Public Lecture at Einstein Summer School
Historian Miriam Frenkel from Hebrew University of Jerusalem to Speak about the Cairo Genizah on September 10, 2012
№ 245/2012 from Sep 04, 2012
The opening keynote for this year’s Einstein Summer School "New Frontiers in Islamic Studies" will be held on September 10, 2012, by Miriam Frenkel, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She will give a talk on the Cairo Genizah, a repository of used Jewish scriptures, which also contains important Muslim material. The public lecture will be given in English, and there is no charge for admission. The summer school is supported by the Berlin Einstein Foundation and is being held jointly by Freie Universität Berlin and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The conveners are Professor Reuven Amitai and Professor Sabine Schmidtke.
This Einstein Summer School aims to introduce graduate students of Islamic Studies to the immense riches of the Genizot, hidden cavities in synagogues, where religious documents are stored, after they are no longer in use, as their religious significance precludes disposal. Tens of thousands of important documents and works have survived, providing a wealth of information about everyday life and intellectual history of the Islamic cultural area.
The Genizah researcher Miriam Frenkel teaches medieval Jewish history in Islamic countries at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research covers a variety of subjects: literature, gender, slavery, childhood and adolescence, as well as material culture and intellectual history.
Time and Location
Monday, September 10, 2012, 6 p.m.; Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Potsdamer Straße 33, 10785 Berlin-Tiergarten.
Further Information
Prof. Dr. Sabine Schmidtke, Freie Universität Berlin, Research Unit Intellectual History of the Islamicate World, Tel.: +49 (0)30 838-52487, Email: sabineschmidtke@gmail.com; Coordination: Jan Thiele, Email: jan.thiele@arcor.de