Elie Wiesel Center Summer Reading Series
About the Reading Series
The Summer Reading Series took place weekly during July and August 2020, with the intention to keep Elie Wiesel Center community members connected during the COVID quarantine. The series included sessions with Jewish Studies faculty Alicia Borinsky, Nancy Harrowitz, and Pnina Lahav who generously gave of their time to participate in the series. They were joined by English Professor Robert Pinsky, former Elie Wiesel students and BU alums Sonari Glinton and Ariel Burger, Center-friend and donor Gunda Trepp, and Elisha Wiesel, son of Elie Wiesel. Each reading included participant Q&A and was moderated by Michael Zank, Director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Jewish Studies.
These sessions attracted over four hundred registrants. Thanks to Center Communications Coordinator Jeremy Solomons, we mastered the Zoom format and most sessions went off without a hitch. The gatherings helped us forge new connections and remain relevant in these difficult times. Going virtual broadened the Center’s reach and attracted many guests who would not otherwise have been able to attend.
Speakers
July 8 – Professor Alicia Borinksy (Romance Studies) reading selections from Borges
July 15 – Professor Robert Pinsky (English and Creative Writing) reading from Odessa Tales by Issac Babel
July 22 – Gunda Trepp reading from The Last Rabbi, a biography of her late husband, Rabbi Leo Trepp
July 29 – Sonari Glinton (CAS ‘96), reading from Here We Are: American Dreams, American Nightmares by Aarti Namdev Shahani
August 5 – Elisha Wiesel, reading from a lecture his father gave at Baltimore Hebrew College in 1973
August 12th – Professor Pnina Lahav (LAW), reading from her forthcoming biography of Golda Meir
August 19 – Ariel Burger (UNI ‘08), reading from his book Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom
August 26 – Professor Nancy Harrowitz (World Languages and Literature), reading from Giorgio Bassani’s The Garden of the Finzi Contini and “A Plaque in Via Mazzini”