'How to Mars' is an exploration of a somewhat absurd effort to colonize the red planet, and has been called "A poignant examination of what it means to be human" (Kirkus Reviews). The CJC's Professor Ebenbach will also discuss a question that arose in writing the novel: given how tied Judaism is to the time cycles and places of Earth, how could it survive on other planets?

About the Speakers:

CJC Professor David Ebenbach is the author of seven books of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, winners of numerous awards, including the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the Juniper Prize, and the Orison Fiction Prize. He teaches creative writing and literature in the Center for Jewish Civilization and is a Project Manager at Georgetown’s teaching center, the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship.

CJC Professor Meital Orr is a literary critic with a doctorate in Modern Jewish Literature from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in Hebrew Literature from Columbia University. Her areas of expertise are modern Jewish and Israeli literature and film in comparative context with the cultural productions of other nations in the 20th and 21st centuries. She has authored numerous articles and publications in these areas, including in the Forward, Shofar and Prooftexts. Currently, she is working on a book manuscript on the largely undocumented convergences between Israeli and Palestinian literature and film in the 21st century.