Ottoman Legacies, Émigre Culture, and Linguistic Crossroads

Ottoman Legacies, Émigre Culture, and Linguistic Crossroads

Annual UCLadino two-day symposium

Wednesday, April 7, 2021 to Thursday, April 8, 2021
3:00 PM (Pacific Time)

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Postponed in 2020 due to the closure of the UCLA campus, the annual UCLadino symposium will be back this year on April 7-8. The theme of “Ottoman Legacies, Emigre Culture, and Linguistic Crossroads” will lay emphasis on heritage, culture, and communication related to Sephardic Jews. The music-filled program – all organized by graduate students – will feature panels on Ladino Linguistics, History and Memory, and Social Networks, a keynote address by Dr. Olga Borovaya (Stanford), as well as two concerts.

Wednesday, April 7

3:00-3:05pm: Opening Remarks by Simone Salmon

3:05-3:55pm: Panel: Language and Translation

  • Moderator: Max Daniel
  • Y kada uno podra ser rabi: R. Meir Ben-Beniste’s Ladino Translations and the Rise of the Jewish Book, Itay Blumenweig (University of Pennsylvania)
  • Documenting Judeo-Spanish in Solitreo, Bryan Kirschen (Binghamton University) and Nathan Gross (Binghamton University)

3:55-4:05pm Break

4:05-5:05pm Panel: History and Memory

  • Moderator: Rachel Smith
  • Jewish Music and the Ottoman Cultural Tapestry, Simone Salmon (UCLA)
  • Bulgaria’s Post-Ottoman Sephardic History, Joseph Benatov (University of Pennsylvania)
  • Recuperating Ladino & Sephardic Life Cycle Customs Through Digital Media, Makena Mezistrano (University of Washington)

5:05-6:00pm Live Concert by Flor de Kanela: Andrea Fishman (UCSB) and Eric Ederer (UCSB)



Thursday, April 8

10-11am: Keynote

  • “The Emergence of the Ladino-Speaking Community: Print Culture and Politics of Ottoman Jews in Sixteenth-Century Salonica and Istanbul,” Olga Borovaya (Stanford University)

11:00-11:15am break

11:15-12:15pm Panel: Networks

  • Moderator: Simone Salmon
  • Por tierras extrañas, Jacobo Sefami (UC Irvine)
  • Our Sephardic Family: A Global Social Media Network, Mark Angel (Independent Scholar)
  • Southern Tobacconists, Greek fishmongers, and Japanese florists: Sephardic immigrants in the early 20th century US Economy, Max Modiano Daniel (UCLA)

12:15-1:15pm lunch break

1:15-2:15pm Panel: Linguistics

  • Moderator: Jennifer Manoukian
  • An Approach to Everyday Ladino Words and Expressions Borrowed from Spoken Languages in Balkan Countries Within the Ottoman Empire, Marcel Israel (Independent Scholar)
  • Linguistic Justice and Judeo-Spanish Revitalization, Rey Romero (University of Houston-Downtown)
  • Borrowed Verb Morphology in Ladino, Fatma Belgin Dinç (Boğaziçi University)

2:15-2:30pm Prerecorded Concert by Simone Salmon, Gal Kohav, Kiera Weiss, Jonathan Salman, Alyssa Mathias, and Brandon Wallace

2:30-2:45pm Closing Remarks by Rachel Smith


Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies