2018 Biennial Scholar's Conference on American Jewish History

PLEASE NOTE: YOUR AJHS ACADEMIC COUNCIL MEMBERSHIP MUST BE UP TO DATE TO ATTEND THIS CONFERENCE. IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY PAID YOUR MEMBERSHIP DUES, PLEASE SELECT THE RELEVANT LEVEL OF MEMBERSHIP IN ADDITION TO YOUR CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEES. THANK YOU.

The 2018 Biennial Scholars’ Conference on American Jewish History offers an occasion to reflect on the state of our field. Which narratives, temporal frameworks, and spatial boundaries serve as its controlling paradigms? How and why have these paradigms experienced fracture, disruption, or revision? And, finally, which paradigms deserve to be abandoned? We seek nothing less than a critical rethinking of our field. We invite scholars to enter into debate as they engage in meaningful and respectful ways with the terms of the field of American Jewish Studies and the new paradigms that might guide it into its next several decades. In these efforts, we particularly seek contributions from scholars engaged in transnational research and those who study non-American Jewish communities, as well as scholars working in a variety of disciplines.

Our own moment, which has seen the rise of antisemitism in the United States, the fracturing of American Jewish support for Israel, and new attention to the diversity of Jewish practices and peoples at home and abroad, compels us to reconsider many of the basic concepts that have guided the study of American Jewish history, religion, politics, and culture. As fields of study mature, they often grow beyond the models and paradigms that once defined them. Over the past four decades, the methods, questions, and sources guiding the study of American Jews have changed vastly, even as many of the central narratives about American Jews and their history have shifted only gradually.

For more information on this conference and AJHS' Academic Council, please visit our website at https://ajhsacademiccouncil.org/.