Study of Judaism Unit
This Unit welcomes proposals for individual papers, papers sessions, and roundtables dealing with Judaism, Jews, and Jewish studies broadly conceived — from late antiquity to the present, in multiple global settings, and employing various methodologies — that address topics of concern to the broader community of religious studies scholars. Pre-arranged session or panel proposals should represent a diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, and academic rank.
We are open to any proposals related to the study of Judaism, although for 2024, we are particularly interested in the following topics:
- grief, memorialization, and the lachrymose
- Judaism and conceptions of the political
- unruliness, embodiment, and marginality
- the politics of Jewish studies: polemics, positionality, and publics
- Jewish lesbian, feminist, queer, and/or trans theories, theologies, and activism, for a co-sponsored session with the Lesbian-Feminisms and Religion Unit
- religious studies and Jewish economic history in conversation, for a co-sponsored session with the Religion and Economy Unit
The goal of this Unit is to develop and expand the relationship between the study of Judaism and the broader study of religion. We work to meet this goal in three primary ways: • Methodologically • Topically • By cosponsorship with other Program Units. We engage in active conversation with methodologies in the study of religion by exploring the historical, social, aesthetic, political, philosophical, and cultural aspects of Jewish religion in its various contexts.