Session 2

Rachel DeWoskin is the author of four novels: Second Circus (Penguin, 2019); Blind (Penguin, 2014); Big Girl Small (FSG, 2011); and Repeat After Me (The Overlook Press, 2009); and the memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing (WW Norton, 2005). DeWoskin’s work explores the transnational experience, particularly questions of how human beings communicate across linguistic and national boundaries.

Rachel Cohen’s writing draws on biography, art history, literary criticism, and the lyric essay. Her essays on artists and writers—their friendships, fallings out, and the work they make—have appeared in publications including The New Yorker, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, Art in America, Apollo Magazine, and Best American Essays. Her third book, Austen Years, a work of literary criticism and memoir, is forthcoming from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2019.

Benjamin Callard is a philosopher with interests in ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. His recent work has focused on the problem of the freedom of the will. Callard is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy.

Orit Bashkin is a historian who works on the intellectual, social, and cultural history of the modern Middle East. Her publications deal with Iraqi history, the history of Iraqi Jews, the Arab cultural revival movement (the nahda) in the late 19th century, and the connections between modern Arab history and Arabic literature. Her books are Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel, Stanford University Press, 2017; New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq.

Catherine C. Baumann specializes in reading comprehension and language testing. She is a certified language proficiency tester and trainer. Baumann is director of the University of Chicago Language Center and director of the German language program.