Conferences
Modernity’s Other: Studies on Jewish Women
February 12-13, 2007
University of Chicago Divinity School
Swift Hall
1025 East 58th Street
Chicago, Illinois, 60637
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Call for Papers
“Modernity’s Other: Studies on Jewish Women”
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: OCTOBER 1, 2006
We invited proposals for papers to be presented on February 12-13, 2007 at the University of Chicago Divinity School (Chicago, IL). This conference aims to address the religious, historical, political changes in the lives of Jewish women ushered in by the onset of modernity. Also, of great interest, are the philosophical and theoretical issues of subject-formation, political theory, and issues in modern religious thought that animate questions of gender, Judaism, and modernity.
We are soliciting papers in two major methodological areas:
The first area includes the cluster of historical questions concerning the changes and continuities in the lives of Jewish women with the onset of modernity. Material changes—physical, intellectual, social, and economic—in women’s lives have ensued, but sustained scholarly treatment of these issues is still lacking. How do Jewish women’s identities, their roles in the family, and their roles in Jewish communities change? How do these changes differ across degrees of religious observance and levels of economic stability? Above all, how do women represent these changes to themselves?
The second area consists of theoretical questions about the status of Jewish women in modernity. Daniel Boyarin, for instance, has argued that the feminized Jewish man has been the occluded “Other” of the modern West. The questions we aim to raise deal with the Other of the Other: the Jewish woman. How does the “othering” of Jewish men along gendered lines render visible or, alternatively, obscure the contributions of women to intellectual history, religious thought, and cultural production? What happens to constructions and valuations of sexual differences and gender roles within the Jewish community when Jewish men must respond to a challenge of their masculinity from the world outside? How has the gendered character of modern anti-Semitism directed at Jewish men affected the religious subjectivity of Jewish women? Lastly, how have these issues shaped the political status (i.e. political agency, representation, earning power, etc.) of Jewish women within the context of the modern political and economic order?
Paul Mendes-Flohr, Professor of Modern Jewish Thought in the Divinity School at The University of Chicago, will give the introductory address. Daniel Boyarin, Professor in the Departments of Near Eastern Studies and Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, will give the keynote address.
Proposals of no more than 750 words should be submitted by October 1, 2007 via email to modernityandjewishwomen@uchicago.edu. Please include your full name, paper title, contact information including email, department affiliation and a brief C.V. We welcome submissions from faculty AND graduate students.
A modest travel stipend and local accommodations will be awarded to accepted
presenters. Applicants accepted will be notified by November 15th, 2006.
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