The Prague Center for Jewish Studies and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, cordially invite you to a guest lecture by Dr. Roni Cohen from the Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main.

The lecture, titled “Philosophy, Parody and Playing Ball: The Medieval Dance of the Players”, will take place on Tuesday, 6 May 2025 at 14:10 in Celetná street 20, Prague 1, room 240 (Department of Middle Eastern Studies, 2nd floor).

Dr. Roni Cohen is a researcher at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. His research focuses on medieval Jewish literature, particularly on the intersections between religion, philosophy, and literary parody. In his lecture, he will present to a wider audience for the first time the work Dance of the Players, an anonymous piece from Provence dating to the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. This work offers a new perspective on the relationship between philosophy, parody, and religion in late medieval Jewish youth culture.

Abstract of the lecture:

As early as the twelfth century, Jewish European bookshelves contained a considerable number of parodic literary works. Medieval Jewish parody encompassed nearly all major genres of pre-modern Jewish literature, including the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, liturgical texts, and mystical literature. However, Jewish philosophical literature was rarely the target of parody. Dance of the Players is the only known medieval Jewish parody of a philosophical treatise. Written anonymously in Provence in the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century, it presents an eleven-chapter discussion on the philosophical significance of ball games. This talk introduces Dance of the Players for the first time, exploring its cultural context and its role in shaping our understanding of the relationships between philosophy, parody, and religion in late medieval Jewish youth culture.