Lecture Archive

The 2024 Tobias Lecture in Jewish Studies with Marina Mogilner (Univ. of Illinois Chicago)

Book Talk: A Race for the Future: Scientific Visions of Modern Russian Jewishness
March 5, 2024

The 2023 Stanley I. Kutler Lectures in American Jewish Studies with Riv-Ellen Prell (Univ. of Minnesota)

“University Students in the 1930s: Antisemitism and Racism on Midwestern Campuses”
November 6, 2023

“The Jewish Counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s: A Struggle to Democratize and Transform American Jewish Life”
November 7, 2023

The 2023 Darren M. Latimer Series on Jews and Sports with Rich Cohen

“Sid Luckman and the Creation of the Modern Quarterback”
October 26, 2023

The 2023 Weinstein/Minkoff Lecture in Israel Studies with Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

“A Holiday for All? On Celebrations, Collectives, and Israeli Identity”
October 9, 2023

The 2023 Paul J. Schrag Lecture with Marc Volovici (Univ. of Haifa)

“Jewish Nationalism and the Quest to Turn German into a Foreign Language”
April 19, 2023

The Inaugural Phyllis W. and Rabbi Barry D. Cytron Lecture Series in Jewish Studies with Sandra Fox (New York University)

“Jewish Summer Camps and Yiddish Culture in Postwar America”
March 23, 2023

Lecture with Dr. Keith Kahn-Harris

“Assessing the Significance of Left-Wing Antisemitism: Intimacy, Disappointment and Obsession”
February 28, 2023
Made possible by the Wiseman Fund

Lecture with Geneviève Zubrzycki (University of Michigan)

“Resurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Poland’s Jewish Revival”
February 22, 2023

The Inaugural Darren M. Latimer Series on Jews and Sports with Dan Grunfeld

“By the Grace of the Game: The World’s Only Journey from Auschwitz to the NBA”
October 20, 2022

Book Talk with Prof. Magda Teter (Fordham University)

“Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth”
February 8, 2022
Made possible by the Wiseman Fund

Lecture with Rabbi Matthew Kaufman, PhD (Congregation Kehillat Israel)

“Science and Secularization in a Jewish Key”
November 16, 2021

Lecture in Honor of Rachel Feldhay Brenner z"l

Shoshana Ronen (University of Warsaw) on “Post-Holocaust Hebrew and Polish Poetry”
November 9, 2021

The 2021 Stanley I. Kutler Lectures in American Jewish Studies with Laura A. Leibman (Reed College)

“Women’s Things:
The Art of the Jewish Family”

October 18, 2021

“Rethinking Jews and Race:
A Multiracial Jewish Family in Early America”

October 19, 2021

Book Talk with Dr. Bernice Lerner

Dr. Bernice Lerner, in conversation with Professor Francine Hirsch, presents her newest book in a talk entitled, “Weaving Disparate Narratives: Behind the Scenes of Bergen-Belsen’s Liberation.”
You can read more about her book, All the Horrors of War, here.
April 29, 2021

"Reading 'Shpinoza': A Heretic in Yiddish and Hebrew" (March 18, 2021)

Warren Zev Harvey (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

“Jacob Klatzin:
Spinoza’s Heretical Hebrew Translator”

Daniel Schwartz (George Washington University)

“Should the Excommunication of Spinoza Be Lifted? Hebrew and Yiddish Perspectives, 1927-1956″

Allan Nadler (Drew University, emeritus)

“Jacob Shatsky: Spinoza’s Heretical Yiddish Propagator”

Keren Mock (Sciences Po Paris/University of Paris)

“A Reading of the Last Sentence of the Ethics:
From Spinoza to Scholem”

Annette Aronowicz (Franklin & Marshall College, emerita)

“A Jewish Communist Caught Between Loyalty and Betrayal: Spinoza in the Cold War Context”

The 2021 Paul J. Schrag Lecture with James Q. Whitman (Yale)

“The American Influence on Nazi Race Law: Assessing U.S. Responsibility”
February 11, 2021

Reading and Q&A with Francine Hirsch

Professor Francine Hirsch, in conversation with Tony Michels, presents her newest book, “Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II.”
October 12, 2020

2020 Tobias Lectures with Moshe Halbertal (NYU & Hebrew University)

“The Biblical Book of Samuel and the Birth of Politics: Two Faces of Political Violence”
 Oct. 7, 2020

“Is a Jewish Democratic State Possible?”

Oct. 8, 2020

2019 Greenfield Summer Institute – Selected Lectures

Jonathan Z. S. Pollack (MATC and UW-Madison)

“Jewish Philanthropy at UW-Madison”

Jordan Rosenblum (UW-Madison)

“Business, Labor, and Social Justice in the Talmud”

Skye Doney (UW-Madison)

“The Mosse Family and German Jewish Philanthropy”

Marina Zilbergerts (UW-Madison)

“The Philanthropic Legacy of Moses Montefiore”

Tony Michels (UW-Madison)

“American Jews in the Shmateh Trade”

2017 Greenfield Summer Institute – Selected Lectures

Sunny Yudkoff (UW-Madison)
Audio recording

“Sick Jewish Writers: The Art and Science of Writing with Tuberculosis”

Jordan Ellenberg (UW-Madison)
Audio recording

“The Strange and Mathematically Troubling Story of the Torah Codes”

Selected Lectures, Academic Year 2016-17

Steven Zipperstein (Stanford)
Audio recording

“Pogrom: Kishinev and the tilt of history”
A lecture given as the 1026 Tobias Lecture

Roger Horowitz (Univ. of Delaware)
Audio recording

“Is Kosher a brand? Ruminations on the intersections of Jewish Law and the Secular Marketplace”).
A lecture given as the 2017 Kutler Lectures

Alisa Solomon (Columbia)
Audio recording

“From Folkshrayber to Broadway and Back: How Fiddler Became Folklore”
A lecture given at the Sholem Aleichem Conference (November 12-13, 2017)

2015 Greenfield Summer Institute - Selected Lectures

Eitan Kensky (Stanford)

“A Tale of Two Meyers: Notes on the Jew-Villain in America”

Nora Rubel (University of Rochester)

“Recipes for the Melting Pot: Reading The Settlement Cook Book”

Steve Stern (Skidmore College)

“Creative Amnesia, or the Persistence of Magic: On the Relationship Between Literature and Folklore in the Jewish Context”


Steven Nadler
(UW-Madison)

“How to Read the Bible: Maimonides vs. Spinoza”