Graduate Student Workshop in Modern Jewish History

October 11-13, 2015

 

Deborah Dash Moore, University of Michigan

Marion Kaplan, New York University

 

Jewish History in Context: National, Transnational and Comparative Perspectives

 

The Center for Jewish History together with the American Jewish Historical Society, the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, and New York University’s Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies announce a graduate student workshop in Modern European and American Jewish history to be held in New York City at the Center for Jewish History from 2:00pm on October 11 through 5:00pm on October 13. Designed to bring together graduate students invested in both modern Jewish history and its contexts, the workshop will encourage productive conversations across geographical boundaries among students of North and South America and Europe, including the broader Ashkenazi and Sephardi experiences. The workshop aims to interrogate ideas of “normative” and “exceptional” in modern Jewish history. Themes of migration, interaction with diverse non-Jewish societies and cultures, and comparative history will provide a focus for sessions devoted to dissertation writing.

 

The workshop’s larger goal seeks to give graduate students a forum in which to consider their work within the growing field of modern Jewish history through discussion of a pre-circulated dissertation chapter and to explore issues of pedagogy and professionalization with the purpose of creating an intellectual community. The theme of the workshop looks at how Jewish societies negotiated their internal dynamics in conversation with the transformations within the geographical borders – the nations and societies -- in which they lived, or in reaction to these changes or as innovators who helped to bring change to their societies.

 

ELIGIBILITY: Graduate students who have achieved candidacy and will have a dissertation chapter ready to pre-circulate by early fall 2015. A stipend of $500 and meals will be provided. Students must provide their own transportation and accommodations. Requests for funds to assist with transportation costs will be considered.

 

APPLICATION:

  • A 3-5 page dissertation prospectus that demonstrates how the dissertation fits in the historiography of modern Jewish history in the context of the societies in which the topic is located
  • CV
  • A brief description of career goals (250 words)
  • One recommendation letter from an advisor sent separately to slynneck@umich.edu (heading should indicate Recommendation)

 

DEADLINE:May 15, 2015.

Please email all materials as pdfs to slynneck@umich.edu.

Students will be notified of decision by JULY 1, 2015.