POLIN's Global Education Outreach Program: New online podcasts series "What’s New? What’s Next? Jewish Studies in the time of pandemic"

Join us for an academic adventure! We invite you to listen to our new GEOP podcast series "What’s New? What’s Next? Jewish Studies in the time of pandemic". Because of the coronavirus pandemic, we have rescheduled our international conference on the future of Jewish studies by a year to October 2021. During the intervening months, we are inviting colleagues to explore the conference themes in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The podcast series will explore the conference themes – methodology, paradigm shifts, new sources, and new approaches to old sources – in relation to the current and earlier epidemics, Jewish responses to them, and how they have been studied from historical and contemporary perspectives. The focus of this series offers a multidisciplinary and transhistorical case study for exploring the conference themes. As a lead-up to the conference, the podcasts will demonstrate the kinds of presentations we would like to encourage. This series is one of the ways that POLIN Museum is responding to the unique situation that all of us are facing. Each panel will consist of a two lectures: a general lecture and the source lecture. Introduction Prof. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett – New Sources: Collecting the Pandemic. Epidemics in the Bible and Talmud Prof. Maciej Münnich - Epidemics in the Bible Prof. Jeremy Brown - Coronavirus and the Talmud. Dr. Marek Tuszewicki and Dr. Francois Guesnet will explore epidemics in Jewish folk medicine. Professor Shaul Stampfer and Prof. Natan Meir will focus on this history of Jewish responses to epidemics in the modern period. Dr. Karolina Szymaniak and Professor Jeffrey Shandler will discuss epidemics in Yiddish literature. Podcasts by Dr. Katarzyna Person dedicated to epidemics in the Warsaw ghetto and to epidemics and antisemitism, from historical and contemporary perspectives. Dr Gerben Zaagsma, Professor Marcin Wodziński, and others, will consider the future of digital research and Jewish studies in light of these uncertain times. The series will conclude with podcasts devoted to what’s next? How will Jewish studies change? Will we turn to new methods? Are we facing a paradigm shift? We will post the podcasts every two weeks on POLIN Museum’s website, Spotify, and other platforms. Don’t miss an update. Subscribe to our newsletter! "What’s New, What’s Next? Innovative Methods, New Sources, and Paradigm Shifts in Jewish Studies", an international conference, will take place at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw, in October 2021. Contact: whatsnewconference@polin.pl.