Name: Who Owns the Past?
Start: 2026-10-13T18:30+0:00
End: 2026-10-13T20:30+0:00

Bookhouse

ASF Sixth Floor, 15 West 16th Street rsvp@primolevicenter.org

American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, Dan Wyman Books, a cooperative initiative

Bookhouse Events

October

13Oct6:30 pm8:30 pmWho Owns the Past?

15Oct12:00 pm15Nov1:30 pm“If you like, say . . .” : An Introduction to Talmudic Thinking

21Oct6:00 pm8:30 pmPuglia and the Roots of Modern Judaism

28Oct6:00 pm7:30 pmCAMPO 34. Jewish Refugees in Puglia’s DP Camps

November

15Oct12:00 pm15Nov1:30 pm“If you like, say . . .” : An Introduction to Talmudic Thinking

04Nov(Nov 4)5:00 pm25(Nov 25)8:03 pmFrom the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. A Brazilian Perspective.

08Nov4:00 pm6:00 pmReflections on Nationalism, Identity and Racism: A Psychoanalytic Perspective

15Nov1:30 pm4:30 pm“If you like, say . . .” : An Introduction to Talmudic Thinking (Copy)

The Ottoman Catalogue is a curated section of our Bookstore featuring English-language classics and new scholarship on Ottoman history and culture. It explores the impact of nationalism on the Ottoman Empire, the consequences of its decline and dissolution for Europe, and the histories of peoples, lands, religions, and their books before the concept of “the Middle East” emerged as a political and geographical term.

Following two decades of research, programming, and publishing on the history of nationalism, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, Centro Primo Levi moved its attention to the period before 1922, exploring the stories, ideas, exchanges, and transformations that occurred over six centuries of Ottoman rule.

The era that ushered in the rise of the workers movement, totalitarianiasm, the Spanish Civil War, the fall of three empires, the shaping of modern nation-states, and the establishment of an economy based on industrial and scientific growth, banking, and warfare, also brought to an end cultures, concepts of time, language, and rituals that today’s observers often struggle to appreciate.

Much of this history has attracted modest attention from American and English-language scholarship. However, over the past few years, there has been an increase in original and translated research and publications, showcasing this period from various angles and perspectives. As the “Middle East” storms into our societies, challenging the vocabulary of public life, as well as its ethical and epistemological paradigms, we feel that attempting to move our gaze back into this past may help us refine our sensibility and interpretational tools.

Bookhouse

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Bookhouse Events