New Beginnings Summer School

The Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp, the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School for the Advanced Study in the Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania announce a summer program for graduate students in Jewish studies.

Description

THE THEME NEW BEGINNINGS will bring together scholars and students from various fields and disciplines within Jewish Studies to reflect on beginnings and new beginnings as they relate to Jewish studies, including the study of history, politics, thought and culture.

Graduate students at any institution worldwide, in any subfield of Jewish studies, past or present, are eligible to apply. The summer school will take place the week before the EAJS Congress that will be held in Frankfurt – less than a four hour train ride from Antwerp.

Program

The week will investigate how Jews and Judaism conceptualized, experienced, imagined, celebrated, but also warded off the possibilities and limitations, promises and dangers of beginning anew. We will explore conceptual questions (What is a beginning? What is a new beginning? How do beginnings relate to ends?), historical questions (the effort to create new beginnings through and in the aftermath of migration and revolution), normative questions (when are new beginnings legitimate, or even required?), legal questions (how does the law, secular and religious, relate to starting afresh?), cultural questions (the effects of technical innovation such as the invention of print), and familial/personal expressions (conversion, birth, new beginnings as a literary and artistic theme).

The week will also give participants an opportunity to think about the beginnings of their own scholarly careers with professionalization sessions and opportunities for dissertating students to share research.

Remarks

Target group
Graduate students at any institution worldwide, in any subfield of Jewish studies, past or present, are eligible to apply.

ECTS credits
Successful completion of the summer school can be awarded with 3 credits according the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS).
All certificates of completion are issued as a micro-credential.