A Program in Memory of Vivian B. Mann Featuring talks by Laura Arnold Leibman (Reed College) and Maya Balakirsky Katz (Bar-Ilan University), in conversation with Magda Teter (Fordham University)
Jewish ceremonial objects have been studied and collected for nearly 150 years. In the past few decades, however, their importance in understanding social, historic, and aesthetic issues in a variety of cultural contexts has begun to increase.
This program is dedicated to the memory of Vivian B. Mann, a long-time Judaica curator at The Jewish Museum in New York and head of the graduate program in Jewish Art and Visual Culture at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America.
Among her many accomplishments, Dr. Mann started initiatives to ensure that the rigorous study of Judaica would become part of the discourse of wider disciplines such as art history, history and Jewish studies. Building on her legacy, Laura Arnold Leibman and Maya Balakirsky Katz will each speak about a ceremonial object from the vantage point of their different disciplines, and then engage in a conversation with Magda Teter about the state of the field today and the possibilities for the future.