What’s New, What’s Next? – conference postponed. Call for panels and poster session for conference extended by 30 April 2021

We invite scholars working in Jewish Studies to propose panels for the international interdisciplinary, online conference What’s New, What’s Next? Innovative Methods, New Sources, and Paradigm Shifts in Jewish Studies. The conference will explore new directions in the study of East and Central European Jews.

• Online conference – 3-7 October 2021

At the heart of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews is a multimedia narrative exhibition that draws upon the best recent scholarship in a broad range of disciplines. Scholars in Poland, Israel, and North America collaborated on the creation of an open historical narrative that begins in the 10th century and comes forward to the present. 

The exhibition raises many of the methodological and theoretical issues central to Jewish studies today and serves as the inspiration for What’s New, What’s Next? Innovative Methods, New Sources, and Paradigm Shifts in Jewish Studies. This international interdisciplinary conference will explore new directions in the study of East and Central European Jews. 

What constitutes Jewish studies today and in which direction should we be heading? Which paradigms are guiding the field today? How are theoretical and methodological developments in the humanities and social sciences shaping Jewish studies? How are scholars working in a broad range of disciplines – history, social sciences, literature, visual and performing arts, and other disciplines – contributing to the field? What are interdisciplinary approaches contributing to the field? What is the impact of studies of Jewish life in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on a wider understanding of world history?

We invite proposals for:

• panels that address the conference theme >>
• posters for a session for PhD students that focuses on methodological issues related to their doctoral dissertations >>

Deadline for submitting proposals: 30 April, 2021

Contact: [email protected]

Academic Committee:

• Prof. Jonathan Brent, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
• Dr. François Guesnet, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London
• Prof. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Ronald S. Lauder Chief Curator, POLIN Museum Core Exhibition (Chair of the Academic Committee)
• Dr. Lisa M. Leff, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Dr. Enrico Lucca, Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture–Simon Dubnow
• Dr hab. Artur Markowski, POLIN Museum (Conference Convener)
• Prof. Dan Michman, Yad Vashem
• Prof. Antony Polonsky, POLIN Museum
• Prof. Hubert Strouk, Mémorial de la Shoah
• Dr. Michał Trębacz, POLIN Museum
• Dr. Scott Ury, Eva and Marc Besen Institute for the Study of Historical Consciousness, Tel Aviv University 
• Dr. Anat Vaturi, The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel Aviv University
• Prof. Genevieve Zubrzycki, Copernicus Center for Polish Studies, University of Michigan
• Prof. Andrzej Żbikowski, Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute

Information for conference speakers: 

• The conference will be held on-line 
• There is no conference fee
• The conference will be held in English
• The proposals must be submitted in English

We invite you to listen to our new GEOP podcast series "What’s New? What’s Next? Jewish Studies in the time of pandemic". 

The podcast series will explore the conference themes – methodology, paradigm shifts, new sources, and new approaches to old sources – in relation to the current and earlier epidemics, Jewish responses to them, and how they have been studied from historical and contemporary perspectives. The focus of this series offers a multidisciplinary and transhistorical case study for exploring the conference themes. As a lead-up to the conference, the podcasts will demonstrate the kinds of presentations we would like to encourage.
 

The conference is organized by:

in cooperation with:
 

The conference is organized within the Global Education Outreach Program.
 
The conference is supported by Taube Philanthropies, the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland. 

Co-financed from the "Excellent Science" program of the Minister of Science and Higher Education

Conference patrons: American Association for Polish-Jewish Studies, European Association for Jewish Studies, Institute of Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University, Mordechai Anielewicz Center for Research and Teaching of the History and Culture of Jews in Poland, Institute of  History, University of Warsaw, SEFER Center for University Teaching of Jewish Civilization, Polish Association of Judaic Studies, Polish Association of Yiddish Studies, Taube Department of Jewish Studies, University of Wrocław.