Home » Lectures Live

• 

  What We Talk about When We Talk about Philip Roth

  March 26, 2013 / Lectures Live

  Philip Roth is a titan of American literature with a remarkable oeuvre of more than thirty novels and countless literary accolades under his belt. On March 19th, 2013, Roth celebrated his eightieth birthday, a milestone marked by celebrations in his native Newark, New Jersey, as well as around the country. At the Program for Jewish Civilization, Director Jacques Berlinerblau, who teaches a course on the secular Jewish fiction of Philip Roth, interviewed one of the country’s foremost Roth experts, Dr. [...]

  Continue reading »

• 

  Summer 2013 Certificate in Holocaust and Genocide Studies Announced

  March 18, 2013 / Lectures Live

  The Certificate in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, designed for high school teachers, is a rigorous, non-degree program geared to the specific curricular and pedagogical needs of educators. The seven day summer course is held on the campus of Georgetown University and will be taught by Georgetown faculty. Guest lecturers from think tanks, government and non-governmental agencies, authors, independent scholars, and clergy will enhance the learning experience. Participants will have access to Georgetown University’s libraries, as well as the numerous museums [...]

  Continue reading »

• 

  Secular America: Nones, Atheists, the Unaffiliated

  March 5, 2013 / Lectures Live

  Lately, the American media has written extensively about the so-called “nones,” following an influential Pew survey in October 2012 that found religiously unaffiliated Americans to be at an all-time high. But who are these atheists, agnostics, non-believers, and other secular folk? What are their lifestyles and belief systems? Here to answer this question is Professor Phil Zuckerman of Pitzer College, founder of the first Secular Studies program in the nation. Professor Zuckerman is an ethnographer whose books include Society without [...]

  Continue reading »

•  
• 

  French Laïcité: What Does It Stand for?

  March 5, 2013 / Lectures Live

  The French notion of laïcité, which regulates ostentatious public displays or expressions of religion, is one of the classical models. Even so, it is misunderstood both in France and outside of it. In this interview, two of the preeminent architects of modern laïcité, Jean Baubérot and Henri Peña-Ruiz, discuss how they understand this complex concept with Dr. Sarah Fainberg as part of the February 2013 “Secularism on the Edge” conference. Their conversation ranges from explorations of the theoretical to practical, [...]

  Continue reading »

• 

  America: A Christian Nation or a Secular Nation?

  March 5, 2013 / Lectures Live

  On February 20-22, 2013, the Program for Jewish Civilization held an international conference on secularism in the United States, France, and Israel. In the opening event of the “Secularism on the Edge” conference, Professor John Fea of Messiah College discusses his historical research on the development of church-state relations in the United States. By examining documents such as the Declaration of Independence, Treaty of Tripoli, and Constitution of the Confederate States of America, Dr. Fea and Jacques Berlinerblau of Georgetown [...]

  Continue reading »

• 

  Israel’s 2013 Election: At a Political Crossroad

  January 17, 2013 / Lectures Live

  On January 14, 2013, the Program for Jewish Civilization convened a day-long conference on the legislative elections that will be held on January 22 in Israel. The conference comprised three spectacular panels, bringing together scholars, policy practitioners, and journalists from all over Washington, DC and the Middle East. Moran Stern, who teaches for the PJC at Georgetown University, moderated a panel on domestic Israeli politics, made up of Natasha Mozgovaya of Haaretz and Natan Sachs of the Saban Center at [...]

  Continue reading »

•  
• 

  Dan Schueftan on the Strategic Environment in the Middle East

  December 5, 2012 / Lectures Live

  In this talk, Professor Dan Schueftan discusses how the recent social and political changes in the Middle East affect the strategic environment there, particularly as it relates to Israeli and American foreign policy and the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Dr. Schueftan is the Director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Political Sciences there and at the Israel Defense Forces National Defense College. He is the Aaron and Cecile [...]

  Continue reading »

• 

  “What Makes a Russian Jewish American Writer?” An Interview with Author Lara Vapnyar

  December 6, 2011 / Lectures Live

  Up-and-coming author Lara Vapnyar shares selections from her writing that are amusing, poignant, and wonderfully evocative of the Russian-Jewish-American corner of Brooklyn she once called home. From the elderly Russian babushkas who stagger dramatically around New York to the single immigrants looking for love in English language classes, her characters come to life in this interview by PJC Director Jacques Berlinerblau. Lara Vapnyar emigrated from Russia to New York in 1994 and began publishing short stories in English in 2002. [...]

  Continue reading »

• 

  “Everything Else Is Advertising” An Interview with Author David Bezmozgis, January 25, 2010

  October 27, 2011 / Lectures Live

   Way back in January of 2010, the writer David Bezmozgis visited Georgetown University for a public discussion of his fiction and cinema. Our conversation covered an awful lot of ground ranging from muscular Jewish men, to sin, to the novelist Gary Shteyngart, to the differences between literature and movie directing–and a whole lot more. Printer-friendly downloadable transcript (.pdf) They should know I don’t put a Jew who comes to the synagogue in the street. Homosexuals, murderers, liars, and thieves—I take [...]

  Continue reading »

•