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MONDAY: First Lichter Lecture 'When Arabic Was a Jewish Language: The Jews in the Islamic World'

   Each year, the annual Lichter Lecture Series in Judaic Studies, made possible by the Jacob and Jennie L. Lichter Fund of the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati, focuses on a critical theme. The topic for autumn 2009 is timely and promises to continue the tradition of excellence that this three-decade-old series has established for both the “town” and “gown” audiences. Its theme: “Jews and Muslims: Co-Existence.”

What: “When Arabic Was a Jewish Language: The Jews in the Islamic World”
Who: Norman A. Stillman, Schusterman/Josey Professor of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma
When: 7:30 p.m., Monday, Oct. 26, 2009
Where: UC Uptown Campus, Carl Lindner Hall, Rm. 112 (map)

All the lectures are free and open to the public and include a reception, which will be observant of Kosher dietary law. To RSVP, call 513-556-2297.

Prof. Norman Stillman will speak about 'When Arabic Was a Jewish Language: The Jews in the Islamic World'

About the Speaker
Norman A. Stillman is the Schusterman/Josey Professor of Judaic History at the University of Oklahoma, and is an internationally recognized authority on the history and culture of the Islamic world and on Sephardi and Oriental Jewry. He is the author of seven books and numerous articles in several languages. His books include “The Jews of Arab Lands in Modern Times” (1991), a sequel to his highly acclaimed “The Jews of Arab Lands: a History and Source Book” (1979), “Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity” (1995), and in collaboration with his late colleague/wife Yedida Kalfon Stillman, “Arab Dress: a Short History” (2000; second  rev. ed. 2003; third ed. 2006). The Stillmans collaborated on numerous projects and published a book together, an English edition of Samuel Romanelli's 17th-century Hebrew classic, “Travail in an Arab Land” (University of Alabama Press, 1989), which was chosen as an Alternate Selection of the Jewish Book Club and nominated for a National Translation Award.

Professor Stillman is currently the executive editor of the “Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World” which is about to appear in five volumes with Brill Academic Publishers. He has lectured and taught in Europe, Morocco and Israel. He has received numerous academic honors including Phi Beta Kappa, the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, the SUNY-Binghamton award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, and he delivered the prestigious Momigliano Lectures for the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought and the Sherman Lectures for the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

During the academic year 1994–95, he was Lady Davis Fellow at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and during the spring of 1995, he was also a visiting fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel-Aviv University. He is a member of the North African Arabic Research Unit at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, and taught there during the academic year 2001–2002. He was the recipient of the Ohio State University Melton Center’s Distinguished Humanist award in the spring of 2000.

More information about the 2009 Lichter Lecture Series (pdf)

More information about the Judaic Studies Department in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences

Read the full release about all three lectures.

The Jacob and Jennie L. Lichter series at the University of Cincinnati is sponsored by the Judaic Studies Department in UC’s McMicken College of Arts and Science and the Jewish Federation.