Call for Papers - Jews and ‘small nations’ in Eastern Europe: cultural autonomy and nation-building in the western borderlands of Russia (1905-1939)

Conference venue: University of Southampton, UK
Period: July 1-2, 2015
Deadline for submitting abstracts: March 1, 2015

The Parkes Institute and the University of Southampton are hosting an international workshop on a particularly understudied area of Jewish/non-Jewish relations in Eastern Europe: the relations between Jews and so-called ‘small nations’. The participants will investigate the contribution of these former ‘peasant nations’ – Belorussia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Estonia – to Jewish history and culture.

This workshop is the first exploratory step of a larger international research project. The aim of the latter will be to question the persisting ‘imperial model’ that underlies much Jewish historiography and has led historians to focus primarily on relations between Jews and only the most dominant social and cultural groups – the Poles and the Russians.  This project aims to scrutinize how the ‘small nations’ and the Jews related to each other before and after the creation of the new nation-states post-1918.

Some possible topics might include:

To apply, please send a short proposal (no more than 300 words) and a CV by the 1st March 2015 to Dr Claire Le Foll c.le-foll@soton.ac.uk .

Accommodation will be provided. Please indicate if you would like to be considered for funding for your travel expenses. Papers will be published in a special issue of Jewish Culture and History.

Claire Le Foll
University of Southampton
tel.:02380597536
e-mail: c.le-foll@soton.ac.uk