A picture of the group of fellows and facilitators who gathered at the Lansing Brewing Company to celebrate this year's achievements.

Thanks for a great semester, Digital Fellows and Facilitators!

Posted on by Margot

This website (vallesm.msu.domains) is the result of participation in the CAL Spring 2017 Digital Presence Fellows program, led by Kristen Mapes, Scott Schopieray, and Stephen Thomas (in alphabetical order). It was a wonderful to be part of this community of scholars learning how to be at home in a wide range of digital environments. A great semester ended with a sweet party at the Lansing Brewing Company and featured some words from Scott and from Dean Long, master of the digital presence. 

Thanks to Leigh Graves Wolf for tweeting out the above image!

Crusade, Orientalism, Islamophobia Medieval and Modern Intersections Thursday, March 16, 2017 303 Inernational Center noon to 1:30

Honored to be included in this upcoming timely and exciting panel!

Posted on by Margot

Crusade, Orientalism, Islamophobia

Crusade, Orientalism, Islamophobia Medieval and Modern Intersections Thursday, March 16, 2017 303 Inernational Center noon to 1:30

The Panelists

Adnan Hussain, Sallah Hassan and Margot Valles

Tamar Boyadjian put together this very impressive panel that I'm so honored to be included in. It should present very interesting intersections of issues from the Middle Ages through the contemporary.

I'll be talking about the representation of Muslims in Early Yiddish Epic and the reading of those representations in 19th and 20th century scholarship.

The other panelists are Dr. Boyadjian, herself,  Adnan Husain and Salah Hassan. 

CrusadeOrientalismIslamophobia.Panel.March2017

Excited about this panel on Yiddish Memory Before, During and After the Holocaust

Posted on by Margot

With MSU’s new access to the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive and its more than 54,000 hours of testimony from witnesses to and survivors of genocide, MSU’s Jewish Studies program has taken several steps to excite and promote scholarship that uses these materials. After a rich and well-attended workshop about using these testimonies in both research and teaching in the fall, I decided we should continue to explore the issues raised by many of the participants.

Additionally, with the arrival of Dr. Amy Simon as the new William and Audrey Farber Family Chair in Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History here at MSU and the appointment of Dr. Anya Quilitzsch as the lecturer in Yiddish language at U of M, we had a stellar group of scholars in the field all working within the area.  Dr. Jeffrey Veidlinger, director of the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies at U of M, Anya, Amy and I all worked to varying extents on the AHEYM project. This convergence/reunion of colleagues all working in the field of Yiddish and history inspired me to put together this panel.