An international conference organised by the Department of Historical Sciences, University of Fribourg and the Leo Baeck Institute London.

You can download the leaflet here.

Over the last decades, debates on how to deal with the «other» have raised new research questions and resulted in new theoretical assumptions. The emergence and consolidation of right-wing populism all over Europe has given rise to discussions about xenophobia and (neo)racism. In the aftermath of the «Second Intifada», Western societies had to face the question whether harsh criticism of Israel showed tendencies of a «new» antisemitism. There is also a revitalisation of antisemitism in the Arab World and among Muslim communities in Europe. 9/11 and subsequent reactions have intensified debates whether the perception of Islam and Muslims has taken specific forms which can be circumscribed as «islamophobia».

These patterns of exclusion use a generalizing, negatively connoted representation of the «other». They have to be seen against the shifts that have taken place in racist discourse, where the category of «race» has been replaced by «culture» or «ethnic group» following the end of National Socialism, and the reconfiguration of antisemitism, which has found its expression in new topics such as how we deal with the Holocaust or the existence of the State of Israel. Islamophobia contains elements of traditional representations of the «East» / Orientalism as well as contemporary conspiracy fears and xenophobia.

The goal of the international conference is to compare the phenomena of racism, antisemitism, and islamophobia. It will work out the differences of those patterns like the different cultural and political legacies they draw on, and the partial similarities, seen for instance in debates about Jewish and Muslim cemeteries or dietary laws.

Programme

Monday, 16 May 2011

6.00 pm
Welcoming Address
Guido Vergauwen (Rector of the University of Fribourg)
Damir Skenderovic (University of Fribourg)
Christina Späti (University of Fribourg)
Daniel Wildmann (Leo Baeck Institute London)

Keynote
Micha Brumlik (University of Frankfurt)
The Unique Nature of Antisemitism and the Moral Weight Inherent in its Singularity

Tuesday, 17 May 2011

Panel I: 9.30 – 11.30 am
Concepts of Racism, Antisemitism and Islamophobia
Chair: Daniel Wildmann (Leo Baeck Institute London)
David Theo Goldberg (University of California, Irvine)
Sander L. Gilman (Emory University, Atlanta)
Nasar Meer (University of Northumbria, Newcastle)
Discussant: Shulamit Volkov (Tel Aviv University)

Panel II: 1.30 – 3.30 pm
Orientalism, Colonialism and Antisemitism before World War II
Chair: Oliver Krüger (University of Fribourg)
Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch (University of Paris 7)
Nicolas Berg (Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig)
Mary Roberts (University of Sydney)
Discussant: Reinhard Schulze (University of Bern)

Panel III: 4.00 – 6.00 pm
Antisemitism, Neo-Racism and Islamophobia in Post-War Europe
Chair: Christina Späti (University of Fribourg)
John Solomos (City University London)
Omar Kamil (Simon Dubnow Institute, Leipzig)
Brian Klug (University of Oxford)
Maleiha Malik (King’s College, University of London)
Discussant: Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (Institute for German-Jewish History, Hamburg)

Wednesday, 18 May 2011

Panel IV: 9.30 – 11.30 am
Space and Exclusion: Doing Borders
Chair: Anne-Françoise Praz (University of Fribourg)
Michael Keith (University of Oxford)
Hanno Loewy (Jewish Museum Hohenems)
Farid Hafez (University of Vienna)
Discussant: Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka (University of Bielefeld)

Panel V: 1.30 – 3.30 pm
Popular Culture and Exclusion: Literature, Film and Music
Chair: Damir Skenderovic (University of Fribourg)
Anoop Nayak (Newcastle University)
Eva Lezzi (New York University, Berlin)
Carrie Tarr (Kingston University, London)
Discussant: Liliane Weissberg (University of Pennsylvania)

Roundtable: 4.00 – 6.00 pm
Politicisation of the Other: Current Debates
Chair: Daniel Binswanger (Paris / Zurich)
Rifa’at Lenzin (Zurich)
Antony Lerman (London)
Marcel Niggli (University of Fribourg)
Alexandra Senfft (Hamburg)

6.00 – 6.30 pm
Closing remarks
Peter Pulzer (University of Oxford)

Please see also: http://lettres.unifr.ch/de/hist/gmzg/conference-exclusion.html

A Conference organised by the Leo Baeck Institute London.

This conference will discuss ideas of German-Jewish scholars and scientists who were forced to leave Germany in the 1930s and settled in the UK. The central questions are

What was the impact of the British context on these individuals?
What impact did these thinkers have on British intellectual life?
What impact did they have on German academia after World War II?

The conference is held at the Woburn House Conference Centre, 20 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9H.

Admission is free, but please contact the Leo Baeck Institute London (t: +44 (0)20 7580 3493 or email ) in advance to book a place.

Programme

9:30am     INTRODUCTORY WORDS – Prof. Raphael Gross (Leo Baeck Institute, London/Jewish Museum, Frankfurt)

9:40am     German Emigrée Philosophers in Great Britain – Dr Hans-Joachim Dahms (University of Vienna)

10:30am   Jacob Bernays: Non-Emigrant, German Orthodox Jew, Philologist-Philosopher, and British Academia – Prof. Ulrich Allstadt-Schmitz (Bonn)

11:20am   COFFEE BREAK

11:35am   Political Theory in Exile: Cassirer and Adorno – Dr Edward Skidelsky (University of Exeter)

12:25pm   From Ostrava and Prague to Cambridge and Bristol: Stephan Koerner and his Philosophy of Science – Prof. Helmut Pulte (Ruhr University, Bochum)

1:15pm   LUNCH

3:00pm   Leo Strauss in England – Prof. Michael Zank (University of Boston)

3:50pm   Michael Polanyi on Scientific Authority, and his Criticism of Russell and Popper – Prof. Ute Deichmann (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva/ Leo Baeck Institute, London)

4:40pm   COFFEE BREAK

4:55pm   The Cambridge Realgymnasium and the London Freischule. Historical and Philosophical Remarks on Gerd Buchdahl and Karl Popper – Ulrich Charpa (Leo Baeck Institute, London/ Ruhr University, Bochum)

5:45pm   FINAL DISCUSSION

You can download the brochure here.

This international conference aims to make a major contribution to the study of nationalism and anti-Semitism in an English-language and German context between 1871 and 1945. The event will be a major step forward in encouraging interdisciplinary exchange between scholars working in the fields of discourse analysis, political science and historiography. The conference will also provide an opportunity to found an international Historical Discourse Working Group. This interdisciplinary study network will continue to meet regularly after the conference.

Keynote Speakers: Prof. Ruth Wodak (Lancaster University) and Prof. Andreas Musolff (University of East Anglia).

Conference Co-ordinators: Professor Felicity Rash, Dr Geraldine Horan, Dr Daniel Wildmann and Dr Stefan Baumgarten, in association with the Leo Baeck Institute (London) and the Centre for Anglo-German Cultural Relations (Queen Mary, University of London).

Contact Info:

Dr Stefan Baumgarten
Queen Mary, University of London
School of Languages, Linguistics and Film
327 Mile End Road, London E1 4NS
Tel.: 0044-(0)20-7882-5284
Mobile: 0044-(0)7506-120815
s.baumgarten@qmul.ac.uk

http://www.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/research/nationalismproject/conference/index.html

Programme

Wednesday, a.m. – 10th November 2010

9:30: REGISTRATION & REFRESHMENTS (ARTS FOYER)

10:00: WELCOMING ADDRESS (ARTS LECTURE THEATRE):
Professor Felicity Rash; Dr Daniel Wildmann

SESSION 1

10:30: Jan Vermeiren (University College London): Germania Irredenta: The Place of Großdeutschland in Weimar Nationalism

11:00: Helen Roche (University of Cambridge): “In Sparta fühlte ich mich wie in einer deutschen Stadt” (Goebbels): The Leaders of the Third Reich and the Spartan Nationalist Paradigm

11:30: Stefanie Schrader (Freie Universität Berlin): “German, Völkisch and Free” – The Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei and the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic

12:00: Simone Borgstede (Universität Lüneburg): Dr. Ernst Henrici – Just a “Well-known Arsonist” of the German Kaiserreich or Foreman in the Production of an Aryan Volksgemeinschaft?

SESSION 2:

10:30: Christopher König (University of Kampen, Netherlands): Arthur Bonus: A Religious Author between Liberal Protestantism and Radical Nationalism

11:00: Daniel Siemens (Universität Bielefeld): Religious Ideas and Nationalistic Propaganda: The War Sermons of Ludwig Wessel and German Political Culture 1914-1934

11:30: Isabelle Engelhardt (Universität Düsseldorf): A Political Catholic View: Discourses on “the Jew Question” and “Deutschtum” in the Daily Paper Germania 1918-1933

12:00: Diana Jane Beech (University of Cambridge): Landesbischöfe Marahrens, Meiser and Wurm and the Impact of the Judenfrage on the German Protestant Church

12:30 LUNCH (OWN ARRANGEMENTS)

Wednesday, p.m. – 10th November 2010

SESSION 3:

1:30: Stefan Hüpping (Universität Osnabrück): “An Issue of Antisemitism” – Adolf Bartels vs. Friedrich v. Oppeln-Bronikowski

2:00: Matthew Fitzpatrick (Flinders University, Australia): A Jewish Question? The Expulsion of Non-Germans from Prussia, 1881-1886

2:30: Brian Crim (Lynchburg College, Virginia): The Case for “Situational Antisemitism”: Antisemitic Discourse and the German Paramilitary Community, 1919-1933

3:00: Anja Lobenstein-Reichmann (Universität Trier): Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Hitler’s Chief Ideologue, Alfred Rosenberg: Two Cornerstones of the Racial Discourse of the 20th Century

SESSION 4:

1:30: Lara Day (University of Edinburgh): Writing German Identity on the Landscape: Paul Schultze-Naumburg’s Die Entstellung unseres Landes

2:00: Tracey Reimann-Dawe (Durham University): Anglo-German Tensions on African Soil and the Rise of German Nationalism during the German Colonial Era

2:30: Elaine Martin (National University of Ireland Maynooth): “Colonial Fantasies” in Interwar German Literature

3:00: Tamara Gella (Orel State University, Russia): National and Colonial Ideas in English Liberals’ Political Discourse of the Late 19th Century

3:30: COFFEE / TEA

SESSION 5:

4:00: Nicolas Bechter (Universität Wien): Anti-Semitism and Romantic Anti-Capitalism in the Austrian Parliament between 1870-1914

4:30: Christine Achinger (University of Warwick) & Marcel Stoetzler (The University of Manchester): The Convergence of ‘Civic’ and ‘Ethnic’ Nationalism in Liberal Antisemitism: The Cases of Freytag and Treitschke

5:00: Michael Carter-Sinclair (King’s College London): Antisemitism and German Nationalism in Vienna: The Long Period to 1938

5:30: Christopher Hutton (The University of Hong Kong): Race Theory as a Critique of Nationalism in the Context of European Anti-Semitism

SESSION 6:

4:00: Jens-Uwe Guettel (The Pennsylvania State University): “How Petty do the Romans’ Creations Appear Compared to the Global Achievements of the Anglo-Saxons”: England in German Nationalist and Expansionist Discourse, 1871-1914

4:30: Mara Degnan-Rojeski (Dickinson College, Pennsylvania): From Nationalism to National Socialism: The English-language Propaganda of the Deutscher Fichte Bund

5:00: Grzegorz Krzywiec (Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland): On the Term ‘Judaization (Verjudung/Zażydzenie)’ in Political Catholicism. Some Cases of East Central European Elective Affinities

5:30: Lisa Konietzni (Universität Düsseldorf): The Linguistically Reflexive Discussion of the CV-Zeitung about Anti-Semitic Stereotypes, Metaphors and Compounds

6:30: KEYNOTE ADDRESS (ARTS LECTURE THEATRE): RUTH WODAK (LANCASTER UNIVERSITY): The Discourse of Syncretic Antisemitism: “Anything Goes!”

8:00: CONFERENCE DINNER

Thursday, a.m. – 11th November 2010

SESSION 7:

9:00:Christian Koller (Bangor University): The Concept of ‘Fremdherrschaft’ in German Nationalist and Anti-Semitic Discourses, 1871-1945

9:30: Lisa Zwicker (Indiana University): Student Antisemites: The Union of German Students [Verein deutscher Studenten], 1880-1914

10:00: Ulrich Charpa (Universität Bochum): Music and Science. On Some Similarities between Antisemitic Discourses in German-speaking Contexts

10:30: Stephanie Seul (Universität Bremen): Discourses of the British Press on German Anti-Semitism in the Early Weimar Republic, 1918-1923

SESSION 8:

9:00: Jonas Karlsson (Yale University): The Struggle for Victimhood: The Case of Bernhard Förster

9:30: Falco Pfalzgraf (Queen Mary): Juden, Neger und Zigeuner. Minority Groups in German Fibeln 1933-1945

10:00: Katharina Barbe (Northern Illinois University): Puzzles as Text and Discourse

10:30: Nicola Hille (Universität Tübingen): “Greetings from Marienbad”: Anti-Semitic Postcards in the Kaiserreich

11:00: COFFEE / TEA

11:30: KEYNOTE ADDRESS (ARTS LECTURE THEATRE): ANDREAS MUSOLFF (UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA): How to Identify the Enemy of the German Body Politic: Carl Schmitt’s Nationalist “Concept of the Political”

12:30: LUNCH (OWN ARRANGEMENTS)

Thursday, p.m. – 11th November 2010

SESSION 9:

1:30: Lara Trubowitz (The University of Iowa): Wyndham Lewis and the Artfulness of Antisemitism, or Redefining British Tolerance in an Era of Refugees

2:00: David Lebovitch Dahl (University of Copenhagen): Varieties of Nationalist Antisemitism in Germany and England: A Comparison between the Discourses of the Jesuit Journals Stimmen der Zeit and The Month 1918-1939

2:30: Ulrike Ehret (Universität Erlangen): The Crux with Modernity: The Nationalism and Antisemitism of the Catholic Right in Germany and England

3:00: Magnus Brechtken (The University of Nottingham): English-German Anti-Semitism and the Idea of ‘Compulsory Segregation’

SESSION 10:

1:30: Egbert Klautke (University College London): Wilhelm Wundt and the Mind of the Nation during the First World War

2:00: Felix Wiedemann (Freie Universität Berlin): The Double Orient: Jews and Arabs in the Racial Theory of Ludwig Ferdinand Clauß

2:30: Karin Stögner (Central European University, Budapest): On Antisemitism and Nationalism at the Fin de Siècle: Walter Benjamin’s Critique of German Youth Movement

3:00: Ana Petrov (University of Belgrade): Being German, Being ‘More Rationalized’: The Case of Max Weber’s Concept of Rationalization in Music

3:30: COFFEE / TEA

SESSION 11:

4:00: Daniel Tilles (Royal Holloway, University of London): “Jewish Decay Against British Revolution”: The British Union of Fascists’ Antisemitic Discourse in the Context of Fascist and British Nationalist Thought

4:30: Russell Wallis (Royal Holloway, University of London): Memory and Nationalism on the British Left: The Good and Bad German Controversy in Britain

SESSION 12:

4:00: Martin Weidinger (Universität Wien): Fridericus, Bismarck and Cromwell: Historical Narratives as Part of a Nationalist Project?

4:30: Birte Förster (Technische Universität Darmstadt): Inventing their Tradition – Right-wing Female Leaders and the Queen Louise-Myth, 1923-1936

from 5:00: CLOSING REMARKS & WINE RECEPTION (ARTS FOYER)

International Conference organised by the German Historical Institute London and the Leo Baeck Institute London

Countless objects owned by Jews were illegally appropriated in Germany between 1933 and 1945: houses, businesses, paintings, furniture, tablecloths, bric-a-brac. Some of these items were returned to their previous owners after 1945, not always voluntarily, but many were not.
These objects are connected with emotions. But what were the emotional associations for the original Jewish owners on the one hand, and for the Aryanisers, buyers and their heirs on the other?
Emotions are linked to cultural values and moral principles. Feelings of shame and enjoyment, for instance, are both the result of learning processes that take place within a specific social, cultural and political context. Which values were associated with the appropriated objects by dispossessed Jews and by their new owners, and which kind of idea of morality and value did the heirs of the latter attach to them, knowing that these objects had been in their family’s possession only since the Nazis had come to power? What do these values and emotions tell us about the way the National Socialist past was dealt with both emotionally and materially?
This conference will investigate these questions emphasising in particular recent findings about how, in their private sphere, Germans tackled the questions of morality and emotions in relation to the appropriated and inherited possessions of the Nazi era.
The conference approaches these questions from two different angles: from the perspective of the objects, reconstructing their history, theft and eventual return or non-return; and by studying the emotions linked with such objects from the Nazi era.
Scholars from the UK, USA, Germany and the Netherlands will take part in this conference.

For futher information please contact Anita Bellamy or call 020 7309 2023.

Programme

Monday, 26 July

2.00 – 2.20pm Opening:
Prof Andreas Gestrich (GHI London/ Universität Trier)

Dr Daniel Wildmann (LBI London/ Queen Mary, University of London)

2.30 – 3.30pm Author’s Reading:
Chair: Dr Daniel Wildmann (LBI London/ Queen Mary, University of London)

Gila Lustiger (Paris): The Paper Weight

3.45 – 5.15pm Panel 1:
Chair: Dr Kerstin Brückweh (GHI London)

Dr Hanno Loewy (Jüdisches Museum Hohenems): Diasporic Home or
Homelessness? The Museum and the Never Ending Story of Lost and Found.

Dr Cathy Gelbin (University of Manchester): Broken Ties: Accounts of lost objects in Jewish survivor narratives

5.30 – 7.00pm Documentary:
Chair: Dr Judith Keilbach (Utrecht University)

Die Akte Joel – Die Geschichte zweier Familien (Austria, 2001-German version)

Tuesday, 27 July

9.30 – 11.00am Panel 2:
Chair: Prof Jane Caplan (St. Anthony´s College, Oxford)

Inka Bertz (Jüdisches Museum Berlin): Property: Notions and Emotions

Dr Jürgen Lillteicher (Willy-Brandt-Haus Lübeck): Aryanization, Morality and the Reputation of a Good Merchant. Business Ethics before and after 1945

11.30am – 1.00pm Panel 3
Chair: Prof Andreas Gestrich (GHI London/ Universität Trier)

PD Dr Sabine Wienker-Piepho (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena): “The Rabbi’s Desk” – Narratives about a Jewish Object in German Hands

Dr Anthony Kauders (Keele University): The Emotional Geography of a Lost Space: Germany as an Object of Hatred and Desire after 1945

2.30 – 4.00pm Panel 4:

Chair: Prof Ute Frevert (FU Berlin/ Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin)

Prof Norman Palmer CBE QC (King’s College London/ 3 Stone Buildings): Emblems and Heirlooms: Restitution, Reparation and the Subjective Value of Chattels: a Lawyer’s Perspective

Dr Hilde Schramm (Berlin): “Zurückgeben” – a foundation to support cultural projects of Jewish women in Germany

4.30 – 6.00pm Panel 5:

Chair: Prof Raphael Gross (LBI London/Fritz Bauer Institut/ Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt)

Prof Atina Grossmann (The Cooper Union, New York): Family Files: The Hotel Astoria and other (non) Restitution Stories

Prof Leora Auslander (University of Chicago): The lives of things: Some unexpected consequences of restitution processes

6.10 – 6.30pm Closing Remarks: Prof Peter Pulzer (LBI London/ All Soul’s College, Oxford)

Centre for the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations

A CJCR Seminar in cooperation with the Hebrew & Jewish Studies Department, the Department of German, and the Centre for European Studies at UCL, and the Leo Baeck Institute (London)
Lars Fischer (Academic Director, CJCR):
Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft, and “the Jews” in Early Marx
Marcel Stoetzler (Visiting Fellow, CJCR):
Antisemitism, Capitalism and the Formation of Sociological Theory
Eva-Maria Ziege (Visiting Fellow, CJCR):
Labour, Late Capitalism, and Social Theory. The Frankfurt School on the “Jewish Question”
Friday, 4 June 2010, 13.30–16.30 – UCL Department of German, Room 101
17 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0AT (entrance at the back of the building)

Contact: Lars Fischer, lf309@cam.ac.uk