Join the Institute for a Book Talk with Isabelle Levy, Academic Program Director and Lecturer at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, Columbia University, in conversation with Elisheva Carlebach, Salo Wittmayer Baron Professor of Jewish History, Culture and Society. *This event is in-person.

Jewish Literary Eros traces Hebrew prosimetra from the medieval Mediterranean, together and alongside Arabic and Romance counterparts, to find the particular moments of innovation among textual practices by Jewish authors amid shifting attitudes toward the poetics of profane love. To consider the extent to which Jewish authors embraced the dominant cultures’ literary traditions or formulated their own authorial paths, the book examines Hispano-Hebraic maqamas, Immanuel of Rome’s Italian lyrics, polymetric Judeo-Spanish oral poems, and experimental poetic and prose compositions from post-medieval Italy, all with respect to classical Arabic, Occitan, Medieval French, Galician-Portuguese, Sicilian, Italian, Castilian, and Ashkenazi counterparts.

Isabelle Levy (BA Columbia; PhD Harvard) is the Academic Program Director and Lecturer at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, Columbia University. She has held positions as fellow at the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America and as the Stanley A. and Barbara B. Rabin Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, both at Columbia. She was previously a Fulbright fellow in Spain. She researches Jewish literature of the medieval Mediterranean with respect to Arabic and Romance counterparts and her articles appear in Medieval Encounters; La Corónica; A Comparative History of Literatures in the Iberian Peninsula, Volume II; and Digital Dante.

Supported by the generosity of the Radov Family and co-sponsored by The Italian and Mediterranean Colloquium and the European Institute.

*This event is in-person. Note that proof of vaccination is required to enter Columbia University buildings.

While all Institute events are free and open to the public, we do encourage a suggested donation of $10.