During the first two-month secondment* at Ca’ Foscari, I was introduced to the Department of Humanities and my supervisor’s research network. I wrote the career development plan, trained in ethical issues, and submitted an ethical statement to the Ca’ Foscari Ethics Committee. I also researched and compiled a bibliography while receiving training in contemporary art history.
From months three and five, I started working at the Department of Germanic Languages. I participated in the MMLA 2022 conference and joined a panel discussing the representation of time in Dylan’s work, presenting the paper “No Time to Think: (Re)Writing Time”. I submitted my ethics assessment to Columbia and completed six training courses on data collection, human subject protection, and research management. I also updated and submitted my data management plan and ethics statement, began training in Yiddish literature, and released an interview for “The Followup News” on Raeben and Bob Dylan’s art.
In months six and seven, I continued my Yiddish training, started gathering materials on Raeben, and presented a paper on Raeben’s art and his influence on Dylan’s “Retrospectrum” exhibit at the MAXXI Museum in Rome. I also prepared and taught a seminar on the project’s initial results at the NeMLA 2023 conference.
Between months eight and ten, I finished training in Yiddish language and culture. I studied Raeben’s influence on Dylan by conducting research at the Bob Dylan Archive and presented the results at the 2023 World of Bob Dylan Symposium.
In month eleven, I continued gathering materials from Raeben’s students, completed my Art History and Curatorship training, and worked on an essay about Raeben’s influence on Dylan.
In months twelve and thirteen, I submitted the essay “No Time to Think” to the open-access journal “L’Ulisse”. I further deepened my training in Jewish studies, starting to attend the course “Readings in Jewish Literature”. I finished studying Dylan’s manuscripts and presented a paper on some of the results titled “When I Paint My Masterpiece” at the PCAS / ACAS 2023 conference. I also finished digitizing Raeben’s materials and released an interview broadcasted by Radio Ca’ Foscari in the Veneto Night event.
From months fourteen to eighteen, I focused on editing Raeben’s works and studying his influence on actress Stella Adler and artist Roz Jacobs’ cutting-edge educational program, the Memory Project, which fosters Holocaust memory through art. I presented a paper on Raeben’s influence on the film “Renaldo & Clara” at the 2023 PAMLA annual conference and one on his influence on the Memory Project at the Association for Jewish Studies’ 55th annual conference. I also presented the paper “Through the Eyes of the Cantor’s Son”, focusing on Yiddish emigration and diaspora in Sholem Aleichem’s last novel, at the NEMLA 2024 Conference, completed a poster presentation at the 2024 Columbia University Postdoctoral Research Symposium, and presented the paper “Norman Raeben and the New York Yiddish Cultural Milieus” at the 2024 Western Jewish Studies Association Conference.
From month nineteen to month twenty-six, I began creating the digital catalog of Raeben’s works, curating the exhibition, and devising the related international conference. I also published another article entitled “Songwriting Tradition and the Interpretive Talent” in the open-access journal “Cahiers de littérature orale”.
From months twenty-seven to thirty, I finished curating the exhibition "Norman Raeben (1901-1978): The Wandering Painting", which opened at the Jewish Museum in Venice on November 24, 2024. I organized the international conference “On the Norman Raeben exhibition: Pathways in Yiddish Art and Culture from Sholem Aleichem to Bob Dylan”, in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University's Department of Humanities on December 12, 2024. I focused on communicating the project results with three press releases, two interviews—one for RAI 3 and one for Antenna Tre—and by giving guided tours of the exhibition. I also curated the first comprehensive digital catalog "Norman Raeben (1901-1978): The Wandering Painting", published by Sillabe Editore. The catalog includes the complete collection of paintings I retrieved and digitized during the project, as well as eight essays on Raeben's life, art, career, emigration experience, teaching activity, and influence on the evolution of Yiddish artistic and cultural circles in New York and Paris.
From month thirty-one to thirty-four, I completed the dissemination phase of the exhibition and oversaw its closure, including dismantling, shipping, insurance, budgeting, and reporting. I wrote and delivered a lightning talk on the project’s outcomes at the 2025 MCAA Annual Conference and General Assembly, titled “MSC Project POYESIS: Perspectives on Yiddish Cultural Evolution and its Legacy.” During this period, I also conducted research in the Jacques Levy Archive and developed a musical and literary presentation based on the Raeben catalog and project results, which I presented at the Centro de Cultura Contemporanea in Conegliano. Additionally, I began drafting the final version of the dissemination plan and continued working on an article related to the Memory project.
During months thirty-five and thirty-six, I continued work on an article related to the Memory Project, completed the dissemination plan, and prepared a paper presentation on the project results, which I delivered on September 24, 2025, at the Renee and Chaim Gross Foundation. I prepared and delivered a musical and literary presentation titled "La canzone errante", based on the Raeben catalog and project results, at the Comune di Limana as part of the “Limana Folk Village” festival on September 14. I kept organizing research data and began compiling the final report.
