Here are 2 unrelated items that might be of this or that Jewish Studies interest:
CALL FOR ARTICLES: Images of Mothers in Jewish Culture
Images of Mothers in Jewish Culture will be a new volume in a book series on Jewish Cultural Studies. It will be edited by, Jane Kanarek, Assistant Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, Hebrew College, USA, Marjorie Lehman, Associate Professor of Talmud and Rabbinics, The Jewish Theological Seminary, USA and Simon J. Bronner, Distinguished University Professor, The Pennsylvania State University, USA.
Publisher: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, Oxford, UK
Proposal Deadline: October 15, 2013 (all proposals should be sent to: malehman@jtsa.edu<mailto:malehman@jtsa.edu>)
Article Deadline: October 15, 2014
Mothers and motherhood are a central location through which rabbis, legists, authors, editors, artists, architects, poets, and song writers have constructed and reflected on Jewish culture. In the fifth volume of the Jewish Cultural Studies series, we aim for mothers and images of mothers to achieve a more prominent analytical place in the narration of Jewishness. We seek articles that will treat the various identities of mothers as well as the array of cultural and social patterns that characterizations of them reflect. We also welcome explorations of mothers as producers and reproducers, that is, as subjects of their experience. Articles will locate mothers, motherhood, and/or mothering in a societal context organized by gender, commenting on how these images interact with and/or contest prevailing gender belief systems. We seek to disentangle motherhood from idealized notions of the Jewish family and instead to utilize mothers and motherhood as a central window into Jewish culture. Contributors might consider questions such as: To what extent is motherhood viewed as a powerful identity? How is maternal power perceived? What is the relationship between mothers and patriarchal constructs? When and why are mothers represented as figures working within particular socio-cultural contexts and when and why are they characterized as inhabiting a space outside of these realms? What complexities do they introduce to our understanding of Jewish culture and identity? What ideas and issues do depictions of mothers bring to the fore? We welcome interdisciplinary work drawing from an array of time periods and fields including literature, folklore studies, anthropology, sociology, religion and cultural history.
Those interested are invited to send the editors via email a proposal of approximately 700 words as well as a brief bio and description of how this article fits into their overall scholarly agenda. Notification of the acceptance of proposals will be made by November 10th, 2013. Authors of accepted proposals will be asked to contribute 8,000-word articles in English by October 15, 2014. Articles will be peer-reviewed by an international editorial board. Please email all inquiries to: jkanarek@hebrewcollege.edu, malehman@jtsa.edu, and sbronner@psu.edu. Seewww.littman.co.uk/jcs/ for more information regarding the series and past volumes.
Call For Papers: Jewish Studies as Philosophy: Beyond Historicism and Sociology?
2014 Cambridge Conference in Modern Jewish Thought
Cambridge University, 23rd to 25th March 2014
We are delighted to invite paper proposals for the 2014 Cambridge
Conference in Modern Jewish Thought to be held on 23rd-25th March 2013
at Cambridge University.
The conference aims to facilitate and promote discussion in the field
of modern Jewish thought, stimulating scholarship in the UK academy
and bringing it into conversation with academics from around the
world.
The majority of scholarly studies of Judaism and Jews in the modern
period (c. 1650 to the present) have tended to downplay the lasting
intellectual significance and potential philosophical relevance of the
Jewish religious tradition through their employment of historicist or
sociological methods. Is this narrower focus merely an accidental
consequence of dominant scholarly methods, or is it representative of
an underlying attitude towards the broader scope and relevance of
Judaism and Jewish thought? Must the field of ‘Jewish Studies’ be
confined to such realms, or can one approach the field through a focus
on philosophical and theological elements? Is there a role for ‘Jewish
philosophy’ or ‘Jewish theology’ in the academy? Can classical Jewish
texts and liturgy present distinctive or innovative directions for
contemporary philosophical reflection? Are there past thinkers whose
reflections on Judaism and the Jewish tradition can be seen as
engaging with the broader philosophical thought of their time? Can
such thinkers contribute to present-day intellectual and scholarly
debates? We welcome papers from the fields of modern Jewish
philosophy, theology and intellectual history seeking to confront such
questions. Given the conference’s goal of stimulating intellectual
engagement with modern Jewish thought in the UK, we also welcome
papers which address these questions in the context of the UK academy,
whether through a focus on specific British thinkers or reflections
upon the role of ‘Jewish Studies’ in British faculties of philosophy,
history and theology.
Participants will be invited to present their work as part of themed
panels, followed by questions and discussion with Cambridge students,
academics and fellow conference attendees. Funding is available for
subsidising speakers’ accommodation and travel. Depending on numbers,
accommodation arrangements will also be made available for other
conference attendees.
In addition to established scholars, we also welcome submissions from
doctoral students.
Abstracts of 500-750 words are requested by the 22nd November 2013,
with accepted papers to follow in full by 3rd March 2014. Please
submit abstracts, along with a brief academic C.V, to David Pruwer at
dp431@cam.ac.uk. Any further queries may be sent to the same address.
Those wishing to attend the conference without presenting a paper
should write to the above address with their name and institutional
affiliation by 3rd March 2014.
Please visitwww.modernjewishthought.group.cam.ac.uk for further
information about speakers and details.
Conference Committee:
–Dr Daniel Weiss, Polonsky-Coexist Lecturer in Jewish Studies, Faculty
of Divinity, University of Cambridge
–David Pruwer, Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of History, University of Cambridge
–Rabbi Reuven Leigh, Director, Cambridge Lehrhaus: Centre for Jewish Thought
