Conveners: Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi and Ilana Pardes, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The work of the two conveners focuses on the national imaginings of the Promised Land as reflected in biblical and modern Jewish literature. For this seminar, we want to investigate the aesthetic implications of the changing place of 'homeland' as imaginative construct. Special attention will be given to the role of exile in both fashioning and deconstructing national identities. We invite participants to reflect on similar issues in other cultural contexts as well.

Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi teaches comparative Jewish literature at the Institute of Contemporary Jewry and the Rothberg School for Overseas Students, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of: By Words Alone: The Holocaust in Literature (University of Chicago Press, 1980) and Booking Passage: Exile and Homecoming in Modern Jewish Imagination (University of California Press, 2000). Address: 84 Prescott St.-Apt. 31, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 (until October 15, 2000); Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel (after October 15). Email address: sidra_dekoven_ezrahi@hotmail.com (sidra_dekoven_ezrahi@hotmail.com)

Ilana Pardes teaches comparative literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of: Countertraditions in the Bible: A Feminist Approach (Harvard University Press, 1992) and The Biography of Ancient Israel: National Narratives in the Bible (University of California Press, 2000). Address: Department of Comparative Literature, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel. Email address: mspardes@mscc.huji.ac.il