Lecture: "Mike Leigh's Anglo-Jewish Soul"
Donald Weber, the Lucia, Ruth, and Elizabeth MacGregor Professor of English, Mount Holyoke College and Visiting Posen Professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, will deliver a lecture entitled “Mike Leigh's Anglo-Jewish Soul.”
"Mike Leigh's Anglo-Jewish Soul” examines the famous British filmmaker's recent National Theatre production of "Two Thousand Years" (2005), in Leigh's own words his first "Jewish play." In a culture where (in Philip Roth's observation) "to mention the word 'Jew'...the voice always drops just a little," Leigh's wicked comedy of contemporary identity politics unabashedly screams its Jewishness. This talk situates Leigh's play in relation to the history of Anglo-Jewish cultural expression as well as to Leigh's work as filmmaker, especially "Secrets and Lies" (1996).
This lecture is the third in a series of Posen Foundation Lectures in Secular Judaism at UMass this semester. Upcoming lectures include:
• Professor Willi Goetschel, University of Toronto, “Moses Mendelssohn's 'Indigenous Colonist': State, Power, and the Question of Sovereignty” at 4:00PM on Thursday, November 19th.
• Professor Jacqueline Southern, Visiting Posen Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, “'To Promote the General Welfare': The Legacy of the Jewish Labor Movement” at 4:30PM on Wednesday, December 2nd.
All Lectures are Free and Open to the Public and Wheelchair Accessible.
Sponsored by the Posen Foundation in Jewish Secularism and the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
For more information, email judaic@judnea.umass.edu or call 413-545-2550.