Co-organized by Dr Daniel H. Weiss (Divinity Faculty, Cambridge), and Prof Napoleon Katsos (Linguistics Department, Cambridge), this 8 September workshop was “a resounding success”.
The workshop stemmed from a Templeton Foundation-funded pilot grant, led by Dr Joanna Leidenhag at the University of Leeds, which brings together pairs of theologians and empirical scientists working in the area of psychology and language. The Weiss–Katsos project at Cambridge focuses on ways in which classical rabbinic forms of text-interpretation (particularly the rabbinic practice of uncovering multiple ‘creative’ readings of scriptural texts) can be illuminated by comparison to language acquisition in child development and in neurodivergent individuals.
This session hosted at the Faculty of Divinity focused on building initial conversations across participants from the two broad disciplines, and assessing resonances and points of connection. The attendees included scholars with background in Jewish and in Christian theological and textual interpretation, as well scholars with background in experimental linguistics and psychology of language. Participants ranged from Cambridge undergraduates, to UK academics and post-docs, as well as external experts in both of the two fields: Alexander Samely from Manchester (rabbinics) and Ira Noveck from Paris (experimental linguistics).
The discussion was lively and very fruitful, and showed that there were concrete paths for future research. It set the stage for carrying out textual studies and empirical experiments as part of the next stage of the Templeton-funded grant.
This workshop was supported by a grant from the Cambridge Interfaith Research Forum Small Grant scheme.
The activity was also part of the project, God and Human Speech.