Interchapter IV Speaking of JS; and Its Vicissitudes

Abstract

Speaking of JS to JS can be hit or miss. Two occasions on which I was asked to do so offer instructive lessons. The first talk was pitched to a composite audience of colleagues in Jewish Studies and literary studies. Such conditions of “bilingualism” stand out most starkly at institutions where an affiliative history bridging two distinct constituencies remains only emergent. The presentation was built on the central figure of reading as a tactile practice: books as the felt objects of palpable hands in relation to interpretive will and the rabbinic tradition, more specifically, where the question also intersects intriguingly with criteria for canonicity....