ASU Humanities Week Program: “Jewish Travelers and Voyages of Diasporic Self-Discovery"

About the lecture: Dr. Mirvis will share the long history of pre-modern Hebrew travel literature from the ninth century through the eighteenth century. Focusing specifically on an eighteenth-century Hebrew travel journal, he will explore how Jewish groups around the world understood each other and their differences. This presentation demonstrates that travel was more than just a neutral way for Jews to engage with the non-Jewish world, but it also facilitated “diasporic self- discovery.” Vegetarian lunch will be provided.

About Stanley Mirvis: Stanley Mirvis is the director of Jewish Studies, the Harold and Jean Grossman Chair of Jewish Studies, and Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University. He is the author of The Jews of Eighteenth-Century Jamaica: A Testamentary History of a Diaspora in Transition (Yale 2020).