The project examines for the first time in a comparative way aspects of gender history regarding nation building in Italy and Germany.
A particular focus will be on the relationship between Jewish emancipation and women’s emancipation, which has been rather neglected in relevant research, the protagonists of the women’s emancipation movements, as well as the interconnection between nation, family, and female identities.
The period in question is the “long” Nineteenth Century, while the main focus will be on the years between 1848 and the First World War.
The network of scholars has an international and interdisciplinary character, combining history of gender, family and discourse with biographical research, sociological and pedagogical methods. The research team integrates deliberately Jewish history into general history, in order to further exchange between projects that are still rather distanced from each other.
Insights into the relationship between national identities and transnational influences are to be gained by examining women’s and family networks, as well as the international orientation of the German and the Italian women’s emancipation movements.
The concrete objective of the network is the organization of an international conference at the German Historical Institute in Rome in autumn 2015, and the publication of the contributions in an edited volume in English. A concluding workshop will take place in April 2016 in Munich.
We are seeking three more members for the working group that will fully participate in our activities and meetings in Munich and Rome between December 2014 and November 2016.
We invite applications from doctoral students as well as researchers on a post-doctoral level with a focus on history, Jewish studies, sociology, or educational science. Papers should engage with one or several of the following themes, considering the particular focus on Italy and Germany in a European context:
- Gender and nation/ Family and nation in the “long” 19th Century
- Women’s emancipation movements until 1918
- Women and the First World War
- Transnational networks between Jewish and non-Jewish women
- Antisemitism in national/ transnational women’s networks and organizations
- Relationships between catholic, protestant and/or Jewish women
- Jewish as well as non-Jewish family histories and family biographies in the “long” Nineteenth Century
- Biographies of female activists
- Transfer of educational theories and institutions (Fröbel, Montessori ecc.)
The first workshop will be hosted by the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in association with the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Instituts, and convened by Ruth Nattermann (LMU Munich, Department of 19th and 20th Century European History) and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (TU Berlin, Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung).
The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 14 November 2014, and all applicants will be contacted by 31 December 2014.
Submissions should include the name and institutional affiliation of the applicant, a CV, and an abstract for a proposed individual project/ paper of no more than 300 words.
All abstracts and any preliminary enquiries should be addressed Dr Ruth Nattermann at:
Ruth.Nattermann@lmu.de