Jewish Studies: Conferences & Events
Tradition, Transformation, and Identity: The Turkish Sephardic Community Between Two Homelands
27 November 2024, Potsdam
Am Neuen Palais 10, Haus 8, Raum 0.56
We are pleased to announce an upcoming workshop titled “Tradition, Transformation, and Identity: The Turkish Sephardic Community Between Two Homelands”, which will be held on November 27, 2024, under the auspices of the University of Potsdam's Institute for Jewish Studies and Religious Studies and the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg. This event will bring together scholars and researchers to explore the multifaceted historical and contemporary experiences of Sephardic Jews in Turkey and Israel, focusing on the transformations within cultural traditions, identities, and diaspora dynamics from the 1920s to the present day.
More Info here
International Workshop: Shaping Identities Through Polemics – The Jewish Portuguese Nation in Amsterdam (17th and 18th Centuries)
24 October 2024 – University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, Potsdam. Room 1.08.0.58.
The international workshop “Shaping Identities Through Polemics”, hosted by the University of Potsdam and the Selma Stern Zentrum, aims at investigating the prolific production of polemical texts among Sephardic scholars living in Amsterdam during the 17th and 18th centuries. The contributors will examine methodological issues that arise in working with polemical literature and contemplate some of the major research questions. They will also explore what Jewish authors in Amsterdam knew about the Jewish and non-Jewish “others”, how they portrayed them and how they used polemical texts to shape religious and social identities.
More information can be found here.
Sephardic Perspectives Research and Reading Group
Organised by Adem Muzaffer Erol
The research and reading group Sephardic Perspectives continues earlier work of the BMBF funded project “Sephardic Perspectives” (2014-2023) at the ZJS. It ams at strengthening Sephardic Studies in German academia by bringing together early career scholars through discussion groups, workshops, and conferences. Topics to be discussed include Sephardic networks, cultures, and identites, in early modern, modern and contemporary European and non-European, colonial and post-colonial worlds. A focus will be on inter-religious and inner-Jewish entanglements and/or encounters, in particular entanglements, and/or encounters between Ashkenazim and Sephardim and/or Sephardim and Sephardim from early modern times to the present. This includes discussons about different concepts and uses of the term “Sephardi/Sephardic” in dfferent contexts and (academic) cultures. Last but not least, the group will also pay attention to topics of Converso history, religion, and thought, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Western Sephardic Diaspora. Regular meetings will be scheduled once a month via zoom. Scholars interested in participating are encouraged to contact Adem Muzaffer Erol (erol.muzaffer@gmal.com).
More information can be found here
Sephardic History and Culture – International Graduate Conference
organized by Prof. Dr. Sina Rauschenbach, Dr. Susanne Härtel, Julian Holter, M.A. and Tanja Zakrzewski, M.A.
University of Potsdam, Am Neuen Palais 10, building 8, room 0.56, 14469 Potsdam
September 24th, 3:30 p.m. – September 26th, 12:30 p.m.
Although Sephardic Studies is already established as a field at Israeli and U.S. universities, it is strongly underrepresented in European universities, where Jewish Studies scholars still tend to focus on Ashkenazic histories and cultures. However, Sephardic Studies scholars have often been forerunners in connecting Jewish and non-Jewish history, introducing new research questions and applying new methodological approaches from other disciplines to Jewish history and thought. The conference is the first of a series of conferences designed to connect European scholars involved in the study of Sephardic history and culture and to create new networks of scholarly discussion and cooperation.
The conference will start with an evening lecture by Dr. Jessica Roitman (Leiden) on September 24th 2019 and continue with 13 individual presentations and extensive discussions until September 26th at noon. The topics covered will range from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. Geographically, Iberia and the so-called Western and Eastern Sephardic Diasporas will come into view.The detailed program can be found here.
Guests are very welcome. If you are interested, please contact Tanja Zakrzewski (tzakrzew@uni-potsdam.de) by September 16th at the latest.
