The use of metaphor to approach women’s bodies in Jewish culture is a powerful rhetorical tool for conveying a specific construction of the female body within the social, literary, and medical spheres. These images define the boundaries within which this body is to be viewed, perceived, and experienced. By interrogating these boundaries from a gender studies perspective, this study day provides an opportunity to develop a comparative approach to metaphors of the female body as they are used to represent women’s bodies—from the Talmud to contemporary Hebrew literature, including the Midrash, legal texts, and medical discourse.

Argument

The study day aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of Jewish metaphors of the female body, from the Talmud to contemporary Jewish literature. In particular, the conference seeks to highlight a specific historical evolution: from the global representation of the female body in the Talmud—as a “house,” a “vessel,” a “cow,” or a “fountain,” according to a utilitarian perspective—to a digressive, compartmentalized, or “deconstructed” representation in modern Jewish writing. This approach allows for a comparative view of how metaphors of the female body are used to represent women’s bodies in the Talmud, Midrash, law, medicine, and Hebrew literature, which will be addressed in the various presentations.

Between the “female body” and the “bodies of women,” a dialogue emerges—one that shapes the social construction of gender. This event seeks to explore that dialogue through the lens of metaphorical language (including its refusal), as it expresses the desire to give voice to these bodies.

The subsequent workshop offers an opportunity to approach the notion of metaphor methodologically within the context of Jewish culture, with the aim of analyzing this rhetorical device in relation to representations of women’s bodies. This marks an initial step in examining not only how metaphor is used in both prescriptive and non-prescriptive contexts to represent women’s bodies, but also what role it plays in the deconstruction of these culturally embedded images.

Program

21 mai 2025

14:00 – 14.15 Opening remarks : Elisa Carandina (INALCO, Paris) – Federico Dal Bo (UNIMORE)

14.15 – 15.45

•  Isabella Scortegagna (Indipendent scholar) – A Guilty Kiss Between MiIdrash and Contemporary Art
•  Ilaria Briata (University of Hamburg) – Scatologic Synecdoches and Sacred Signifiers
•  Zeljko Jovanovic (INALCO, Paris) – Empowering symbolism of female body in Judeo-Spanish folk narrative

15.45 – 16.15 : Coffee break

16.15 – 17.45

• Judith Muller (University of Frankfurt) – “Guf Rishon” Female Translators giving a voice to Hebrew authors
• Alice Giuliani (Unimore) – Embodied interaction: the creative metaphor as a figure of maternity

22 mai 2025

9.00 – 12.00 Workshop

Female Body or Women's Bodies? A Methodological Approach to the Limits of Metaphors

Chairs: Elisa Carandina (INALCO) – Federico Dal Bo (UNIMORE)

Organisation

•     Elisa Carandina, Cermom, Inalco - elisa.carandina@inalco.fr
•     Federico dal Bo, Università di Modena e Reggio - fdalbo@unimore.it

Ce colloque se déroulera en anglais.