SPEAKING VOLUMES I recall sitting spellbound in the City Line Center movie theater one Saturday afternoon in the 1950s, watching as the final scene of the Tony Curtis biopic Houdini unfolded. If you know the film, you may recall that the bang-up finale depicts the last moments in the great magician's life: He's lowered, head first and tightly bound in...
University of Pennsylvania historian David Ruderman acknowledges that academics -- himself included -- often gear their writing to other scholars, rather than to a general audience. In addition, historians tend to stick to their own intellectual turf, rather than wading into unfamiliar waters. An expert on Jewish life and thought during the Italian Renaissance -- with an particular interest in...
When I saw the listing for Joan C. Williams's Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter in the Harvard University Press catalog earlier in the year, I thought the title suggested lots of possibilities and would be worth a look. When the book arrived in my office and I saw the photo on the cover -- an image...
SPEAKING VOLUMES I remember how, in 1963, my father decided that my sports-mad older brother needed to be introduced to some culture. What was his proposed cure for this young teen's basketball monomania? The old man had purchased a clutch of tickets for a musical then trying out in Center City before it headed for Broadway. As I recall it,...
David B. Ruderman, director of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, has won a National Jewish Book Award for "Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History," published by Princeton University Press. Ruderman, who also teaches Modern Jewish History at UPenn, won in the category of History. The 2010 awards, announced Tuesday, are given out annually...
Tammuz 12, 5773
