Coleman-Guitteau Professor enriches class with esteemed speakers

During spring term Kristen Seaman, associate professor of the History of Art and Architecture and a 2021–22 OHC Sherl K. Coleman and Margaret E. Guitteau Professor, will teach a new interdisciplinary course she developed last summer: ARH 321, Jewish Art and Architecture. The class will be cross-listed in the Department of Classics and the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies. It also will satisfy the university’s Core Education Arts and Letters and Global Perspectives requirements.

Seaman developed the course for students to investigate intellectual and cultural questions such as: Was there really an ancient “Jewish artlessness” because of the Second Commandment’s prohibition of images, as many people in the modern world commonly believe? How did ancient Jewish rulers construct and communicate their power through art, architecture, and patronage? And how did Jewish art and architecture interact with Greek and Roman art and architecture in the multicultural ancient Mediterranean world? Students will develop skills in the critical analysis of ancient material culture and modern scholarship as they read, write, and attend class. 

As part of the class, Seaman will host six virtual lectures given by esteemed scholars. Erich Gruen, the Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics (emerit) at the University of California-Berkeley will speak on “Displaced in Diaspora? Jewish Communities in the Greco-Roman World” on April 6, 2022. Jodi Magness, the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Director of the Excavations at Huqoq in Galilee, will speak on “More than Just Mosaics: The Ancient Synagogue at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee” on April 11, 2022. Steven Fine, the Dean Pinkhos Churgin Professor of History at Yeshiva University and the Director of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies, will talk about “Jews, Samaritans, and the Art of the Ancient Synagogue” on May 2, 2022. Jaś Elsner, Professor of Late Antique Art at Oxford University and Humfry Payne Senior Research Fellow in Classical Art at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, will speak on “Dura Europos in Its Conceptual Context between Eurasian Fantasy and Mandate Archaeology” on May 9, 2022. Zeev Weiss, the Eleazar L. Sukenik Professor of Archaeology at Institute of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Director of the Sepphoris Excavations will speak on “The Synagogue in the Shadow of the Temple and after Its Destruction” on May 11, 2022. Sean Burrus, the interim curator and Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and the co-director of the NWxNE project, a digital initiative, will speak on “Making Jewish Place and Marking Jewish Space: Jewish Art at Rome, Beit Shearim, and Dura Europos” on May 18, 2022. 

These talks are free and open to the public. Registration is required.

According to Seaman, “Jewish art and architecture were significant elements of ancient cultural production, but they are largely ignored today. Such an absence in both scholarship and the classroom has led to what Steven Fine has called a ‘rhetoric of Jewish artlessness,’ the misconception of scholars, students, and the general public that Jews were not active participants in artistic production and art-criticism in the ancient world. 

I’m indebted to the Sherl K. Coleman and Margaret E. Guitteau Professorship in the Humanities from the Oregon Humanities Center for making the lecture series possible, enriching the students’ experience of the course through the purchase of books for the UO Library, and benefitting the university community more broadly.”