Though the topic is not quite the specific JHE focus, we are pleased to share this call for proposals for a workshop next April. The deadline for proposals in October 15 — send to polishjewishconference2017@umich.edu
Generations and Genealogies: The 4th Annual Polish Jewish Studies Workshop
Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 2-4, 2017
The aim of the Polish Jewish Studies Initiative and this workshop is to establish an international forum for communication among scholars working in the growing field of Polish Jewish studies; to identify theoretical and methodological developments and new research; and to create a forum for scholars, educators, and activists who rigorously pursue the study of Polish and Jewish cultures more intentionally.
The 2017 workshop will explore key developments and new directions in the field of Polish Jewish studies, focusing on changing approaches to Polish Jewish culture, scholarship and identity under the rubric of “Generations and Genealogies.” Panelists will explore the following questions:
- — How does the concept of generation figure in understanding and interpreting Polish Jewish life as well as Polish Jewish relations? Is it a useful concept to make sense of social change, historical ruptures, and continuities? What does it allow us to uncover, what does it conceal?
- — Are there distinct generations of scholarship in Polish Jewish studies, or more or less coherent genealogies that can be traced?
- — Are there distinct generational identities for Polish Jews? Are the experiences of Polish Jewishness and Jewish Polishness different for 18th, 19th and 20th centuries Polish Jews? For various postwar generations (e.g., generations of Polish Jews who remained in Poland after WWII, versus those who emigrated to the Americas or Israel)? If so, how? How is the hybridity experienced in different social and national contexts?
- — Generations of Narrative: How have Polish Jewish narratives, both communal and literary, and Polish narratives about Jews, changed across generations? How is the narration of pre-war, occupied, and post-war periods in Poland different in the writings of different generations of non-Jewish Poles/Polish Jews/diaspora Polish Jews?
- — Are there distinct generations of memory, or more of less identifiable genealogies of mnemonic cultures? Have the public and private ways to remember the Jewish presence in Poland, commemorate and grieve victims of the Holocaust change with postwar generational change? How?
- — How does the experience of March 1968 for Polish Jews and non-Jewish Poles differ? Where does it fit in the Polish national narrative, and what is its place in the broader context of the 1968 upheavals? How is the legacy of the ’68 generation felt and assessed today in various Polish and Diaspora milieu?
- — Generational attitudes towards Polish Jewish culture. Within Jewish culture and literatures, key elements of Polish Jewish culture – such as Yiddishkayt, Hasidism, Zionism, Socialism and Polishness – have held radically different meanings and significance for different generations: from idealization, to rejection, to nostalgic recuperation. How have the relationships with certain elements of Polish Jewish culture, and their representation in literature, film and scholarship, changed over time?
Confirmed speakers include Adam Michnik, Antony Polonsky, and Agata Tuszyńska.