Dear colleagues, 
I would like to draw your attention to this cfp for an upcoming (virtual) conference which might be of interest. Please let me know if you have any questions.



Call for Papers
Annual International Conference of the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem
"Natural Jews. New Approaches to (German) Jews in Environmental History"
27/28 January 2021
in cooperation with the Institute for the Moses Mendelssohn Center for European-Jewish
Studies, the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp, the Heinrich Böll
Foundation in Israel, the Wissenschaftliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft des Leo Baeck Institute in
der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

The proposed conference will open a discussion on the history of the Jews in Germany and
Central Europe in relation to nature, landscape and physical environment - in their native
countries and later in the Land of Israel and the State of Israel. We intend to link the study
of Jewish history in Germany and Central Europe and the Jewish emigration from Germany
to the Land of Israel to environmental history and thereby explore new perspectives on
richly debated political, social, religious, economic aspects of the history of Central
European Jewry. Studies in the field of environmental history have revealed fascinating aspects of the
relationship between modern German nationalism, the German state and the environment.
For example, the attitude to water, forest, and landscape as developed in Germany was
shaped by Enlightenment thought and “improvement” politics through romanticism, the
rise of nationalism in the 19th century until the First World War, the Weimar era and the
Nazi regime. Political and cultural forces in Germany needed images of the landscape
(among other things around the establishment and development of the Heimat concept)
and even took an active part in its redesign. As (local) natural history societies as well as
natural history museums and collections were also fundamental institutions in this process,
Jewish membership and participation in these endeavours was widespread but has not yet
gained sufficient attention.
The historiography of German Jews, which recently faced the challenge of the spatial turn
and its impact on the life of the Jews in the era of emancipation as well as in the face of anti-
Semitism and Nazism, has so far mainly dealt with aspects of urban life. The relationship to
nature was mainly adressed in the context of Jewish youth movements and the work of the
Hachsharot activities (agricultural training), but has not yet been widely discussed. The
proposed conference will strive to advance research on the history of the Jews in Germany
in relation to rural spaces and nature and to connect the field of Jewish Studies to
environmental history.
Studies of Zionism have already analysed links to images and practices related to nature and
landscape, but have not yet systematically enganged with environmental history. In a more
focused way, the attitude of Jewish immigrants from Europe in general and from Germany
and Central Europe in particular to the different aspects of nature and landscape in their
new homeland has not yet been fully examined. We intend to develop a discussion of
attitudes to the climate of Israeli land, sea, desert, flora and fauna and other dimensions of
human-nature interactions and to examine their reflection in the world-views and selfconsciousness
of Jewish and German immigrants from Central Europe in the face of
landscape memory and homeland (Heimat) construction.
Because of the current limitations in movement due to the Covid 19 pandemie we plan to
hold this conference online.

Proposals for paper topics should be submitted by July 31, 2020 to [log in to unmask]
Applicants should include a summary of no more than 200 words, a CV not exceeding 150
words in text form, academic affiliation and contact data.
Proposals will be reviewed and selected by a committee. Applicants will be notified by
August.
Organising Committee:
Dr. Irene Aue-Ben-David, Dr. Steffen Hagemann, Dr. Dominik Hünniger, Dr. Sharon Livne,
Prof. Guy Miron, Prof. Miriam Rürup, Prof. Galili Shahar
Contact: [log in to unmask]
Website: www.leobaeck.org


Stay well,
Dominik
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Dominik Huenniger
University of Hamburg
DFG centre for advanced study: "Imaginaria of Force"
Gorch-Fock-Wall 5-7
20354 Hamburg
Phone: +49 (0) 40 42838 - 4988
E-Mail: [log in to unmask] 
https://www.imaginarien-der-kraft.uni-hamburg.de/de.html
https://hcommons.org/members/dhuenniger/

########################################################################

To unsubscribe from the HIST-NAT-HIST list, click the following link:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/WA-JISC.exe?SUBED1=HIST-NAT-HIST&A=1

This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/HIST-NAT-HIST, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/