Not-yet a book: Learning liberalism with Anastasia Badder

What would you do if you started a new school where all of your ideas about language, literacy, and knowledge were overturned and you were asked to take on new practices that challenged not only your sense of self as a ‘good’ student, but as a participant in the modern world? 

Learning Liberalism: (ir)religious Jewish education in Europe (forthcoming) tells the paradoxical, often frustrating stories of children at the LTT, a Liberal Jewish congregational school in Luxembourg, who must make sense of carrying on traditions that appear antithetical to their existing conceptions of mobility, inclusivity, and learning, while striving to be full participants in and members of modern Europe.

Advance reading for this session will focus on the children’s first encounter with Hebrew learning. Together, we will explore how LTT students navigate tensions between modernity and tradition, liberalism and orthodoxy, inclusivity and exclusion, mobility and stasis.

About the author

Dr Anastasia Badder is an anthropologist and ethnographer of religious and inter-religious relations. Her existing publications include the award-winning article “Knowing which way to turn: orienting congregational Jewish education in Europe” (best article of 2024—Journal of Jewish Education).

Anastasia joined the University of Cambridge in 2022. She holds a PhD in Educational Sciences from the University of Luxembourg, an MA in Anthropology from the University of Auckland, and a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College.  

Practicalities

To support in-depth discussion, the indicated reading will be provided to those registered two weeks prior to the session.

Capacity is limited and advance registration is required. Bookings open on 15th July.

Afternoon tea will be provided as part of this session.

A Cambridge Interfaith Programme event (Religion in Society strand).

NB There is a fee for this session. A discount is available to those who book for all three sessions in this series.