EAUH Main Session “Jewish Migrations and their Effect on Modern Urban Cultures”

At the edge of modernity, the mobility of people characterized metropolises. The migrational flow of Jewish protagonists and groups across continents in the 19th and 20th centuries shaped local neighborhoods and larger urban structures, reformulating both the urban social framework and Jewish identities. Interactional spaces between Jewish migrants and local, urban populations evolved, expressing multifarious cultural articulations.
The ’spatial turn’ has explored the Jewish relationship with urban milieus for some twenty years, enriching Jewish and urban studies with examples of the multifarious aspects of Jewish/non-Jewish relations in different metropolitan structures; the uniqueness of local settings, the increasing multiplicity of Jewishness, and Jewish influence on urban culture. But how were these complex links between Jewish migration groups and local, urban settings negotiated? This panel aims to present the newest findings within this area, in order to discuss the dynamics between Jewish migration and its effect on urban environments.
What happened to concrete constructions, public spaces, and social, multicultural milieus when Jews - and their ideas, material culture, languages, and rituals - arrived? How did their migrational experience influence local settings, and what role did migration play in their relationship to metropolises and their populations?
We encourage the submission of papers that consider Jewish presence in metropolitan settings across the globe in the 19th and 20th centuries on the range of themes, such as:
- Patterns of Jewish emigration and immigration, and the subsequent settlement in urban neighborhoods and/or construction of architectural structures;
- The mobility of material objects, religious and cultural practices or political ideas, and their incorporation, adaption, contestation or development into new urban settings and social constellations;
- The representation of migrational experience in cities through cultural practices and rituals in public spaces;
- The dynamics of the relationship between Jews and non-Jews, between both different migrant groups, and arriving and settled groups.
Proposals, including an abstract (max 350 words) and an academic biography (max 200 words) must be submitted through the EAUH website by October 1, 2019:
https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/eauh2020/papers/ (choose main session M-MIG-2 “Jewish Migrations and their Effect on Modern Urban Cultures”: cfp, main session, number M-Mig-2)
Notification of paper acceptance: December 1, 2019.
Deadline for full text submissions: May 1, 2020.