The 50th Annual Scholars’ Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches

The Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas

The Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas invites you to join fellow scholars March 7-10, 2020 as we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of this important conference and continue the legacy established by Franklin H. Littell and Hubert G. Locke fifty years ago. This conference offers the opportunity to address the historical significance of the Holocaust through scholarship that is interfaith, international, and interdisciplinary.

The central theme of the 2020 ASC is “The History and Future of the Holocaust and its Memory.” This year, we look not only back to the history of the Holocaust, but also forward to the future of Holocaust Studies. Today, more scholars are engaged in the study of the Holocaust than ever before, while every year fewer survivors are left to bear witness. Digital tools for archiving, researching, visualizing and sharing knowledge about the Holocaust are changing our scholarly investigation and the culture of remembrance. At the same time, the murderous landscape of the Holocaust is more fully mapped out with access to new archives. Key concepts of Holocaust Studies are being reexamined, and a growing body of scholarship offers constantly new lenses from which the history of the perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders and victims is revisited.  We invite participants to reflect on these issues and encourage presentations that consider our changing perspectives of the Holocaust and its remembrance.

Please email presentation proposals to annualscholarsconference@utdallas.edu with

“ASC Proposal” as the subject. The proposal should include the title of the paper with a short abstract of 250-500 words and a brief (150 word) bio and a short CV. Proposals may be for a panel, round table, or individual paper.  

Proposal submission deadline: November 1, 2019.

Notification of Acceptance letters will be emailed no later than December 15, 2019.

Registration will open on December 15, 2019 and will include a tiered pricing level:

           Students/Retired Participants: $200

           Regular Registration: $250

           Late Registration (any registration after Feb. 15): $350

There will be limited financial support available for graduate students and junior scholars. Please indicate in your proposal if you would like to apply for one of these awards, including how this conference will help you in your research and/or professionally.

Interested participants are encouraged to visit www.utdallas.edu/ackerman/asc for more information or email Cindy Seton-Rogers at annualscholarsconference@utdallas.edu with any questions.

Scholarship and Intellectuality among the Lithuanian Jews.

18^th to 20^th Century

An international scholarly conference dedicated to the 300^th birth anniversary of the Vilna Gaon

Vilnius, April 21-22 2020

Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

Conference partners

Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania and its Judaica Research Center (Vilnius)

Department of History,Vilnius University

Lithuanian Institute of History

Leibniz-Institut für jüdische Geschichte und Kultur – Simon Dubnow (Leipzig)

German Historical Institute Warsaw

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (New York)

CALL FOR PAPERS

The year 2020 marks the 300^th anniversary of the birth of Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, the Vilna Gaon, who was a major and lasting influence on the Jews of Lithuania and brought Lithuanian Jewry to the fore of Jewish religious and intellectual development of Europe. This year will be commemorated in Lithuania as the Year of Vilna Gaon and Jewish History.

The conference will  discuss the multiple, changing and contending meanings and effects of the Vilna Gaon on Jewish religious and intellectual life in his time, and how this meaning was constructed, reshaped, and engaged with during the subsequent two centuries. The organizers invite participants to address also the politicization of Gaon’s cultural heritage, its appropriations in different political, cultural and economic projects and further in the process of constructing a Litvak identity. In addition, the Gaon may be regarded as an iconic or referential image, discussing his role in formative movements and phenomena in Lithuania in its historical borders from the 18^th to the 20^th century. Because the patrimonial Gaon’s legacy, in terms of temporal, cultural and geographical extensions, goes well beyond Lithuania in its historical borders, transcultural and transnational scope will be considered as well.

We invite proposals for lectures and complete panels of new research on (but not limited to)the following topics:

• Intellectuality and scholarship as the Jewish community‘s social ideal formed by the Vilna Gaon and his circle;
• Creating Mitnagdic identity and consciousness in opposition to Hasidism;
• The Gaon and the construction of Litvak identity;
• Interaction of religious and nascent secular culture within the Prussian and Lithuanian Haskalah;
• Impact of religious literature on secular culture and intellectuality of Lithuanian Jewry in the 20 century;
• Strategies of Lithuanian-Jewish publishers in catering to changing cultural needs of readers and influencing reading culture;
• Lithuanian-Jewish heritage and modern Lithuanian society’s politics of memory in European and worldwide context.

Please send a brief summary of proposed presentation (300 words maximum) and a short CV (200 words maximum) until November 15, 2019 to the Secretary of the Committee: julijana.leganovic@lnb.lt

The Committee will announce its decisions by January 5, 2020.

Conference Committee

Jolanta Budriūnienė, Head of Department of Documentary Heritage at Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

Prof. Jurgita Verbickienė, Vilnius University

Dr. Darius Staliūnas, Lithuanian Institute of History

Prof. Mordechai Zalkin, Ben-Gurion University of Negev

Prof. Marcin Wodzinski, Head of Taube Department for Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław

Dr. Marcos Silber, University of Haifa

Prof. Ruth Leiserowitz, Deputy Director of the German Historical Institute Warsaw

Dr. Lara Lempertienė, Head of Judaica Research Center at Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

Committee Secretary: Julijana Leganovič, Judaica Research Center at Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania

British Association for Jewish Studies Annual Conference Call for Papers

World in Crisis: Reflections and Responses from Antiquity to the Present

13th to 15th July 2020

University of Southampton and the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations

The annual conference of the British Association for Jewish Studies 2020 will explore Jewish perspectives on a world in crisis, whether real or imagined, in different spaces from antiquity to the present. Crisis can be found or understood in a variety of arenas of life from the political to the existential, and can be traumatic and yet, in some instances, lead to innovation. The conference aims to bring together scholars from diverse academic disciplines to explore Jewish perspectives of dramatic or perceived social, political, historical, ideological or religious change, originating from within Jewish worlds and without. The conference will assess Jewish engagement with change and crisis throughout history from the local to the transnational, including within the context of relationships with non-Jews. Analysis of the varied spectrum of reactions to and representation of times of crisis can do much to shed light on diversity within the Jewish experience in different contexts, whether impacting an individual or a community. Furthermore, challenges to the significance of the concept of crisis in Jewish history and culture, and emphasis on long-term trends are an important facet of this discussion. Papers will highlight the multiplicity of Jewish approaches to a world in crisis from resistance to rationalisation, whether literary or visual, and with an interdisciplinary perspective that characterises Jewish Studies. The conference is intended to provide a forum for reflection and critical contributions to significant, long-standing or contemporary issues of crisis and response, and the place of Jews, Judaism and Jewish Studies within this.

We welcome papers that explore Jewish traditions in different parts of the world and in different historical periods. Topics can include, but will not be limited to the following:

• Jews and theological, religious, philosophical or ideological crisis
• Jews and political engagement or activism
• Cultural or social crisis and responses
• Jewish literary explorations of crisis whether real or imagined
• Visual representation of crisis: museums, art, film and television
• Antisemitism
• Nationalism and populism
• Reception, legacy and re-imagining of crisis
• Challenges to concepts of crisis in Jewish history and culture

As usual with BAJS conferences, papers on topics unrelated to the conference theme are also very welcome, including proposals by graduate students wishing to present on their doctoral research.

Confirmed keynote speakers

• Prof Hindy Najman (University of Oxford and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Bible in the Humanities)
• Prof Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Technische Universität Berlin and Director of the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung)
• In addition, there will be a plenary panel session discussing how work in Jewish Studies can contribute to understanding and addressing questions of crisis – whether longstanding or contemporary – around the world today

Paper proposals should include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a speaker biography of maximum 100 words.

Panel proposals are welcomed. Proposals should include a brief rationale for the panel of no more than 100 words, abstracts of maximum 250 words for each paper proposed as part of the panel, and speaker biographies of no more than 100 words each. Panels should be mixed in terms of gender, and, where possible, reflect a range of career stages.

Speakers will be allocated 30 minutes for their presentation and questions. Papers should be a maximum of 20 minutes in length followed by 10 minutes for questions and discussion.

We have a limited number of bursaries available for postgraduate students and early career researchers. If you would like to be considered, please state this as part of your proposal and send your CV (maximum 2 pages).

Please send paper and panel proposals and all conference-related correspondence to BAJS2020@soton.ac.uk. The deadline for proposals is Wednesday 15th January 2020. Registration will open in April 2020.

Many thanks to the following institutions for their support of the conference: European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS), the Parkes Institute, and the History Department of the University of Southampton.

Call for Papers

Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts,

invites submissions for forthcoming issues in 2020 and beyond.

Postscripts (Equinox) is a fully refereed journal devoted to the academic study of scriptures around the globe, with a particular focus on the use and reception of sacred texts in both historical and contemporary perspective. Postscripts invites submissions of original critical work that takes up the question of the ongoing reception and mobilization of sacred texts in areas ranging from contemporary politics, to culture, to social life, as well as historical examples that reflect this diverse usage. The journal also pays particular attention to thinking broadly and critically about the very category of “sacred texts”.

In particular, Postscripts is interested in research that explores:

• Contemporary uses of and engagement with sacred texts (broadly understood)
• Scriptures and their cultural histories, particularly forms of reception that go beyond the mainstream exegetical and interpretive traditions
• Sacred texts and cultural criticism
• Materiality and sacred texts
• Performative and iconic dimensions of scriptures
• Theoretical reflections on scriptures
• Classification and categorization of sacred texts
• The arts and sacred texts
• The intersections of religion, textuality, media, and mediation across disciplinary boundaries

Postscripts welcomes submissions for future issues—whether in the form of individual articles or curated collections of essays. We also encourage alternative formats such as moderated forums on specific issues in the field, and although we do not publish book reviews, we welcome review essays that assess the state of scholarship in the field. Potential authors are invited to contact the editor in advance of making a formal submission of an alternative format or curated collection of essays.

Postscripts offers authors:

• Prompt peer-review process and clear publication timelines
• Early online publication
• Print and digital publication
• Supportive editorial guidance throughout the publication process
• Discounts on Equinox books and journals

Bradford A. Anderson, editor

brad.anderson@dcu.ie

Call for Papers: Beyond ‘Jewish-Muslim Relations’ 

The University of Manchester, 19-20 May 2020

Keynote Speakers: Najwa al-Qattan (Loyola Marymount University), Seth Anziska (University College London), Yulia Egorova (Durham University), and Brian Klug (Oxford University)

Beyond ‘Jewish-Muslim Relations’ invites scholars of Jewish and Muslim histories, cultures, politics, theologies and peoples to share comparative, transnational, and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of these topics as they relate to and come into contact with one another. Despite many theological and cultural similarities and frequent social proximity between Jews and Muslims, Jewish-Muslim relations in both contemporary societies and in diverse historical and geographic settings are often depicted in polarized binary terms. This conference aims to understand interactions and relations between Jews and Muslims in a wide variety of contexts beyond this binary. We encourage papers which offer innovative theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to the study of these topics, and in particular seek papers which adopt a critical approach to the terminology of ‘Jewish-Muslim relations,’ which might itself inadvertently invoke binary, possibly predetermined relations between Jews and Muslims qua Jews and Muslims, often within historical and socio-political frameworks that have reified categories of Jews, Muslims, and inter-ethnic/-religious relations.

We welcome papers on topics including, but not limited to:
• Historical cases of interaction between Jews and Muslims
• Representations and self-representations of Jews and Muslims
• Jewish and Muslim interfaith activism/dialogue
• Religion, tradition, secularism and innovation
• Antisemitism and Islamophobia
• Islamic and Jewish polemic and intellectual cross-fertilisation
• Critical theory and Jewish-Muslim relations
• Gender and sexuality
• Jews and Muslims in the arts, literature and media
• Multilingualism, translation and transnationalism

Paper proposals should include abstracts of 250 words and a speaker biography of no more than 100 words. Speakers are allocated 20 minutes to present and 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Lunch will be provided, with kosher and halal options available on request. There will be a small fee for attendance which may be waived for speakers without institutional funding. Please address all proposals and queries to the organizers (Adi Bharat and Katharine Halls) at jewish.muslim@manchester.ac.uk

Deadline for submissions: 1 December 2019