New College of Florida Presents 2011 Klingenstein Lecture, January 18

(October 18, 2010) – New College of Florida will present its Klingenstein Lecture on January 18, 2011, featuring guest speaker Maxine Grossman, associate professor of Jewish studies at the University of Maryland. Her topic is “What’s the Use of ‘Men’ in Jewish Feminist Scholarship?” Scheduled for 7 pm at the Mildred Sainer Pavilion, 5313 Bay Shore Road, the lecture is free and open to the public.

This annual Judaic Studies Lecture at New College is sponsored by the Klingenstein Chair of Judaic Studies and the Jay Rudolph Endowment. The lecture is named for Selma Klingenstein who, along with her husband Paul, helped establish the Klingenstein Chair in Judaic Studies at New College in 2001.

Professor Grossman has written books and articles on the Dead Sea Scrolls, gender in ancient Judaism and religion in popular culture. She is author of Reading for History in the Damascus Document: A Methodological Study (2002), which reconsiders the historical claims made in one of the major sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls, arguing for a more complex approach to the treatment of ideas of history in these texts. Her current research focuses on constructions of gender in ancient Judaism and especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

“Not only does she really know the Dead Sea material well, Maxine Grossman is remarkable in the way she thinks outside the box,” said Rabbi Dr. Susan Marks, associate professor of Judaic studies at New College. “Whereas most historians are able to come up with one reconstruction, she is able to run it a number of different ways, particularly in terms of how we understand gender in the ancient world.”

Grossman is also co-editor of the 2nd edition of The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion (2011) and editor of Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Methods and Approaches (2010), which incorporates the collected work of more than a dozen scrolls scholars. At the University of Maryland, she teaches courses on the Hebrew Bible and Dead Sea Scrolls as well as ancient Judaism, world religions and gender studies.

The Klingenstein lecture is free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, call 941-487-4888.

Past lectures include David Frankfurter’s “Exorcism and Demons in Early Judaism” (2010), Nora Rubel’s “Gefilte Fish in the Gilded Age: Jewish Women’s Activism and the Settlement Cookbook” (2009), Jodi Magness’ “The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls” (2008) and David Stern’s “Through the Pages of the Past: The Jewish Book in its Historical Context” (2007).