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Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century

Convivencia
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
SARAH ABREVAYA STEIN
Convivencia Lecture Series

THIS IS A HYBRID EVENT; if you would like to attend online, please register at:
https://duke.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrceqhrDssEtBJ-20sH6eOercpQuC4Osri

The Convivencia Lecture Series welcomes Sarah Abrevaya Stein, the Viterbi Family Endowed Chain in Mediterranean Jewish Studies and Ludwig Kahn Director of the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies at UCLA, to discuss her book "Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century."

Sarah Abrevaya Stein is author or editor of nine books. Her most recent book, Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux: Macmillman, 2019), explores the intertwined histories of a single family, Sephardic Jewry, and the dramatic ruptures that transformed southeastern Europe and the Judeo-Spanish diaspora. This book also traces the history of a collection, reflecting on how one family archive came to be built and preserved, and how it knit together a family even as the historic Sephardi heartland of southeastern Europe was unraveling. In a review of Family Papers, The New York Times writes: "Stein, a UCLA historian, has ferocious research talents [...] and a writing voice that is admirably light and human... All of this has produced a superb and touching book about the frailty of ties that hold together places and people." The Economist named Family Papers a Best Book of 2019, while the New York Times Book Review selected it as an Editors' Choice Book. Family Papers was also named a National Jewish Book Prize Finalist (2019).

Stein's books, articles, and pedagogy have won numerous prizes, including two National Jewish Book Awards, the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award.

Stein is also co-editor (with David Biale of UCD) of Stanford University Press Series in Jewish History and Culture.