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Burn your Blessings: Media, Immediacy in Jewish prayer in the Mishnaic and the Digital Era

Date:
-
Location:
Boone Center at UK
Speaker(s) / Presenter(s):
Aharon Varady
Intended Audience:
Students
Faculty
Staff
Open to Public

Prayers are a unique rhetorical form of communication. This talk concerns Jewish prayer as an ingredient of media in a praxis that may be personal or public, efficacious or performative, and utilized for theurgical or self-reflective purpose. In what form may prayers be preserved and reused? What is the life-cycle of a prayer as a physical object, as imagined in myth, and as an editable template? Are prayers inherently proprietary and if not, are they ever in danger of cultural appropriation? How might the aegis of copyright itself infringe on the presumptions of prayers as a rhetoric of parrhesia -- open, bold and honest speech.Aharon Varady