LAJSA) 20th International Research Conference Program
The Conference will be held at meeting rooms and auditorium at Brandeis University’s Mandel Center for the Humanities
Specific rooms will be provided at conference registration
Registered participants who are not at Brandeis will be able to follow the conference via Zoom. Instructions to access the panels and other events will be provided closer to the conference. All times in this program are EST.
5:30 PM: Registration opens
4:30 PM- 6:00 PM: LAJSA Board Meeting
6:00 PM-7:00 PM: Welcome and reception (registration required, sponsored by LAJSA and JOTA)
7:00 PM-8:30 PM: LAJSA Awards and Keynote speaker: Professor Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University) Keynote address: “On the Integration of Jewish History into Latin American History (And Vice Versa)— A Personal Perspective”
8:00 AM: Registration opens
8:30 AM-10:30 AM: In-Person (IP) Session 1
IP 1.1 Traversing Narratives: Jewish Latin American Literature and Memory (Panel)
Chair: Ariana Huberman (Haverford College)
- Flavio Fiorani (Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia) - Significantes hiperbólicos: viaje, interrogación, infancia en la narrativa de Eduardo Halfon
- Jacobo Sefamí (University of California - Irvine) - De ida y vuelta: la diáspora y los orígenes sefardíes en Isaac Chocrón, Victor Perera y Myriam Moscona
- Jackson Monzón (University of Maryland) - Sagradas reescrituras: los midrashim de Esther Seligson y Myriam Moscona
- Ana Sofía Semo (Penn State University) - The Visual Narratives of Private Memories: Self-representations of Jewish-Mexican Identities in Family Photographs by First-Generation Immigrants (1930-1955)
10:30 AM-11:00 AM: Coffee Break - Sponsored by JDC
11:00 AM-1:00 PM: In-Person (IP) Session 2
IP 2.1 Translating Jewish-Latin American Texts: Issues and Practices (Roundtable)
- Darrell B. Lockhart (chair) (University of Nevada - Reno)Simja Sneh’s short-story collection El pan y la sangre
- Rebecca Marquis (Gonzaga University) - Angelina Muñiz-Huberman’s novel Enchanted Dulcinea
- Suzanne Jill Levine (University of California - Santa Barbara) - Marjorie Agosín’s “Notas del mar”
- D.P. Snyder (Independent scholar) - Angelina Muñiz-Huberman’s book Arrhythmias
- Stephen A. Sadow (Northeastern University)- Literary anthology I Am of the Tribe of Judah: Jewish Poetry from Latin America
- Annette Prekker Levine (Ithaca College) - Translation of Aída Bortnik's Short Stories
IP 2.2 Jewish Youth in Latin America - Part II (Roundtable)
* Part I is online on July 6
- Adriana Brodsky (chair) (St. Mary’s College of Maryland)
- Lukas Böckmann (Dubnow Institute, Leipzig)
- Hugo Simkin (Universidad de Buenos Aires)
1:00 PM-2:00 PM Lunch Break
2:00 PM-3:45: PM In-Person (IP) Session 3
IP 3.1 Art in the Public Sphere (Panel)
Annette Prekker Levine (chair) (Ithaca College)
- Mirta Kupferminc (Independent scholar) - Avatares de un Memorial en un país desmemoriado
- Elaine Fitz Gibbon (Harvard University) - Concept, Laboratory, Playground: Ursula Burghardt as Composer-Artist in the 5-Day-Race (1968)
- Darrell B. Lockhart (University of Nevada - Reno) - La autobiografía pincelada: las novelas gráficas de Brian Janchez
IP 3.2 New Directions in Brazilian Jewish Studies (Panel)
Daniela Goldfine (chair) (University of Wisconsin-River Falls)
- Karen Ayalon-Brustein (University of Haifa) - Eat. Immigrate. Eat. Foodways as Reflecting Cultural Practices among Brazilian Jews
- Shirley Nigri Farber (Independent scholar) - Jews of Lebanon Immigration to Brazil
- Israel Blajberg (Academia de História Militar Terrestre do Brasil) - 80 anos da Criação da Força Expedicionária Brasileira, 1943-2023: A Participação de Soldados Brasileiros Judeus
3:45 PM-4:15 PM: Coffee Break
4:15 PM-6:00 PM: In-Person (IP) Session 4
IP 4.1 Turmoil in the Twentieth Century (Panel)
Adriana Brodsky (chair and commentator) (St. Mary’s College of Maryland)
- Omri Elmaleh (Brown University) - Muslim Antisemitism in the Service of Antizionism: Evidence from a South American Triple Frontier, 1980-2020
- Lukas Bökman (Dubnow Institute, Leipzig) - Aporias of Revolution. Religious Traditions and Political Theology of the Latin American Guerilla during the 1960s
IP 4.2 Creative Works
Daniela Goldfine (chair) (University of Wisconsin-River Falls)
- Suzanne Jill Levine (University of California - Santa Barbara) - Bilingual Reading of ‘Notes to the Sea/Notas del Mar’ with Marjorie Agosin
- Jacobo Sefamí (University of California - Irvine) - Abudito alegre
- Nora Glickman (The City University of New York) - A mí también
6:15 PM-7:00 PM: Reception (registration required, sponsored by LAJSA and JOTA)
7:00 PM-8:30 PM: Presentation by Dr. Daniel Abouganem: Jews of Colón, Panamá
9:00 AM-10:45 AM: In-Person (IP) Session 5
IP 5.1 Literature, Journalism, Film: Journeys in Languages (Panel)
Darrell Lockhart (chair) (University of Nevada, Reno)
- Rosa Perelmuter (University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill) - ‘Moments as difficult as these last have been’: Cuba’s Havaner Lebn in the 1930s
- Lila Fabro (Johns Hopkins University) - On the tip of the Tongue: Yiddish in Contemporary Argentine Literature
- Nora Glickman (The City University of New York) - De la relación entre amas de casa judías y sus criadas, en el cine latinoamericano
IP 5.2 Expresiones artísticas que evaden la razón - Part II (Panel)
* Part I is virtual on July 6 (OS 2.2)
- Naomi Lindstrom (The University of Texas - Austin) - Prophets and Messiahs in the Graphic Novels of Alejandro Jodorowsky
- Stephen A. Sadow (Northeastern University) - Rosita Kalina, Sara Riwka B’raz Erlich, poeta visionárias, “hermanas”/ “irmãs”
- Susana Skura (Universidad de Buenos Aires) - ‘Hablé de cosas que no debía’. Acerca de La Lista, de Ricardo Halac
- Ariana Huberman (chair) (Haverford College) - Ecos y espejismos: el realismo mágico y el misticismo judío en la literatura latinoamericana
10:45 AM-11:15 AM: Coffee Break
11:15 AM-1:00 PM: In-Person (IP) Session 6
IP 6.1 Reclaiming ‘America’: New Directions in Jewish Studies - Part II (Roundtable)
* Part I is virtual on July 6 (OS 3.1)
Dalia Wassner (chair) (Brandeis University)
- Judit Liwerant (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México)
- Naomi Lindstrom (The University of Texas - Austin)
- Perla Aizencang Kane (Universidad Hebraica de México)
Meet the Director, Jews of the Americas
Dalia Wassner, PhD, is the director of Jews of the Americas, an initiative of Brandeis University at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies. Dr. Wassner is a historian whose research and teaching is dedicated to providing more inclusive and interdisciplinary approaches to the Jewish Diaspora and broadening the academic fields of Jewish Studies, Latin American Studies and Diaspora Studies.
Dr. Wassner is the author of Harbinger of Modernity: Marcos Aguinis and the Democratization of Argentina (Boston: Brill, 2014), which illuminates the intersecting roles of Jews and public intellectuals in bringing democracy to post-dictatorship Argentina. She is guest-editor of the launching issue of the journal Latin American Jewish Studies (Spring 2022), and her scholarship has been published in numerous academic journals, including Latin American Research Review, Iberian and Latin American Studies, Contemporary Jewry, and Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. Dr. Wassner serves on the Latin American Jewish Studies Association Board of Directors, the Jewish Women's Archive Encyclopedia Editorial Board in the field of Latin America, and the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry Board of Directors.