ArtSci Roundup: The Converso’s Return, Drop-in Meditation Session, and More

In the fifteenth century, thousands of Jews in the Iberian Peninsula (today’s Spain and Portugal) were forced to convert to Catholicism under threat of death and became known as conversos (literally meaning “the converted”). Five centuries later, their descendants have been uncovering their long-hidden Jewish roots; as these stories come to light, they have taken hold of the literary and popular imagination. “The Converso’s Return” explores the cultural politics and literary impact of this reawakened interest in converso and crypto-Jewish history, ancestry, and identity, and asks what this fascination with lost-and-found heritage can tell us about how we relate to and make use of the past.

In this talk sponsored by the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, Dalia Kandiyoti (College of Staten Island, City University of New York) will discuss her new book “The Converso’s Return: Conversion and Sephardi History in Contemporary Literature and Culture” with Devin E. Naar, professor in Sephardic Studies, associate professor of History, and faculty at the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies. 

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