LOUISVILLE, Ky. — An Israeli author-filmmaker and an Emory University cultural historian and psychiatry professor will share their expertise in two fall lectures organized by the University of Louisville’s Jewish studies program.
Both free, public events will be in Strickler Hall’s Cochran Auditorium on UofL’s Belknap Campus. They are:
Oct. 16 — Writer Etgar Keret will read from and discuss “The Seven Good Years,” his 2015 memoir. The Jewish studies program and humanities division within UofL’s College of Arts and Sciences are sponsoring the 3 p.m. event and book-signing session afterward.
Keret’s first nonfiction work details his life between the 2005 birth of son Lev and the 2012 death of his Holocaust survivor father from cancer and offers insights into his art and the complexities of Israeli life during both peace and wartime.
The author’s other works include several internationally acclaimed short-story collections, graphic novels and a children’s book. The television-film scriptwriter and his wife, Shira Geffen, won a Cannes Film Festival award for directing the film “Jellyfish,” based on her story.
Nov. 8 — Historian Sander Gilman will discuss “Circumcision: An Index of Difference and/or the Health Exception?” at 1 p.m. as the Jewish Heritage Foundation for Excellence lecture. A reception will follow.
Gilman will talk about what happens when religion and medicine compete or ally, as in the practice of infant male circumcision. He will contrast the practice in the United States and Europe and discuss the question of health practice versus risk.
He is the author or editor of more than 80 books including “Jewish Self-Hatred,” “Seeing the Insane” and “Obesity: The Biography.” Gilman is distinguished professor of the liberal arts and sciences as well as a psychiatry professor at Emory.
For more information, contact Ranen Omer-Sherman at 502-852-6842 or ranen.omersherman@louisville.edu