Public Lecture: Moritz F. Adam - Flights of the Mind - Dreams, Visions, Journeys, and Authority

Moritz F. Adam: Flights of the Mind – Dreams, Visions, Journeys, and Authority Construction between Classical and Jewish Literature

Please join us for Moritz F. Adam's public lecture, "Flights of the Mind – Dreams, Visions, Journeys, and Authority Construction between Classical and Jewish Literature" at 17:00 IDT | 10:00 EDT on Oct 15, 2025 at the Albright or on Zoom with a post-event Reception.

Zoom ID: 882 9368 0465
Passcode: 269514
Zoom Link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88293680465?pwd=UJeAaGmsnZKtOQF63Dy2Wu2h0YpnK7.1

Abstract: Auditory or visual revelation is well known in biblical literature, though predominantly confined to places and circumstances in which larger aspects of their plot or setting are situated. By contrast, accounts of an authoritative literary subject travelling to remote or transcendental spaces appear only much later in Jewish tradition. This more spatially pronounced manner of travel exhibits proximities to the “flight of the mind” topos in Classical literature (Plato, Virgil, etc). The lecture examines such accounts, their notions of space, and how they can be understood in a constellation of literary tendencies within ancient sources of the Eastern Mediterranean across linguistic registers.

Bio: Moritz F. Adam teaches Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism in Zurich, Switzerland, and is the current Ernest S. Frerichs Professor at the Albright Institute. His research focuses on the history of ideas in Second Temple Judaism and takes an interest in moments of transition in Jewish literature and thought during this period, and their entanglement with Classical literature and the Ancient Near East.

You may also like the following events from W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research:

• Next month, 20th October, 05:00 pm, AIAR Book Launch: Susan Weingarten’s Ancient Jewish Food in Its Geographical and Cultural Contexts in Jerusalem

Also check out other Arts events in Jerusalem, Literary Art events in Jerusalem.