List of
Speakers (Continued)

Home  | <<Back  |  Next>>



Steven Kruger is Professor of English and past Chair of the Department of English at Queens College. He received his B.A. in English and Biology from Williams College and his Ph.D. in English from Stanford University. He has published widely in medieval studies and in lesbian/gay studies; his books include Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press, 1992), AIDS Narratives: Gender and Sexuality, Fiction and Science (Garland, 1996), Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America, coedited with Deborah R. Geis, (University of Michigan Press, 1997), and Queering the Middle Ages, coedited with Glenn Burger (University of Minnesota Press, 2001). His book in progress is The Spectral Jew: (Dis)Embodiment in the Dynamic of Medieval Jewish/Christian Interaction.

Lecture Topics:
Medieval Jewish/Christian Disputations
Medieval Accounts of Religious Conversion (Jewish to Christian, Christian to Jewish)
The Interimplication of Religious Identity with Categories such as Gender and Sexuality, in both Medieval and Contemporary Texts




Chava Lapin is Adjunct Associate Professor of Yiddish at Queens College. A Yiddish scholar and teacher, she is a frequent guest lecturer at Jewish and Yiddish conferences, seminars, and festivals. As well, she is much called-upon to participate in lecture series on East European and contemporary Jewish life for her expertise in Yiddish language, literature, culture, tradition, and folklore. Alongside and following a career in neuroscience and then directorship of a prominent Jewish organization, Lapin has been teaching Yiddish at prestigious universities in the New York area, including Queens College, Columbia University, and Stern College, as well as abroad at Oxford, England, and Moscow. She currently serves as editor-in-chief of a literary Yiddish journal while also pursuing her consulting, research, and teaching activities.

Lecture Topics:
The Power of the Proverb: Yiddish Folk-Sayings and Imagery
"Yom Tov is Not Late This Year"-Insights into the Jewish Calendar
The Jewish Holiday Cycle: Days of Awe, the Major Festivals, Chanuka, Purim, Fast Days, and New 20th Century Dates
A Contemporary View of the Biblical Book or Ruth
A Social History of Yiddish Literature
The Impact of the Enlightenment (Haskala) on Modern Yiddish Literature




Stuart Liebman is Professor and Chair of the Department of Media Studies at Queens College and coordinator of the Film Certificate Program at the CUNY Graduate School and University Center. As a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, he earned an M.A. in Fine Arts from Boston University and then completed an M.A. and Ph.D. in Cinema Studies at NYU. Specializing in early European and post-war German cinema, his notable publications include his special issue of the critical journal October devoted to the work of modernist filmmaker Alexander Kluge and an award-winning 1995 issue of October analysing the mass rape of German women after WWII. He has written extensively on early French filmmakers such as Jean Renoir, Germaine Dulac, and Jean Epstein. His longstanding interest in the Holocaust has now engaged his teaching and research into the subject of representation of the Holocaust in cinema. He organized a major international conference on the topic of the Holocaust in film in March, 1999.

Lecture Topics:
Holocaust Cinema in Germany and Eastern Europe




John O'Brien is Professor of History at Queens College, where he teaches courses in ancient and medieval history. He is the author of Alexander the Great: The Invisible Enemy and numerous articles in scholarly journals on social and religious history. He has published on Jews and heretics in medieval Europe and has written for the Encyclopedia Judaica. Professor O'Brien has been the recipient of three Presidential Awards for Excellence in Teaching at Queens College and has received an award from the National Conference on Christians and Jews for his lectures on Antisemitism.

Lecture Topics:
The Anatomy of Persecution: Roman Perceptions of Christians and Christian Perceptions of Jews




Arbie Orenstein is Professor of Music at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, where he occasionally teaches a course on Jewish music. He has recently published an introductory essay on the life of A.Z. Idelsohn for the Dover reprint of Idelsohn's classic text, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development. An internationally acclaimed musicologist, Dr. Orenstein is the author of Ravel: Man and Musician and A Ravel Reader, originally written in French as Ravel: Lettres, Ecrits, Entretiens. As a pianist, he has accompanied many outstanding cantors and has recorded the world premieres of several works by Ravel, which he discovered in France while on a United States Government Fulbright grant. Professor Orenstein is the editor of Musica Judaica, a scholarly journal devoted to all aspects of Jewish music.

Lecture Topics:
What is Jewish Music?
Jewish Music, East and West
Biblical Cantillation: Why is the Bible Sung?




Martin Pine is Professor of History at Queens College. A specialist in Italian Renaissance, he has published Pietro Pomponazzi: Radical Philosopher of the Renaissance as well as many articles on Medieveal and Renaissance intellectual history. His most recent work is the entry "Pietro Pomponazzi" in the new Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998) and "Pietro Pomponazzi's attack on religion and the problem of the De fato"(1999). Professor Pine has taught at Queens for 35 years, during which time his varied teaching experience has included The Honors Program in the Western Tradition, The SEEK Program, The ACE Program, The Master of Arts in Liberal Studies as well as standard courses in the Department of History. He was awarded the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1991.

Lecture Topics:
The Jews of Renaissance Italy
The Dreyfus Case: Its History and Meaning
Anti-Semitism in the Renaissance and Reformation

 Click Page Number for More Speakers (Alphabetical Order)
 Page 1   Page 2    Page 3  Page 4 Page 5

Top