We are pleased to invite you to the IXth International Conference of the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg.
Online and Potsdam, Germany, November 21–23, 2021
Convenors: Sina Rauschenbach and Susanne Härtel (both University of Potsdam)
The conference will be held in person, pandemic restrictions permitting. External guests are welcome to participate online.
Please register to participate: info@selma-stern-zentrum.de. You will receive access information a week prior to the conference.
The concept of “convivencia” stems from the corpus of scholarship on the medieval Iberian Peninsula, where it is traditionally used to describe cultural and social interactions between the members of the major religious communities resident there. Similar to medieval Spain and after the Iberian expulsions, Christians, Jews and Muslims continued to live together in the Early Modern Mediterranean. In historiography, however, these Mediterranean regions have rarely been viewed through a comparative lens with regard to their religious make-up. Often very global interpretations dominate, perceiving places either as havens of tolerance or sites within an overarching oppression.
In their specific case studies, scholars presenting at the IXth International Conference of the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin-Brandenburg will analyze a variety of contacts between religious communities and individuals in North Africa, in the various provinces of the Ottoman Empire and in different parts of Italy. The conference seeks to investigate in how far the concept of “convivencia” can help us to better understand inter-religious relations in the Early Modern era and to discuss the significance of religious affiliations from comparative perspectives.
Program
All times are local (Central European Time/ GMT+1)
Sunday, November 21
6 pm
Welcome Address & Introduction
Sina Rauschenbach
Convenor, Selma Stern Center
Greetings
Keynote Lecture
David Nirenberg
Deborah R. and Edgar D. Jannotta Distinguished Service Professor
Committee on Social Thought, Department of History, and Divinity School,
The University of Chicago
Convivencia vs. Race: On the Dangers of Extracting Morality from History
Monday, November 22
10:00–10:45 am
PANEL I: MEDITERRANEAN PRELIMINARIES
Chair: Jonathan Hirsch (Potsdam)
Menahem Ben-Sasson (Jerusalem), Sharing Apocalyptical Dreams in Medieval Daniel’s Visions
11:15 am–1:30 pm
PANEL II: OTTOMAN EMPIRE (15th–16th c.)
Chair: Sonja Brentjes (Berlin)
Johannes Niehoff-Panagiotidis (Berlin), From the Byzantines to the Ottomans = From the Romaniotim to the Sephardim?
Dotan Arad (Ramat Gan), Brothers or Enemies? Karaite-Rabbanite Relations in the Ottoman Empire
Susanne Härtel (Berlin/Potsdam), How to Become a Rabbinic Authority of All Jews. Elijah Mizraḥi. (c. 1450–1526) and his Political Agenda under Ottoman Rule
3:30–5:45 pm
PANEL III: OTTOMAN EMPIRE (16th–18th c.)
Chair: Muzaffer Erol (Potsdam)
Marc David Baer (London), Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Early Modern Jewish Views of the Ottomans
Gürer Karagedikli (Ankara), Rumors and Anti-Jewish Sentiments in Ottoman Istanbul in the 17th and 18th Centuries
Baki Tezcan (Davis, CA), Could The Golden Gate of the Languages Remain Open for Non-Christians? Ali Ufki/Wojciech Bobowski and the Limits of Cosmopolitanism in the 17th Century
Tuesday, November 23
10:00 am–12:15 pm
PANEL IV: ITALY
Chair: Davide Liberatoscioli (Potsdam)
Martin Borýsek (Potsdam), “But God Sent My Way One Gentile Who Was Dear to Me” – Reflections on Non-Jews and Their Coexistence with Jews in the Works of Elijah Capsali
Antonino Campagna (Rome), Cooperating through Distrust: Mediterranean Contracts and Trade between Rome and Algiers in the Late 16th Century
Paola Ferruta (Paris), Ethnic-Religious Pluralism and Constructions of Otherness in Habsburg Trieste (1782–1868)
12:30–1:30 pm
ROUND TABLE:
CONVIVENCIA AS A CONCEPT
IBERIA, THE MEDITERRANEAN, AND BEYOND
Chair: Sina Rauschenbach (Berlin/Potsdam)
Participants: Sérgio Costa (Berlin), Carsten Schapkow (Norman, OK), Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Berlin), Susanne Zepp-Zwirner (Berlin)
For program details also see: https://www.selma-stern-zentrum.de/Medien/1Veranstaltungsflyer/2021_10_2...
Dr. Monika Schärtl