Call for papers

Conference: Concealed faith or double identity?
"Marranism" in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European-Jewish Studies, Potsdam
in cooperation with the Geschichtsforum Jägerstraße, Berlin
22th and 23th March, 2009 ­ Berlin (Remise in the former banking house of 
the Mendelssohn family)

During the Middle Ages and early modern times in Spain and Portugal, Jewish 
people who
were forced to deny their religion but kept practising in secret were known 
as Marranos.
These “secret Jews” were historically important not only during the 
Inquisition, but also
throughout the 19th century, when they came to offer a projection space for 
German-Jewish
bourgeois self-identification. Actually, the attitude of a number of Jews 
at the time towards
Judaism and their conversion to Christianity remained manifestly ambiguous. 
For this reason,
the so-called “New Christians” can be compared from a sociological 
perspective, according to
Julius H. Schoeps, to the forced baptisms of Jews in Spain during the 15th 
century. The wellknown
Berlin Salons have been seen as an “exclusive meeting place” where 
Conversos met
with each other and also with other members of society. From a wider 
perspective, it can be
noted that during the 19th century a German-Jewish upper class emerged 
consisting of a select
group of families who maintained personal and business contacts amongst 
each other and
tended to inter-marry within their group. A new grouping at the edges or 
outside of the Jewish
community formed itself around David Friedländer and the young Mendelssohns.
Similarly, around 1830 there arose in France a social tier of Jews who 
pursued comparable
marriage policies. As Julius H. Schoeps and Felix Gilbert have pointed out 
concerning the
Mendelssohns in Germany, Phyllis Cohen-Albert describes how an “ethnic 
solidarity” came
about in France amongst others as a result of a tendency towards endogamous 
alliances. Michael
Graetz outlines how this elite of the French-Jewish bourgeoisie stood at 
the edge of Jewish
society in the same way as their German upper-class equivalents. In this 
regard we might speak
of a “form of modern Marranism” which was the crucible for the coming 
together of the “Jews
and the Universal” (Sylvie-Anne Goldberg) in Germany and France in the 19th 
century. In the
second half of the 19th century, historical Marranism (i.e. the 
acculturation of Spanish Jews to the
Christian majority and the assimilation “of a religious system that 
coexisted with a group’s
original Jewish heritage without eclipsing it”, Ariel Segal), abetted by 
the legal and societal
emancipation, offered a great identification potential for Jews. The 
German-Jewish bourgeoisie
saw the Spanish late Middle Ages on the one hand as a “time of cultural and 
scientific
overachievement and confident coexistence with the Christian majority”, 
whereas on the other
hand the “persecution [...] by the Inquisition and their martyrdom for 
their faith [...] was seen as
“part of the history of oppression of the Jewish people” (Florian Krobb).
The Zionist movement had a substantially different view. For example, Max 
Nordau saw
Zionism as the only possible alternative to “new Marranism”, which to him 
was an update of
the Diaspora and thus constituted a further impoverishment of the Jewish 
identity. However,
the Marranos, the “concealed Jew”, remained a figure that exerted a wide 
fascination ­ from
Sigmund Freud through to Jacques Derrida, it became loaded with subversive 
theological and  anthropological aspects. It became, in a way, a projection 
surface ­ a symbol for the Diaspora
and history of Jewish exile. One who saw the Marranos in this way was Fritz 
Heymann, who
in the 1930s described them as a culturally self-contained group. Himself a 
life-long outsider
who was rootless on account of his flight from Germany, in his “Chronicles 
of the Marranos”
Heymann described a typical Jewish existence on the “edge of society”. This 
Dialectic of the
“Untrue true” (Jacques Derrida) stands in clear opposition to the closed 
society, the “Dreams
of Purity” and the integrity that Universalism makes impossible. In this 
way, Edgar Morin has
recently defended the “new Marranos”, who he describes as Jewish-Gentiles. 
These, he says,
are the just heirs of Montaigne and Spinoza. He places them in opposition 
to the “re-Jewified
Jews” who direct their hate towards other nations. Daniel Bensaïd is 
interested in the
“unduplicitous double identity” of the “imaginary Marranos”, a concept on 
which Benny
Levy has also placed particular emphasis in his book “To be a Jew”, 
criticising the French
discourse on Jewish identity. Even if considered as a provocative solution 
to the “Jewish
question” i.e. the “Jewish problem” (Bruno Karsenti), modern Marranism 
remains, in spite of
all attempts that have been made, controversial from a philosophical and 
historicalsociological
perspective.
The planned international Conference will investigate images and concepts 
of Marranism by
discussing how they have been received through history. To that end, 
proposals are solicited
that pose methodological-theoretical questions based on empirical research, 
and that deepen
our historical-sociological characterisation of Marranism, with a 
particular emphasis from the
19th until today. The debate about Marranism as a “typical Jewish 
Existence” should, as far as
possible, make use of concrete examples and place questions in their 
respective historical
context.
Papers might address (but need not to be limited to) one or more of the 
following questions
. What roles have concepts of Marranism played in historical and 
sociological discussions,
how are they helpful and what do we associate with them? How can we better 
define this
concept?
. To what degree does research into Marranism in the 19th century pose new 
questions
about Jewry, offer new methodological approaches and suggest new 
theoretical positions
in the wider study of history and sociology?
. Does study of Marranism deepen our understanding of transnational 
perspectives and
other Identity constructions, as well as our concepts of religiosity and 
laity in the modern
world?
. What relevance do Gender studies have for the questioning of Images, 
Concepts and the
history of Marranism? Have idealized female figures (such as the Berlin 
Salon Women of
the early 19th century or the figure of Esther, who Derrida called the 
first female
Marranos, the archetype) served as Ideal Types of Marranism? And which new 
forms of
Jewish self-understanding and new female and male identities have they 
contributed to
modern life?
. To what degree does Marranism, when seen as a “typical Jewish existence 
on the edge of
society”, offer an opportunity for research into the history of Jewry in 
the 19th century,
most particularly with respect to the controversial “German-Jewish symbiosis”?
. Is it appropriate to play off Nordau’s and Morin’s understandings of “New 
Marranism”
against each other? Or is Marranism a concept, or an experienced condition 
that cannot
be taken for granted but must be investigated, a process through which 
further theoretical
and historical-empirical avenues for research can be opened up?
We are very pleased that Deborah Hertz (University of California, San 
Diego), Florian Krobb
(National University of Ireland, Maynooth) and Julius H. Schoeps (Moses 
Mendelssohn
Zentrum, Potsdam) have already agreed to talk at the conference.

30-minute long papers from all areas of social and cultural sciences are 
invited on issues related
to Marranism. We also welcome proposals for pre-formed panels. Please 
submit your one-page
proposal (2.000 signs max.) by Monday 1th December, 2008 to: 
[log in to unmask], in Word,
WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order: author(s), affiliation, 
email address, title of
abstract, and body of abstract. Papers can be given in either English or 
German. Notification of
acceptance will be sent to authors by the end of December, 2008. We 
acknowledge receipt and
answer to all paper proposals submitted. Authors of selected papers will be 
invited to submit
extended versions for possible publication.

The conference is jointly organised by the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for 
European-Jewish
Studies, Potsdam, the Moses Mendelssohn Foundation Erlangen, and the 
Geschichtsforum
Jägerstraße, Berlin. Accommodation will be provided.
Concept and organisation: Paola Ferruta, Anna-Dorothea Ludewig, Hannah 
Lotte Lund.