Daniel Boyarin to Deliver 2026 Robert M. Cover Lecture

Talmud scholar Daniel Boyarin will deliver the Robert M. Cover Lecture on March 23, 2026. The lecture, titled “Halakha and Aggada: After ‘Nomos and Narrative,’” will take place at 4:10 p.m. in Room 120 of the Sterling Law Building.

Daniel Boyarin is the Hermann P. and Sophia Taubman Emeritus Professor of Talmudic Culture in the Departments of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and Rhetoric at the University of California Berkeley. He is also an affiliated member of the Department of Women’s Studies, a member of the core faculty in the minor in Gay and Lesbian Studies and of the graduate group in Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology, and a faculty member for the designated emphasis in Women, Sexuality, Gender Studies and the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture.

Boyarin received a bachelor’s degree from Goddard College, a master’s degree in Hebrew Literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and a master’s degree in Semitic Languages at Columbia University. He received a doctorate in Talmud at the Jewish Theological School of America in 1975. 

Boyarin has strong ties to Yale. He taught at Yale University from 1982 to 1983 and studied with Geoffrey Hartman and Harold Bloom. The majority of his academic career has been spent at UC Berkeley, but even there he mentored Yale professors Christine Hayes and Eliyahu Stern. 

The event is open to the Yale community and Yale IDs will be required to enter. Please register in advance of the event. 

This event is sponsored by the Howard Wexler Brodie ’93 Center for Jewish and Israeli Law, which supports research and engagement with Jewish law, Israeli law, and their intersection.

Established in 1991, the Robert M. Cover Memorial Lectureship in Law and Religion brings distinguished speakers to explore the historical, philosophical, sociological, and literary intersections between law and religion.