Professor Ruth Behar‘s lecture will move between the personal essay and poetry, history and ethnography, exile and diaspora, and the role of the sea in remembrances of Sefarad in such places as Istanbul, Havana, Miami, New York, and Seattle. She will discuss the idea of dreaming about Sefarad and the dilemma of how to tell the story of waking from the dream to the loss of Sefarad. She will explore what that loss meant in 1492 and how the memory of that loss reverberates into the present day among twenty-first century descendants trying to define a contemporary Sephardic identity. Professor Behar will give the lectures in English and weave in Spanish and Ladino, examining the desire for a language of home.

Hosted by: Program in Jewish Culture and Society

In conjunction with: Center for Global Studies, Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Champaign Urbana Jewish Federation, Department of Anthropology, Department of Gender & Women's Studies, Department of History, European Union Center, Initiative in Holocaust, Genocide, 7 Memory Studies, Program in Comparative & World Literature, Spurlock Museum