Call for Papers: „Shared Ritual Practices and Divided Historiography: Media, Phenomena, Topoi“

The Research Centre „Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices in Pluralistic Contexts from Antiquity to the Present“ at the University of Erfurt (Germany) announces its third conference, which will run from June 14 through June 16, 2017, and is entitled „Shared Ritual Practices and Divided Historiography: Media, Phenomena, Topoi“. The conference will focus on widespread, „popular“ ritual practices. We are especially interested in rituals that were not performed at synagogue or at church but in the private or semi-public realm and were not described in official liturgical books (at least not initially). This also includes rituals for which the official ritual practitioners attempted to produce scripts and rules as they realized that such rituals were performed outside of the official realm. In those cases, we are interested in investigating the anxieties that such rituals, which did not conform to established boundaries, produced. The main interest lies in the questions of the sharing of such rituals in the face of boundary work or across institutional boundaries and in its historiographical treatment. In terms of chronology, material from late antiquity and the middle ages will be given primary attention. Again, the focus is on Judaism within larger contexts, in particular polytheistic (Mediterranean, European), Christian (European, American), and monotheistic traditions (Islam in Northern Africa, Asia). The following scholars have already agreed to deliver papers: Sarit Shalev-Eyni, Rivka Ulmer, Sara Offenberg, Karen Stern, Eric Rebillard, Nicola Denzey, Jordan Rosenblum, Claudia Bergmann, Susan Weingarten, Michael Satlow, and Jörg Rüpke.

During the conference, doctoral students are invited to present their research in short lectures. These lectures should be no longer than 15 minutes, they will be followed by about 10 minutes of discussion. Thematically, any topic regarding rituals in Judaism is welcome, but we especially invite presentations on art, inscriptions, cemeteries / tombs, food/meals, and historiography. The language of the conference is English.

If you are a doctoral student and would like to participate in our conference by presenting a short lecture, please contact Claudia Bergmann at claudia.bergmann@uni-erfurt.de. Please send your name, your current position, and a short abstract of no more than one page including your sources and some bibliographical information by January 31, 2017. If you are chosen to present, we will provide for your accommodation in Erfurt and costs in regard to the conference. If need be, we can also offer a contribution to your travel expenses.