The Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life at Rutgers presents:

The Ruth and Alvin Rockoff Annual Program

Desert in the Promised Land: Nature, Settlement, and the Politics of Space

Yael Zerubavel, professor emerita of Jewish studies and history, Rutgers University

Douglass Student Center, 100 George Street, New Brunswick

Yael Zerubavel will discuss her new book, Desert in the Promised Land, which explores the multiple meanings of the desert as both a geographic region in Israel and a symbolic landscape in Zionist and Israeli culture. Drawing on a wide range of literary, artistic, and folkloric sources, she will illustrate the changing views of the desert from the early twentieth century to the present, shedding light on romantic and mythical associations, settlement and security issues, and environmental concerns.

Yael Zerubavel, the founding director of the Bildner Center, has published extensively on collective memory and Israeli culture. She is also the author of the award-winning Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition.

Please RSVP.