The Interpretive Imagination

The papers collected in this volume represent the proceedings of a May 2011 conference organized by the 2008–2011 research group on ‘The Interpretive Imagination: Connections between Religion and Art in Jewish Culture in Its Contexts’ at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Scholion Interdisciplinary Research Center for Jewish Studies—a center that owes its existence to the vision and the generosity of the Mandel Foundation. The four undersigned editors of this volume, all professors at the Hebrew University, were the senior members of the group, which also included five younger scholars: Dr. Yonatan Benarroch, Dr. Irina Chernetsky, Anat Danziger, Dr. Vered Madar, and Tehila Mishor. In its research and activities, the group attempted an integrated examination of the religious and the artistic, and of their aesthetic, experiential, and interpretive aspects—and the present volume exemplifies the work which was carried out during the years at Scholion. 

The subjects in this title:

Singing with the Sirens: Probing the Boundaries of Interpretation

Sabba-Yanuka and Enoch-Metatron as James Hillman’s Senex-Puer Archetype: a Post-Jungian Inquiry into a Zoharic Myth

The Vision of Florence as a New Rome: Some Rhetorical and Visual Aspects 

Authority and Its Discontent in 17th Century Amsterdam Jewry: Fin-de-Siècle Visual Interpretations 

Communities of Voice at Times of Twilight: Real and Imagined Spaces of Sound among Central European Jews at the Opening and Closing of the Gates 

 Religion on the Opera Stage: Source of Conflict, Possibility for Reconciliation 

Allegory, Excess, Stuttering: On the Reading of Kafka’s Writing Machine 

 Listening and Exegesis in a Women’s Vocal Community 

Agnon’s Biblical Ethnographies: “Edo and Enam” and the Quest for the Ultimate Song