Olivia DrakeDecember 11, 20122min
After visiting Israel several times to lecture about Chinese and Jewish history, Vera Schwarcz, the Mansfield Freeman Professor of East Asian Studies, professor of history, decided to do something different during her next trip abroad. "I wanted to let go of the 'specialness' of my training and skills and do something more basic, something more grounded and more urgently needed at the moment," she says. On Dec. 16, Schwarcz will begin a two week service trip with “Volunteers for Israel," a 30-year-old program that promotes solidarity and goodwill among Israelis, American Jews, and other friends of Israel. Since 1982, more than 30,000…

Lauren RubensteinNovember 15, 20121min
Magda Teter, the Jeremy Zwelling professor of Jewish studies, professor of history, recently gave a lecture at the Vatican. Delivered Nov. 13, the lecture was titled, "Reti di potere: gli ebrei e l'accesso all a Santa Sede nell'eta modern," or  "Networks of Power: Jews and their Access to the Holy See in the Early Modern Period." Teter's talk was part of a lecture series organized in collaboration between the University "La Sapienza" in Rome and the Vatican's Archive of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede), previously called the Holy Office…

Olivia DrakeMarch 26, 20123min
As a 2012-13 Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellow, Magda Teter, the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies, will narrate the cultural, social and political connections between Italy—center of papal power, and Poland—home to the largest Jewish community in the world, in her new book, The Pope’s Dilemma: Blood Libel and the Boundaries of Papal Power. Teter, who also is chair and professor of medieval studies, professor of history, and professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, will take a full year leave on sabbatical to work on the book. Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation sponsors scholarly research on problems of violence, aggression and dominance. The award…

Olivia DrakeMarch 26, 20121min
Magda Teter, the Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies, published an article, “Sacrilege and the Sacred and Profane Spaces: Jews and Christians in Early Modern Poland," which was published in  Brotherhood and Boundaries: Fraternià e barriere by Edizioni della Normale, pages 215-224 in 2011. Teter also is chair and professor of medieval studies, professor of history, and professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies. This book offers a comparative study of secular and religious brotherhoods and networks of social relationships, analyzing role in the various forms of religious communities, national, cultural and social from the 14th to the 18th century. More information on…

Olivia DrakeMarch 23, 20113min
This issue, we ask “5 Questions” of Magda Teter, the Jeremy Zwelling Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, associate professor of history, associate professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, associate professor of medieval studies. Teter is the author of Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation, published by Harvard University Press in March 2011. Q: Professor Teter, you are a scholar of religious and cultural history. What are your research interests, and what courses do you teach at Wesleyan? A: In my writing I focus on Jewish-Christian relations, particularly in Poland, which was once the one of the…

Olivia DrakeMarch 23, 20113min
Magda Teter is the author of Sinners Sinners on Trial: Jews and Sacrilege after the Reformation, published by Harvard University Press in March 2011. Teter is the Jeremy Zwelling Associate Professor of Jewish Studies, associate professor of history, associate professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, associate professor of medieval studies. In post-Reformation Poland—the largest state in Europe and home to the largest Jewish population in the world—the Catholic Church suffered profound anxiety about its power after the Protestant threat. According to Harvard University Press, Teter reveals how criminal law became a key tool in the manipulation of the meaning…