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