An international cohort of over 20 scholars convened on Sept. 9, 2015 at the University of Pennsylvania’s Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies for a year of research on the theme of “Jews Beyond Reason: Exploring Emotion, the Unconscious, and Other Dimensions of Jews’ Inner Lives.”

These scholars, chosen for prestigious residential fellowships from a large pool of applicants, will focus on aspects of internal life that lie beyond reason—emotions and feelings, the unconscious, sensation, imagination, impulse, intuition, mental illness, magic, and the nonrational dimensions of reason itself. These topics are part of a growing field within the humanities in general, of studies of emotion, cognition, and the mind.

Public Outreach Programs Announced

In addition to its regular programming of academic seminars, lectures, and colloquia, the Katz Center will offer a series of public programs centered on the same theme of “Jews Beyond Reason.” In partnership with host institutions throughout the Philadelphia area, the center’s fellows will connect with non-academic audiences in a spirit of shared exploration.

About the Katz Center

The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania located at 420 Walnut Street,  is a research institute devoted to the study of Jewish civilization in all its forms. Each year, the center enables eighteen to thirty selected scholars, at various stages in their careers and working in many different disciplines, to join in intellectual community, united by an annual theme. The highly competitive selection process attracts gifted applicants from North America, Israel, Europe, and Latin America. The weekly seminars in which Katz Center fellows present their work are attend by faculty members from the University of Pennsylvania and other major universities of the region. By presenting their research within the colloquia and lecture series of various local institutions, the Katz Center fellows embody Jewish culture’s integral place in the academic and wider world.