The Program in Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign presents:

New Israeli Literature in the 21^st Century March 4-6, 2012Organized by Rachel Harris

Conference Program

Sunday 4^th March, 2012

5.00pm Introductory Remarks Abbas Benmamoun (Director of SLCL, Illinois), Matti Bunzl (Director of the Program in Jewish Culture and Society, Illinois), Rachel S. Harris (Conference Chair)

5:30 pm 21^st Century Israeli Literature Readings

6.00pm Reception, Open to the Public

7.30pm Keynote: Dan Laor (Tel Aviv U) “Writing the Holocaust: Is it Still Relevant?”

Monday 5^th March, 2012

9.00-10.30am Writing from the Margins, Chair: Tamar Merin, (Northwestern)

Philip Hollander (UW-Madison) “From Periphery to Center: the Development Town in Shimon Adaf’s fiction”

Yehezkel Rahamim (Tel Aviv U) “Black Diamonds: The Arrival of the Margins”

Ranen Omer-Sherman (U of Miami) “Paradoxes of Identity:  Jewish/Muslim Interpenetration in Almog Behar and Sayed Kashua”

11.00-11.30am Break

11.30-1:00pm Poetry: Writing, Translating, Journals – the New Landscape, Chair: Elizabeth Lowe, (Illinois)

Adriana X. Jacobs (Yale) “Contemporary Israeli Poetry and the Art of Translation”

Eran Tzelgov (NYU) “Taking Back the Streets: Israeli Poetry in the 2000s”

1.00-2.00pm Lunch

2.00-3.30pm New Boundaries and Contemporary Prose, Chair: Na’ama Rokem (U of Chicago)

 Yaron Peleg (Cambridge and George Washington U) “Hebrew Literature in a Neo-National Age”

Todd Hasak-Lowy (UIC) “Here, There, or Nowhere: Mapping the Contemporary Hebrew Novel, Asaf Schurr  and Dror Burstein"

Joshua Cohen (Writer) “A Year of Clear Head: Israeli Soldiers Abroad”

3.30-4.00pm Break

4.00-5.30pm Zionism Past and Present, Chair: Harriet Murav (Illinois)

Rachel S. Harris (Illinois) “Home and Homecoming: The Novels of Eshkol Nevo”

Shai Ginsburg (Duke) “Now and Then: History Re-Imagined: Alon Hilu’s Historical Novels”

Shiri Lev-Ari (Ma’ariv) “The Israeli Kibbutz, a New Perspective”

6pm Dinner: Timpone’s (710 S Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801)

Tuesday 6^th March, 2012

9.00-10.30am Publishing, Editing and Disseminating–the Path of New Writing Chair: Dara Goldman (Illinois)

Adam Rovner (U of Denver) “Writers Writing and Publishing”

Jeremy M. Davies (Dalkey Archive Press) “Editing Hebrew Literature for an American Audience”

11.00am Closing Remarks

11.45pm Lunch