Background
Lassner, Jacob was born on March 15, 1935 in Brooklyn. Son of Kalman and Ruth (Friedman) Lassner.
( Over the centuries, Jewish and Muslim writers transform...)
Over the centuries, Jewish and Muslim writers transformed the biblical Queen of Sheba from a clever, politically astute sovereign to a demonic force threatening the boundaries of gender. In this book, Jacob Lassner shows how successive retellings of the biblical story reveal anxieties about gender and illuminate the processes of cultural transmission. The Bible presents the Queen of Sheba's encounter with King Solomon as a diplomatic mission: the queen comes "to test him with hard questions," all of which he answers to her satisfaction; she then praises him and, after an exchange of gifts, returns to her own land. By the Middle Ages, Lassner demonstrates, the focus of the queen's visit had shifted from international to sexual politics. The queen was now portrayed as acting in open defiance of nature's equilibrium and God's design. In these retellings, the authors humbled the queen and thereby restored the world to its proper condition. Lassner also examines the Islamization of Jewish themes, using the dramatic accounts of Solomon and his female antagonist as a test case of how Jewish lore penetrated the literary imagination of Muslims. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba thus addresses not only specialists in Jewish and Islamic studies, but also those concerned with issues of cultural transmission and the role of gender in history.
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Lassner, Jacob was born on March 15, 1935 in Brooklyn. Son of Kalman and Ruth (Friedman) Lassner.
Bachelor of Arts Michigan, 1955. Master of Arts, Brandeis University, 1957. Doctor of Philosophy, Yale University, 1963.
Assistant professor Wayne State University, Detroit, 1963-1967, associate professor, 1967-1971, professor, since 1971, chairman near eastern studies, 1965, 67, director center judaic studies, since 1987. Member Institute Advanced Studies, Princeton, New Jersey, 1979-1980. Visiting scholar Princeton University, New Jersey, 1979-1980.
Visiting professor University California, Berkeley, 1984, University Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1987. Consultant National Endowment of the Humanities. Board editors Tabari Translation Project, since 1979, Wayne State University Press.
Advisor University Michigan Press. Board directors Center Judaic Studies Wayne State University.
( Over the centuries, Jewish and Muslim writers transform...)
( The Description for this book, The Shaping of 'Abbasid ...)
Member American Oriental Society (midwest vice president 1971-1972, midwest president 1972-1973, midwest executive board 1972-1975, chairman sectional committee 1977-1983, board directors 1972-1973, 1978083), Association Jewish Studies.
Married Phyllis Barak. Children; Jason Benjamin, Elizabeth Jane.