Derek Penslar to Give Opening Lecture in Jewish Studies Lecture Series
This fall, Muhlenberg College’s Jewish studies program presents a community-wide lecture series examining the matter of “Jews, Money, and Capitalism.”Wednesday, September 12, 2012 09:58 AM
Kicking off the series is a lecture entitled “Men, Money and Materiel: 1944 as a Jewish World War,” hosted by Derek Penslar, Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish History at the University of Toronto and Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at Oxford, at 7p.m. on September 13 in Moyer Hall. This event is free and open to the public.
Penslar’s research specialties are the history of modern European Jewry, Zionism, and the state of Israel. His books include Zionism and Technocracy: The Engineering of Jewish Settlement in Palestine, 1870-1918 (1991, Hebrew version 2001); In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918-1933 (1998, co-edited with Michael Brenner), Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in Modern Europe (2001); Orientalism and the Jews (co-edited with Ivan Kalmar, 2004), Contemporary Antisemitism: Canada and the World (2005), Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective (2006); The Origins of the State of Israel 1882-1948: A Documentary History (with Eran Kaplan, 2011); and Uniform Identities: Jews, War and the Military in Modern History (forthcoming from Princeton University Press). He is currently writing a biography of Theodor Herzl for Yale University Press' Jewish Lives series. Penslar is co-editor of two scholarly journals, Jewish Social Studies and of The Journal of Israeli History, and is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy for Jewish Research.
The programs in the series are an extension of the College’s Jewish studies major that will take effect in the fall of 2013. The college has had a Jewish studies minor since 1988. This program is the first new major to be added to the curriculum since film studies and finance in 2006.
Muhlenberg's series is sponsored by a grant from the Legacy Heritage Jewish Studies Project and the Association for Jewish Studies. All of the programs in the series are co-sponsored by the Jewish Federation of the Lehigh Valley and the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding, as well as a host of other Muhlenberg College departments and local Jewish institutions.
For more information on the series, please visit www.muhlenberg.edu/main/academics/jewishstudies/events_and_programs.html.
