The Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, The University of Texas at Dallas “Expanding Perspectives of the Holocaust” conference, date: March 5-8, 2022, deadline: November 12, 2021

The Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies at The University of Texas at Dallas invites you to join fellow scholars March 5-8, 2022, as we celebrate the 52nd anniversary of this important conference and continue the legacy established by Franklin H. Littell and Hubert G. Locke more than 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 52nd ASC is “Expanding Perspectives of the Holocaust.” 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where Nazi leaders discussed the logistics for the large-scale continental, European, and even global plan for the murder of the Jewish people. The opening of state and regional archives of the former Soviet Union has led to a deeper understanding of the scale and geography of the Holocaust. Indeed, Nazi leaders did not govern exclusively from Berlin, and victims experienced the Holocaust within numerous local, regional, and national contexts. Thus, Holocaust studies have come to promote a much broader and more varied history that exists in local, regional, national, and continental geographies.

The aim of this conference is to expand our understanding of the Holocaust, both in its singularity and in its global implications. How, for example, did African Americans witness the Holocaust? How do scholars in Africa make sense of the Holocaust, as well as antecedent and subsequent genocides? How does a study of the Holocaust inform Latin American academics in their engagement with geopolitical conflicts, totalitarianism, and mass violence? How has the culture of Holocaust remembrance informed the aesthetics of remembrance of other genocides? We welcome in particular scholars working on new approaches focused on Eastern European, African and Latin American perspectives on the Holocaust.

Please email presentation proposals to annualscholarsconference@utdallas.edu with “ASC Proposal” as the subject by November 12, 2021. The proposal should include the title of the paper with an 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.

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/asc for more information or email Cindy Seton-Rogers at annualscholarsconference@utdallas.edu with any questions.

Jewish Soldiers & Fighters in WWII

Virtual International Conference

Amidst the bloodshed and destruction of World War II, nearly 1.5 million Jewish men and women made vital contributions to the Allied war effort against Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers. However, despite the large volume of World War II research, books, movies, and other works, the very fact of these 1.5 million “Jewish soldiers” remains virtually unknown.

On 14-15 November 2021, leading experts from universities, archives, libraries and museums will gather on an international (virtual) stage, alongside members of the public, veterans and their families, and Holocaust survivors and their descendants, to explore the experience of the Jewish soldier in WWII. This international virtual conference is presented by the Blavatnik Archive Foundation.

FREE & open to the public. The conference website is https://jewishsoldiersinwwii.org/.

Link for conference posters and images 

Reconceptualising Monotheism: Concepts and Cultures in Ancient Israel

Oxford / Online

4 November 2021 (09:00 – 18:00)

Workshop (Free and open to the public; Registration now open)

Harris Lecture Theatre, Oriel College & Online 

Link for Registration: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reconceptualising-monotheism-concepts-and-cultures-in-ancient-israel-tickets-161876887127

Programme of Events

8.45 – 9:00: Prof. Hindy Najman and Dr Hywel Clifford (University of Oxford) and Prof. Joachim Schaper (University of Aberdeen): Welcome & Introduction

9.00 – 9:45: Prof. Joachim Schaper (University of Aberdeen): “Media Archaeology” and Research into the Origins of Jewish Monotheism: Some Thoughts on Method, in Dialogue with Jan Assmann and others

9.45 – 10:30: Prof. Eckart Otto (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München): Historical Dialectics in the Judean History of Religion on its Course to Monotheism

10.30–10.45: Break

10.45 – 11:30: Dr. Catherine Quine (University of Nottingham): The End of Queenship: Gender, Absence, and the Development of Monotheism

11.30 – 12:15: Dr. Hywel Clifford (University of Oxford): The apologetic and the axial: “monotheism” between Israelite Yahwism and early Greek philosophy

12.15 – 1:00: Dr. Antonella Bellantuono (University of Lille): Religious Coexistence in Antiquity: the Relationship between Jewish Monotheism and the Egyptian cults

1.00–2.00: Lunch

2.00 – 2:45: Prof. Peter Machinist (Harvard University): Choosing the Proper Terminology: A Biblical Quest Toward Monotheism

2.45 – 3:30: Prof. Daniel Fleming (New York University): Yahweh before Israel: A Pastoralist People of the Levantine Interior

3.30–3.45: Break

3.45 – 4:30: Prof. Friedhelm Hartenstein (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München): Monotheism, Aniconism, and Mental Images in the Light of Deuteronomy 4

4.30 – 5:15: Dr. Nathan Macdonald (University of Cambridge): Priestly Monotheism

5.15 – 6:00: Prof. Konrad Schmid (University of Zurich): The Readability of the World: The Priestly Monotheism and Its Quest for God‘s Transcendence and the World‘s Rationality

6.00 – 6:30: Prof. Hindy Najman: Plenary & Close