Upcoming Thomas Mann Conference at the Melton Center

"Jewish and Christian Mystical and Messianic Movements in their Social and Religious Contexts: The Eastern European Case"

May 18-19, 2008
Ohio State Hillel
46 E. 16th

The purpose of the conference is to bring together experts on Jewish movements such as Hasidism and Frankism, with specialists on Christian movements that occurred in the same regions and at the same period in Poland, Ukraine, Russia, and Hungary. While these movements—mainly active from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries—clearly influenced each other, the scholars who study them have often been unaware of these relationships. This meeting will be a major step toward remedying that isolation.

The conference will gather some of the best scholars working today in these fields, who will come from Israel, Europe, and around North America to participate. Among them are Professor Moshe Idel of the Hebrew University, a top expert on the Kabbalah; Dr. Marsha Keith Schuchard of Atlanta, who studies mystical currents in William Blake's poetry; and Professor Sergei Zhuk of Ball State University, who writes on Russian mysticism and religion. Other participants will speak about a large range of contexts for mystical and messianic movements.

This conference is innovative in its interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach. The organizers hope it will create a fruitful and ongoing dialogue that will lead to better understandings of such movements in the past, present, and future. The papers will be collected into a volume for publication.

Conference Schedule

Sunday, 18 May

10:00 Arrive at Ohio State Hillel; breakfast, opening comments by the organizers

11:00-12:45 Session I: Russia

11:00-1:30 Sergei Zhuk (Ball State University), "In Search of the Millennium: Russian Jews and Ukrainian Evangelical Peasants in Late Imperial Russia"

11:45-12:00 Coffee break

12:00-12:45 Nick Breyfogle (The Ohio State University), "In Spirit and Life: Maksim Rudometkin and the Messianic World of the Molokan Jumpers (Pryguny)"

12:45-1:30 Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern (Northwestern University), "'You Will Find It In the Pharmacy': Popular Kabbalah in the Slavic-Jewish Context"

1:30-2:15 Lunch

2:15 -6:00 Session II: 17th- 19th c. Poland

2:15-3:00 Moshe Idel (Hebrew University), "The Ba'al Shem Tov as a Mystical and Messianic Figure"

3:00-3:45 Harris Lenowitz (University of Utah), "Me'ayin Yavo 'Ezri? From Nowhere: The Help of Yakov Frank"

3:45-4:15 Coffee break

4:15-5:00 Pawel Maciejko (Hebrew University), "How Rabbis and Priests Created the Frankist Movement"

5:00-5:15 Coffee Break

5:15-6:00 Glenn Dynner (Sarah Lawrence College), TBA

6:00-7:00 Dinner

Monday, 19 May

9:00 Breakfast at Hillel

9:30- 12:00 Session III: 19th - 20th c. Poland

9:30-10:15 Paul Radensky (Jewish Museum, New York), "The Development of the Hasidic Court in Late Nineteenth Century Ukrainian Hasidism: The Case of Rabbi Duvid Twersky of Tal'noye"

10:15-11:00 James Lenaghan (The Ohio State University), "The Mystic, The Messiah, and the Mission of Poland in the Dzienniczek of Saint Faustina Kowalska"

11:00-11:15 Coffee break

11:15-12:00 Hanna Wegrzynek (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw), "Schwartze Hasene - A Wedding in the Cemetery"

2:45- 3:15 Session IV: Other Regions and Topics

12:45-1:30 Mircea Platon (The Ohio State University), "John Evelyn's The History of the Three Late, Famous Impostors,viz. Padre Ottomano, Mahomed Bey and Sabatai Sevi (1669): A New Reading, in Diplomatic and Religious Context"

1:30-2:15 Marsha Keith Schuchard, "From Poland to London: Sabbatean Influences on the Mystical Underworld of Zinzendorf, Swedenborg, and Blake"

2:15-2:30 Coffee break

2:30-3:15 Matt Goldish (The Ohio State University), "Aspects of Rabbi Eizik of Kálló's Relationship with Magyar Culture"

3:15-3:45 Summary, analysis, and future directions: Chaim Hames

For more information call the Melton Center at 292-0967.