Alexandra Zirkle of Boston University Presents:
“Re-imagining Sex: World-Building Exegesis and Heinrich Graetz’s Song of Songs”

How are norms around gender and sexuality produced or subverted through the medium of biblical interpretation? This lecture illustrates how the famous historian and exegete, Heinrich Graetz, wielded biblical exegesis to subvert late nineteenth-century German tropes around Jewish sexuality and to propose his own ideals of modern Jewish femininity and masculinity. In his commentary on the Song of Songs, Graetz illustrates the tremendous potential–and possible limits–of biblical interpretation as a mode of world-building.

Free and open to all students and the public. For more information, contact: jfarrugi@buffalo.edu​