EAJS Programme in European Jewish Studies
funded by the Stiftung “Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft” (Berlin)
* * *
2017/18 Academic Year
Three events (a roundtable, a laboratory and a workshop) took place in the 2017/18 academic year in the Programme in European Jewish Studies:
- EAJS Summer Laboratory for Young Genizah Researchers and those interested in the field [EAJS Laboratory, Munich, 6 – 9 September 2017]
- E Pluribus Unum? Multidisciplinarity in Jewish Studies Programmes and Teaching [EAJS Workshop, Girona, 28 – 29 May 2017]
- EAJS Roundtable on an International Program of MA Jewish Studies: Teaching Methods and Implementation Perspectives [EAJS Roundtable, Krakow, July 2018]
The reports for these three events can be found below.
1. EAJS Summer Laboratory for Young Genizah Researchers and those interested in the field
The laboratory aimed at providing a platform for students who either have not yet started their PhD but are interested in working with Genizah material, or who are in an early phase of their Genizah-related dissertation and need some guidance by experts within the vast field. It was intended to give young researchers the opportunity to establish a network for future cooperation with others working in the same field.
Conveners: Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger (EPHE Paris), Dr Ben Outhwaite (Genizah Research Unit Cambridge), Professor Ronny Vollandt (LMU Munich)
Organiser: Dr Friederike Schmidt (LMU Munich)
Report: Link for Young Genizah Researchers and those interested in the field report
2. E Pluribus Unum? Multidisciplinarity in Jewish Studies Programmes and Teaching
The EAJS held a workshop in Girona dedicated to an exchange between colleagues from nearly a dozen European countries (Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine, and United Kingdom), as well as from the United States and Israel, to discuss the potentials and challenges of the pluridisciplinary character of Jewish Studies.
Organisers: Dr Javier Castaño and Dr François Guesnet
Report: Link for Girona workshop report
3. EAJS Roundtable on an International Program of MA Jewish Studies: Teaching Methods and Implementation Perspectives
This Roundtable invites leading scholars and administrative leaders to discuss teaching methods in Jewish studies in different universities; the difficulties and obstacles they face; and possible solutions to these problems; and to set up a working group of scholars and administrative leaders to work on the creation of a concept for an international Jewish studies MA programme.
Organisers: Dr Jurgita Verbickiene and Professor Marcin Wodzinski
Report: Link for EAJS Roundtable on an International Program of MA Jewish Studies
* * *
2016/17 Academic Year
Two events, one Round Table and one Laboratory, took place in the 2016/17 academic year in the Programme in European Jewish Studies:
- Turning the Page: Jewish Print Cultures and Digital Humanities [EAJS Roundtable, Amsterdam, 6 – 7 February 2017]
- Yiddish Language and Culture. A Relay Station of Modernity and Lieu de Mémoire of Postmodernity [EAJS Laboratory, Vienna, 13 – 14 February 2017]
The reports for these two events can be found below.
1. Turning the Page: Jewish Print Cultures and Digital Humanities
This event brought together Jewish Studies scholars, Digital Humanities scholars, and curators from across Europe, to discuss opportunities and challenges arising from the new technologies for the textual, cultural and social analysis of Jewish printed sources.
Organisers: Professor Irene Zwiep (University of Amsterdam), Dr Andrea Schatz (King’s College, London) and Professor Emile Schrijver (Joods Historisch Museum Amsterdam)
Report: Link for Jewish Print Cultures and Digital humanities Report.
2. Yiddish Language and Culture. A Relay Station of Modernity and Lieu de Mémoire of Postmodernity
In current models and reflections on “new world literatures”, translation plays a crucial role on the level of experience as well as in theoretical reflections. Yiddish literature and culture have been and are shaped by processes of encounter, transfer and transmission to a particularly high degree. This laboratory confronted and expanded existing notions of translation in diverse fields of Yiddish cultural production, and extrapolated the multifold cultural interactions that have made Yiddish culture a relay station of Modernity and a lieu de mémoire of Postmodernity.
Organisers: Dr Olaf Terpitz, Mag. Marianne Windsperger and Professor Gerhard Langer, University of Vienna
Report: Link for Yiddish Language and Culture Report.
* * *
2015/16 Academic Year
Two events, one Roundtable and one Laboratory, took place in the 2015/16 academic year in the Programme in European Jewish Studies:
- YIVO’s Histories, Contexts, Tensions: An academic roundtable to accompany the annual ‘Litvak Days’ (with the Lithuanian embassy, London) and YIVO (New York) [London, 1 – 2 December 2015]
- Research Approaches in Hebrew Bible Manuscript Studies. A Critical Overview Based on Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Cairo Genizah and European Genizah [Aix-en-Provence, 6 – 8 June 2016]
1. YIVO’s Histories, Contexts, Tensions: An academic roundtable to accompany the annual ‘Litvak Days’ (with the Lithuanian embassy, London) and YIVO (New York).
This event commemorated the 90th anniversary of the founding of YIVO and contributed toward a richer understanding of its complex history. It explored the institution’s origins and impact, its fate during the Holocaust, efforts at collection of cultural material, relations with the greater Litvak context(s), and comparable efforts to explore and activate the folk culture of East European Jewry.
Organisers: Professor Michael Berkowitz and Dr Helen Beer, University College London.
Report: Link for YIVO Report
2. Research Approaches in Hebrew Bible Manuscript Studies. A Critical Overview Based on Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Cairo Genizah and European Genizah.
This laboratory critically examined the research approaches used for the study of the transmission of the Hebrew Bible from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. It brought together PhD students, Early Career Researchers, as well as senior scholars of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Cairo Genizah and the European Genizah, in order to share their research methods and approaches. Furthermore, it critically addressed questions regarding the Digital Humanities and how they can improve the scholarly work on the transmission of the Hebrew Bible.
Organisers: Dr Elodie Attia-Kay, Centre Paul-Albert Février, Aix-en-Provence; Samuel Blapp, University of Cambridge; and Mr Anthony Perrot, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE).
Report: Link for Aix-en-Provence EAJS Laboratory Report
* * *