The Song of Songs – between Innocence and Audacity
Lecture and discussion with Ilana Pardes and Galili Shahar in the program accompanying the exhibition Sex. Jewish Positions
The story of the Song of Songs, also known in a Christian context as the Song of Solomon, begins with a riddle: Why was a bold, sensual love poem that makes no reference to God, religious rules or to the history of the Jewish people included in the Bible? This is the question that literary scholar Ilana Pardes seeks to answer, looking everywhere from the rabbis of late antiquity, who saw in the “Song of Songs” a key to the mysterious connection between God and humanity, to today’s feminist and artistic interpretations.
Following her lecture, Ilana Pardes (digitally connected) will discuss with the literary scholar Galili Shahar (on site at the JMB), moderated by Miriam Goldmann, curator of the exhibition.
Past event
Where
W. M. Blumenthal Academy,
Klaus Mangold Auditorium
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin
(Opposite the Museum)
Ilana Pardes
Ilana Pardes is Katharine Cornell Professor of Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Director of the Center for Literary Studies and of the Institute of Literatures. She has taught at Princeton University, UC Berkeley and Harvard. During the fall of 2009, she was a fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at Penn and in fall 2017 she was a fellow at the Humanities Council of Princeton University. Her work focuses on the nexus of Bible, literature, and culture, as well as on questions of gender, aesthetics and hermeneutics.
Ilana Pardes, Photo: Bruno Charbit
Sex: Jewish Positions: Features & Programme
- Exhibition Webpage
- Sex: Jewish Positions: Exhibition, 17 May to 6 Oct 2024
- Publications
- Sex. Jüdische Positionen: Catalog accompanying the exhibition, German edition, 2024
- Sex: Jewish Positions: Catalog accompanying the exhibition, English edition, 2024
- Digital Content
- Letʼs Talk About Sex: Online feature accompanying the exhibition
- What do the artists say? Interview series accompanying the exhibition
- Listen to the exhibition’s soundtrack: Playlist on Spotify
- The Song of Songs. Between Literal and Allegorical Loves: Essay by Ilana Pardes
- “Sex Is A Force:” Interview with Talli Rosenbaum
- Androgynous Characters in I.B. Singer’s Literary Shtetl: Essay by Helena Lutz
- Jewish Places: Find information about Jewish sites related to the exhibition on our interactive map
