Celebrated author and researcher in Jewish folklore and Rabbinic literature Galit Hasan-Rokem will be the featured speaker for the 2018 B.G. Rudolph Lecture. The annual address, sponsored by the Jewish Studies program in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), will happen on Wednesday, April 11, at 7 p.m. in Room 010 Crouse-Hinds Hall.

Hasan-Rokem will speak on the topic of “The Narrative Powers of Women & The Failure of Cultural Translation: Alexandria in the Literary Memory of the Rabbis.”

The event is free and open to the public, and a light reception will follow the lecture. CART transcription services will be provided. For additional accessibility accommodations, call 315.443.2014 before April 4.

Now professor emerita, Hasan-Rokem taught for over 40 years and served as the Max and Margarethe Grunwald Professor of Folklore and Professor of Hebrew Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Her research interests are diverse and include poetry, theory in folk literature and culture, Rabbinic literature; multi-culturalism in Israel; the Wandering/Eternal Jew figure in the culture of Europe and proverbs.

A former president of the International Society of Folk Narrative Research, she continues to hold editorial board member positions in several international journals for Jewish Studies and folklore and folk literature. She is also active in a number of non-governmental organizations promoting equality, justice and peace, and has been one of the founding editorial board members of the Palestine Israel Journal.

Among her many published works is her latest volume, “Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews: Ancient Jewish Folk Literature Reconsidered” (Wayne State University Press, 2014), which she co-edited with renowned rituals and ritual theory scholar Ithamar Gruenwald.

In addition to her time at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Hasan-Rokem has taught and conducted research at leading institutions in Europe and the United States, among them the University of California Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, the universities of Helsinki, Stockholm, Oslo and Bergen, Rutgers University and Williams College.

The B.G. Rudolph Lecture series was created in 1973 by Bernard G. Rudolph in order to bring distinguished Judaic studies scholars to the Syracuse University campus. For more information on the program or the lecture series, contact Zachary Braiterman, professor of religion and Jewish Studies program director, at 315.443.5719 or zbraiter@syr.edu.