Read slowly, clearly and thoughtfully
On August 7, 2017, Eshkolot’s 13th festival of slow reading, titled “War and Peace of Languages: A Linguistic History of Jerusalem,” supported by Genesis Philanthropy Group and Avi Chai Foundation, will start in Jerusalem.
Slow-reading festivals have emerged as a continuation of public cultural and educational events for adults offered by Eshkolot (eshkolot.ru). Festivals are off-site events where participants stay together for several days and carefully study texts, movies, paintings or other semiotic systems, depending on the festival’s topic, that can be subjected to semantic analysis. There have been festivals in Odessa, Saint Petersburg, the Moscow region and Jerusalem.
The 13th festival, which will take place on August 7 to August 10, is dedicated to Jerusalem’s linguistic history. Fifty participants (from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Israel and Germany) selected on a competitive basis out of more than 350 applicants will study Jerusalem’s unique language landscape by analyzing historical sources and literary works under the guidance of respected scholars. The program includes lectures, seminars, “field trips” and cultural events.
Among the faculty of the festival will be Dr. Cyril Aslanov (Hebrew University), professor of sociolinguistics, and Dr. Ruth Wisse (Harvard), a professor of literature.
Eshkolot invites you to public lectures that will take place in
Jerusalem (location: Beit Avi Chai, King George 44).
The lectures will be free and will also be streamed live at eshkolot.ru. August 7, 12:30 p.m.: Professor of comparative literature Ruth Wisse (Harvard) will give a lecture titled “Shekhehiyonu: The Homecoming of Yiddish to Israel.” Prof. Wisse’s talk is in English with simultaneous Russian translation.
August 8, 12:30 p.m.: Professor of linguistics Yehudit Henshke (University of Haifa) will analyze the influence of Judeo-Arabic vernaculars on modern Hebrew in her lecture titled “Maghreb in Jerusalem.” Prof. Henshke’s talk is in Hebrew with simultaneous Russian translation.
August 9, 3:00 p.m.: Professor of literature Roman Katsman (Bar-Ilan University) will discuss Agnon’s views on languages in his lecture “Agnon’s Philosophy of Language: From Romanticism to Neo-Kantianism.” Prof. Katsman’s talk is in Russian.
August 10, 12:30 p.m.: In her closing lecture “Someone to Run With: The Cinematic Representation of Hebrew Speech,” linguist Miri Bar-Ziv Levy (Hebrew University) will examine the representation of the spoken language in the film Someone to Run With. The talk is in Hebrew with simultaneous Russian translation.