{"id":246,"date":"2023-01-09T18:43:49","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T18:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/casden-institute\/?page_id=246"},"modified":"2026-04-17T00:30:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T00:30:03","slug":"previous-faculty-and-graduate-student-research-seminars","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/casden-institute\/graduate\/previous-faculty-and-graduate-student-research-seminars\/","title":{"rendered":"Previous Faculty and Graduate Student Research Seminars"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Tuesday, November 21, 2023: \u201cKol Isha: Religious Women on Israeli TV”
\n<\/strong>Featuring: \u00a0Dr. Melissa Weininger is Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies at California State University, Northridge.
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In the last several years, there has been a sharp uptick in pop cultural portrayals of ultra-Orthodox communities in both the U.S. and Israel. In the U.S., many of these, such as the limited series\u00a0Unorthodox<\/em>\u00a0and the reality show\u00a0My Unorthodox Life<\/em>, have followed individuals who have left ultra-Orthodoxy and have depicted a binary conflict between secular and religious life. In Israel, shows like\u00a0Srugim<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Shtisel\u00a0<\/em>have offered sympathetic portraits of religious life from an insider point of view, with resolvable conflicts centered around marriage, work, and family life. By contrast, a recent spate of Israeli television shows by and about Orthodox women, including\u00a0Rama Burshtein\u2019s\u00a0Fire Dance<\/em>\u00a0and Aleeza Chanowitz\u2019s\u00a0Chanshi<\/em>, as well as a reality show called\u00a0Bnot Brak<\/em>, have focused on women protagonists from religious communities in a way that continues to highlight a diverse and nuanced portrait of Jewish religious Orthodoxy while at the same time challenging some of the assumptions and perceived norms of the public. In focusing on women protagonists, these shows provide a portrait of religious life that does not originate in the center of authority, which is largely granted to men, but offer a point of view from the margins that trains a new lens on religious life.\u00a0These shows do not shy away from internal religious conflicts over gender, sexuality, and relationships between the sexes; depict situations, such as rape and domestic violence, that are often concealed within the confines of closed communities; and center the desires, passions, and agency of women.<\/p>\n

Monday, October 30, 2023 – \u201cResearch in Practice: How do Jewish Organizational Professionals Make Sense of the Data They Use and Produce?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Featuring Dr. Gage Gorsky-researcher and postdoc at Stanford University<\/p>\n

Gage Gorsky (they\/them) is a queer mixed Mexican Jewish multimodal research advisor, data analyst, and program evaluator who uses a dynamic approach to explore intersections of identity and the phenomenon of social categorization, with a focus on the tension between marginality and belonging. They have a doctorate in Educational Measurement and Statistics from the University of Washington, where their research inquiry bridged social science frameworks and utilized diverse methods to better understand the relationship between student identity and math achievement. In 2020, they helped lead \u201cBeyond the Count,\u201d the largest ever study of Jews of Color, report released August 2021. They serve as an advisor for OneTable, the Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE), Edot Midwest, as well as a number of applied research studies in the Jewish communal sector. In addition to ongoing work with Tiyuv and the Jim Joseph Foundation, they are currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Graduate School of Education, concentration in Jewish Studies, at Stanford University.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wednesday, October 18, 2023: “Early Female Founders: Women and Jewish Museums in America, 1913-1950”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Featuring: \u00a0Dr. Ari Berger is a cultural historian of North American Jews.<\/p>\n

Her work examines the emergence of Jewish museums in the United States through the stories of several women who founded them. She earned her BA at the University of Pennsylvania (American History), two MA degrees from Columbia University (Art History) and the Jewish Theological Seminary (Modern Jewish Studies), and her PhD at the University of Virginia (Jewish History). She has held fellowships at the New York Public Library, Center for Jewish History, Fordham University, Jefferson Foundation, and more. She is also an award winner in two JTS yearly essay contests for historical writing and has been a guest lecturer at synagogues, conferences, and special events.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, April 19th, 2023: \u201cThe Roots of Israel’s Conservative Judicial Counter-Revolution\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Featuring:\u00a0Phd student, Uri Appenzeller Yardeni, University of Haifa, Ruderman Program for Jewish American Studies<\/p>\n

Jewish political conservatives in the US and Israel were collaborative agents of a political shift in contemporary American and Israeli politics. This Israeli-American conservative ideological synergy strongly and equally affected both Jewish communities and is based on a common value-system and strategic coordination. This introductory lecture will focus on the roots of Israel’s conservative judicial and constitutional counter-revolution.<\/p>\n

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Wednesday, October 26th, 2022: Exiled from the Promised Land: A Curious Case of Polish\/Israeli Writer Leo Lipski*<\/strong><\/p>\n

*Previously titled “Excrements of Modernity: The Scatology of Leo Lipski”<\/p>\n

Featuring Andrzej Brylak, Postdoctoral Scholar of Polish Studies in the USC Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures<\/p>\n

Andrzej Brylak is a Postdoctoral Scholar in Polish Studies at the USC Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.\u00a0 His primary field of research is Polish and Eastern European modernity, especially in the post-WW2 context. He is currently working on a book titled “Leo Lipski: Expression, Excrement, Existence” in which he examines the prose of the Polish\/Israeli writer whose postwar subject turns the main mode of existence from the disintegrated carnality to reconstructed textuality. Andrzej Brylak\u2019s research focuses on Interwar Poland, Stalinist Gulag, and Modern Israel and employs discourses such as biopolitics, Jewish and Christian theology, disability studies, and psychoanalysis. He is also interested in Polish and Eastern European modernization projects and their representations in film, theater, and architecture.<\/p>\n

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Wednesday, November 30th<\/sup>, 2022: The Shamama Case: Contesting Citizenship across the Modern Mediterranean<\/strong><\/p>\n

How a nineteenth-century lawsuit over the estate of a wealthy Tunisian Jew shines new light on the history of belonging<\/p>\n

In the winter of 1873, Nissim Shamama, a wealthy Jew from Tunisia, died suddenly in his palazzo in Livorno, Italy. His passing initiated a fierce lawsuit over his large estate. Before Shamama’s riches could be disbursed among his aspiring heirs, Italian courts had to decide which law to apply to his estate\u2014a matter that depended on his nationality. Was he an Italian citizen? A subject of the Bey of Tunis? Had he become stateless? Or was his Jewishness also his nationality? Tracing a decade-long legal battle involving Jews, Muslims, and Christians from both sides of the Mediterranean,\u00a0The Shamama Case\u00a0offers a riveting history of citizenship across regional, cultural, and political borders.<\/p>\n

Featuring Professor Jessica Marglin, USC School of Religion<\/p>\n

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November 10, 2021\u00a012PM-1:30PM PST:\u00a0Professor Nomi Stolzenberg-Nathan and Lilly Shapell Chair in Law-USC Gould School of Law<\/strong><\/p>\n

Title:\u00a0\u201cLeaving Kiryas Joel: 25 years of research into 45 years of a Hasidic village\u2019s existence\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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