IAS Book Launch: Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History. From the Middle Ages to Modernity

Over the centuries, Jews have, with tantalizing ubiquity, invoked images of monsters in their texts, art, and folktales. These images served Jewish authors and artists to push back against their own identification as monstrous or diabolical, and to tackle concerns about religious persecution, assimilation and acculturation, gender and sexuality, science and technology and the rise of antisemitism. The collected volume Monsters and Monstrosity in Jewish History brings together, for the very first time, scholars working within a variety of disciplines, and on a wide range of periods and spaces, to unravel the history of these images, and to pinpoint their political, cultural and religious significance.

Speakers

• Dr François Guesnet - Reader in Modern Jewish History, UCL
• Dr Sophie Page - Senior Lecturer, UCL History
• Professor David Ruderman (chair) - Professor of Modern Jewish History, University of Pennsylvania
• Dr Iris Idelson-Shein - Senior Lecturer, Department of Jewish History, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

This book launch is supported by the Institute of Advanced Studies and the European Institute, at UCL.

All welcome. Please note that there may be photography and/or audio recording at some events and that admission is on a first come first served basis. Please follow this FAQ link for more information.