In this episode, Laura Lieber, Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University, discusses her current research on the intersection between synagogue practices and the theatre in late antique Judaism. She highlights theatrical features especially in Jewish liturgical poetry, explaining how such features can be identified and what they suggest for understanding ancient Jewish communities. Her goal, she says, is a lively, dynamic reconstruction of what synagogue life. Lieber also explains that the intersection between synagogue and theatre is just one of the ways that Jews engaged in what she describes as the glittering cultural moment that was late antiquity.
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In this episode, Laura Lieber, Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University, discusses her current research on the intersection between synagogue practices and the theatre in late antique Judaism. She highlights theatrical features especially in Jewish liturgical poetry, explaining how such features can be identified and what they suggest for understanding ancient Jewish communities. Her goal, she says, is a lively, dynamic reconstruction of what synagogue life. Lieber also explains that the intersection between synagogue and theatre is just one of the ways that Jews engaged in what she describes as the glittering cultural moment that was late antiquity.
Episode 3: Translating the Mahabharata, featuring Wendy Doniger
The Biggest Questions Podcast
48 minutes 59 seconds
5 years ago
Episode 3: Translating the Mahabharata, featuring Wendy Doniger
In this episode, our guest is Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School. We speak with her about her current project, a translation of portions of the ancient Sanskrit poem the Mahabharata. We discuss its themes—including love, death, survivor’s guilt, and more—and their enduring relevance in the present moment. We also explore the practice of translation—what can be translated, what can’t be, and why—and how Professor Doniger's Mahabharata translation fits into her larger research and writing interests. The conversation offers insight into both an ancient literary masterpiece and the practice and accomplishment of one of the most important scholar of religion of our time.
The Biggest Questions Podcast
In this episode, Laura Lieber, Professor of Religious Studies at Duke University, discusses her current research on the intersection between synagogue practices and the theatre in late antique Judaism. She highlights theatrical features especially in Jewish liturgical poetry, explaining how such features can be identified and what they suggest for understanding ancient Jewish communities. Her goal, she says, is a lively, dynamic reconstruction of what synagogue life. Lieber also explains that the intersection between synagogue and theatre is just one of the ways that Jews engaged in what she describes as the glittering cultural moment that was late antiquity.
