Jewish Theology in Latin America with Ilan Stavans, In Three Parts
Tuesday, January 6, 2026, 2 – 3:30 p.m.
Join us for a three-part online mini-course over the winter break about Jewish Theology in Latin America with Ilan Stavans, the current Fordham-NYPL Research Fellow in Jewish Studies. This mini-course explores the divine, religious beliefs, and their connections to an ethical life as experienced by Jews in Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba, and other parts of Latin America from 1492 to the present. Topics include the persecution of conversos by the Spanish Inquisition, immigrant Jewish institutions by Ashkenazim and Sephardim, the Dirty War, Liberation Theology, and post-Holocaust Talmudic analysis. Authors featured are Luis de Carvajal the Younger, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Jorge Luis Borges, Monsieur Chouchani, and Rabbi Marshall Meyer.
Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, the publisher of Restless Books, and a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. His work, translated into two dozen languages, has been adapted into film, TV, radio, and theater. His latest book is Conversations on Dictionaries: The Universe in a Book (Cambridge University Press). This academic year, Stavans is a New York Public Library-Fordham University fellow on Jewish Studies, completing a book on Hispanic Antisemitism.
This mini-course is possible thanks to the generosity of the friends of Fordham’s Center for Jewish Studies. The Fordham-NYPL Research Fellowship Program is made possible by the Knapp Family Foundation, and the generosity of the friends of the Center for Jewish Studies at Fordham.
Meeting times on three consecutive Tuesdays at 2PM:
December 30th, 2025: Session 1: “The Faith of Conversos”
January 6th, 2026: Session 2: “Ser judío in the 20th Century”
January 13th, 2026: Session 3: “The Ethical Jew Today”
All who register will receive a reading packet and Zoom link in a separate email.
