March 26 Lecture to Explore Jewish Folklore
Contact: Pauleena MacDougall, 581-1848
ORONO — The Maine Folklife Center is presenting a lecture Wednesday, March 26, by University of Pennsylvania professor Dan Ben Amos, author and scholar on Jewish, Eastern European and Middle Eastern folklore.
“Is There a Jewish Mother in Jewish Folklore?” is the title of the talk, which is free and open to the public. It is scheduled from 12:15-1:30 p.m. in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union on the Orono campus.
Ben Amos’s appearance also will include a discussion of his recent publication Folktales of the Jews, a five-volume series to be released over the next several years. Volume 1, Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion, and Volume II, Tales from Eastern Europe, will be available at Ben Amos’s talk. Both books won the National Jewish Book Awards on Sephardic Culture. The 71 tales have been selected from the Israel Folktale Archives at the University of Haifa, Israel.
A professor of folklore and Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Ben Amos was educated at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Indiana University, where he earned a master’s degree and doctorate.
The lecture is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, departments of English and Anthropology, and the Anthropology Club at UMaine.
Additional information is available by calling the Maine Folklife Center at the University of Maine at 581-1891.