Hayim Perelmuter Conference in Jewish-Christian Dialogue
The Hayim Perelmuter Conference will take place at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago on April 1–2, 2019 in partnership with University of Notre Dame. The Perelmuter Conference has a long tradition of focusing on Jewish-Catholic dialogue and exploring scholarship pertaining to the intersection of Jewish and Catholic literature, history, and theology. The theme of the 2019 conference will be “Many Rooms: Space and Sanctity in Judaism and Christianity.” The speakers will discuss issues that pertain to Jewish and Christian approaches to navigating the realms of sacred space, and in particular welcome abstracts that address the meaning of sacred space in Judaism and Christianity; the sanctification of space beyond the house of worship; questions of how the synagogue and the church have been and continue to be utilized as spaces that both preserve tradition and offer opportunity for new modes of religious expression; the ways that access to holy spaces has served to enforce or subvert structural norms; the relationship between religious practice in the Jewish and Christian home versus in institutional settings; and how holy space is used metaphorically in Jewish and Christian literature.
April 1–2, 2019
Catholic Theological Union University of Notre Dame Facilitators: Malka Z. Simkovich and Tzvi Novick
Monday
9:30-10:00: Breakfast
10:00-10:15: Welcome
10:15-11:45: Synagogues, Churches, Shrines: Interacting Sacred Spaces in Antiquity Maureen Attali: A Christian Testimony on a Jewish Sacred Place in 4th Century Coele-Syria? Contextualizing John Chrysostom’s Description of the Matrona Sanctuary in Daphne of Antioch. Ethan Schwartz and Robert H. Wallace: Making a Dwelling for God’s Name: Sacred Space and Shared Agency in Judaism and Christianity Ilia Rodov: Shared Expressions, Opposing Messages: Sacred Shrines in Medieval Synagogues and Churches
12:00-1:30: Lunch
1:30-2:30: Synagogue and Church in Modern America Dana Evan Kaplan: The Evolution of Theological Conceptions and Spiritual Modes in Post WWII America Christian Respondent: Dr. Gretchen Buggeln, Professor of Art History and Humanities and the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christianity and the Arts at Valparaiso University
2:45-4:15: Outside Traditional Sacred Spaces: Sociological Considerations and Ramifications Julia McStravog: Space, Sanctity, and the Shoah: Interreligious Witness at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Cirsten Conneely: Sacred Space in a Profane Place: A Case Study of an Interfaith Initiative to Encourage and Expand Religious Expression in an Adult Home Yehiel Poupko: Shabbat: A Place in Space
4:30-6:00: Dinner 6:30-7:30: Spring Shapiro lecture: Steven Fine: Art and Sanctity in Late Antique Synagogues and Churches
Tuesday
9:30-11:00 Themes of Impurity in Sacred Space in Antiquity and Medieval Period Nina Glibetic: A Levitical Legacy in Byzantium: Purity and Sacred Space in Medieval Christian Liturgy Albert Kohn: Navigating the Home as a Sacred Space in Medieval Europe Samuel B. Johnson: Temple, Purity, and the Drama of Divine Indwelling in the Protoevangelium of James
11:15-12:45: Nuancing Space in Modern Theology Andrew Blosser: Abraham Joshua Heschel and Jürgen Moltmann on Space and Sabbath Jimmy Haring: Nature as “Sacred Space” in Genesis 1 and Contemporary Ecological Ethics Héctor M. Varela Rios: Not homes made sacred, but the sacred made domestic: home-ing sacramentality
1:00-2:00: Lunch
2:00-3:30: Liturgical Recording and the Boundaries of Sacred Space: An Interreligious Conversation Kimberly Belcher, Kevin Grove, and Sonja Pilz
3:30: Wrap up, farewell