In keeping with our ongoing quest to explore new formats and subjects suitable for AJS Review, we present a film symposium around the subject of a recent film, A Serious Man. We hope to include more material on Jews and the arts in future issues. This film symposium was curated by Riv-Ellen Prell of the University of Minnesota; the editors thank her for her efforts.

In addition, we present an Exchange with two scholars who have written very different books on the subject of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson. While not an exchange in the technical sense, as the writers were not responding to one another, we hope nevertheless that the contrast in disciplinary approaches and personal styles will prove illuminating to our readers and further introduce them to the variety of ways a subject can be examined within the fields of scholarly Jewish studies.