Speakers: Bryan Cheyette, University of Reading; Derek J. Penslar, University of Oxford; and the University of Toronto; Gideon Rueveni, Centre for German Jewish Studies, University of Sussex; Yonatan Sagiv, Israel Institute, SOAS Centre for Jewish Studies, University of London; Adam Sutcliffe, Kings College London, Nadia Valman, Queen Mary, University of London
Date: 9 June 2015
Time: 11am – 5.30pm
Venue: Council Room, Birkbeck, University of London. Bloomsbury, WC1E 7HX, Torrington Square main entrance
Academic workshop: For scholars and research students. Please register here.
The workshop’s emphasis is on modern writing about Jews, money and economy. It aims to provide a forum for presenting and analysing the most recent critical and theoretical approaches for understanding self-representations of Jewish economic activity in modern Diaspora and the Land of Israel. The workshop will explore, among other topics: the varied textual constructions of the relationship between Jews and modern economics; Jewish writing on economy as a response to European dominant stereotypes on Jews and money, especially the double image of Jews as “conspiring bankers” or “degenerate paupers”; the participation, appropriation and subversion of antisemitic and philosemitic economic discourses by Jewish and early Israeli writers; and capitalist and socialist debates in the Zionist movement. In this vein, the workshop aims to trace the crucial role money and economy played in shaping modern Jewish and Israeli identities.
The organisers are grateful to the Israel Institute for its financial support.