Transforming Jewish Studies: Changes, Challenges, Paths for the Future. The Center for Jewish History at 20.

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

The field of Jewish Studies experienced numerous transitions over the past 20 years: embracing transnational and transdisciplinary methodologies; illuminating the absent voices with post-colonial, gender, and queer perspectives. New caches of sources, and the rise of digital humanities, have affected both scholarship and institutions. The growing importance of public scholarship broadened understandings of academic community.

We will discuss these transitions in the context of independent research institutions, such as the Center of Jewish History — established to house 5 Jewish archives and to support research. What is the role of these institutions in the changing environment of the discipline? How can they serve as a space for experimentation and new research? What challenges and opportunities present the field of digital humanities for the archives? What are possible directions in which they could support Jewish Studies?

The speakers are scholars representing diverse disciplines and scholarly interests, who at a certain point found their intellectual home with the Center for Jewish History.

Elissa Bemporad (Queens College), a fellow in 2005-06 and the NEH Senior Scholar in 2015-16, resulting in Legacy of Blood: Jews, Pogroms and Ritual Murder in the Lands of the Soviets (Oxford, 2019). Since 2017 she co-leads Scholars Working Groups in Gender and Womens’ Studies at the Center. Anita Norich (University of Michigan), the NEH Senior Scholar in 2018-19, studied unknown novels by Yiddish female writers, contradicting the status quo in the field. Adam Teller (Brown University), the NEH Senior Scholar in 2012-13, he worked on the first transnational study: Rescue the Surviving Souls: The Great Jewish Refugee Crisis of the Seventeenth Century (Princeton, 2020). Joshua Karlip (Yeshiva University), a fellow at the Center in 2005-06; the Head of the Fellowships Committee of the Academic Advisory Council at the Center.
The moderator: Beth Wenger (University of Pennsylvania), a scholar of American Jewish history, deeply engaged in public history, and author of numerous publications, she serves as Chair of the Academic Advisory Council at the Center.

Sub Unit

• AJS

Moderator

• Beth S. Wenger, University of Pennsylvania

Discussants

• Elissa Bemporad, Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY

• Adam Teller, Brown University

• Joshua M. Karlip, Yeshiva University

• Anita Norich, Anita Norich