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North Texas Jewish Studies Conference

The Holocaust and the Past and Future of Judaism

in collaboration with The North Texas Council of Jewish Studies Professors

February 24, 2019

University of Dallas
SB Hall
2925 Gorman Drive
Irving, TX 75062

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"The Holocaust and the Past and Future of Judaism" will be the first regional conference on Jewish Studies in North Texas. The conference will be hosted by the University of Dallas (UD) in collaboration with the North Texas Council of Jewish Studies Professors (NTCJSP), which includes faculty from Texas and Oklahoma, including SMU, UNT, UTD, TCU, OU, and UD. Students (both undergraduate and graduate) and faculty from the Jewish Studies programs affiliated with NTCJSP have been encouraged to submit paper proposals. Although the central theme of the conference is the Holocaust, papers on many other topics in Jewish Studies will be included in the program.

Schedule

  Event
10 a.m. - 11 a.m.
Room 125

The Problem of Hate from the Holocaust to the Present 

  • Sarah Snyder, The Importance of the Cog: The Role of Adolf Eichmann in the Context of Jane Bennett, University of Texas at Dallas
  • Pamela Hopkins, The Origins of the Leftist Mind from the Enlightenment: Its Impact on European Jewry, University of North Texas
  • Mary-Cathryn Haas, Atmospheres and Compositions of the Self-Loathing Jew, University of North Texas
  • William Lunny, The Effects of Antisemitism on Jewish Composers, University of North Texas

11 a.m. - 12 p.m.
Room 125

Three Post-Holocaust Jewish Thinkers on Evil: Emil Fackenheim, Erich Fromm, Primo Levi

  • Martin D. Yaffe, Kantian Philosophy vis-à-vis the Evil of the Holocaust: Emil Fackenheim’s Second-Thoughts, University of North Texas
  • Shamim Hunt, Post-Holocaust “Jewish” Theology of Erich Fromm, University of Texas at Dallas
  • David Patterson, Emil L. Fackenheim, Primo Levi, and the Muselmann, University of Texas at Dallas

12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Multipurpose Room

Keynote Address

  • Sharon Portnoff, Primo Levi's Dignifying Holocaust Witnessing
    and
    Lunch for ticket holders
1:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Multipurpose Room

I Am Afraid: Children in the Holocaust

  • Zsuzsanna Ozsvath, University of Texas at Dallas, an interview with
    Charles Sullivan, University of Dallas, moderator and interviewer
  • Cindy Renker, University of North Texas, interviewer
  • Rick Halperin, Southern Methodist University, interviewer
3 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Room 125

The Holocaust: Commemorating It and Moving Beyond It

  • Deborah Fripp, A New Holocaust Commemoration for the Future of Judaism, Teach the Shoah Foundation
  • John P. Williams, Within these Hallowed Halls: Anti-Semitism on Campus – A Tale of Quotas, Exclusion and Demonization, University of North Texas
  • Reid Heller, All the Maps of Blood and Flesh: The Jewish Situation in the Work of Two Poets, Yehudah Amichai and Leonard Cohen, University of North Texas
4 p.m. - 5 p.m.
Room 125

Law, Politics, and the Arts in Judaism

  • Maddison Craig, Ike’s Opinions: Eisenhower’s Foreign Policy and Thought and Memory of the Jewish People, University of North Texas
  • Angela Lill, Maimonides and the Problem of the Huqqim, University of Dallas
  • Amal Shafek, Falafel for Identity, University of Texas at Dallas

Faculty at the University of Dallas created an undergraduate Jewish Studies concentration five years ago to pursue the principles and ideals of Nostra Aetate, a document of the Second Vatican Council that encouraged Catholics to explore their own Jewish roots through academic study and Jewish-Catholic dialogue.