[Mendele] Mendele Personal Notices and Announcements--Conference: Thinking Europe in Yiddish, June 4–6 2018

[Josh Price]

Mendele Personal Notices and Announcements

Date: May 18, 2018

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From: Marion Aptroot <aptroot at phil.hhu.de>
Date: May 3, 2018
Conference: Thinking Europe in Yiddish, June 4–6 2018

International Conference, Haus der Universität, Dusseldorf, 4–6 June 2018

In contrast to most national cultures in Europe, modern Yiddish culture
came into being in geographically disconnected landscapes and without the
support of a nation state. Despite many differences, this culture
maintained its unity throughout disparate majority cultures and beyond the
borders of nation states.

Internationally acknowledged scholars will explore different blueprints of
a European culture conceived by Yiddish speaking intellectuals and artists
between 1890 and 1939. The geographically fragmented cultural space and the
idea of “Yiddishland”, the linguistic and the ideological connections of
this transnational community will be sketched and the question how Yiddish
visions of “culture” and “nation” compare to other programs and utopias of
the period will be addressed.

The Jewish Renaissance in Europe emerged in close contact with the reigning
cultures, especially those of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary. The
polyglot Jewish Europeans understood Yiddish culture to be transcultural:
beyond a conflict between their own and other cultures. They were engaged
in favor of a transnational vision of a “culture nation without a state”
and at the same time took part in different European social, political and
cultural movements. Increasingly nationalistic and anti-Semitic majority
cultures predominantly dismissed and rejected the contribution of the
Yiddish-speaking community.

The conference draws attention to the cultural forms of expression
of“Yiddish Europe”. It is intended to suggest considering the Yiddish
concepts as an integral part of the European history of ideas and to enrich
the image of Europe shaped by the historical canon with a little known but
significant narrative.

Organisation: Marion Aptroot, Efrat Gal-Ed (Yiddish Studies, Institute for
Jewish Studies) and Andrea von Hülsen-Esch (Institute for Art History),
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

Contact: jiddisch(at)hhu.de


June 4, 2018

09:30 Welcome and Opening Remarks

09:45 – 10:45 Keynote
David E. Fishman (Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York): How
Yiddish Became a European Culture

11:15 – 12:45 Early Concepts and Visions
François Guesnet (University College London): Places and Spaces of Eastern
European Jewish Identity – the Impact of the 19th Century
Kenneth B. Moss (Johns Hopkins University): Europeans, Israelites,
Indigenes, or African-Americans: the Yiddish Intelligentsia, the European
Horizon, and Other Horizons Good and Bad, 1900–1939

14:30 – 16:00 Concepts in Literature
Marc Caplan (Yale University): Y. L. Peretz, Beyond a Boundary: Warsaw as
Border Between ‘Shtetl’ and ‘Europe’
Sabine Koller (Universität Regensburg): Dovid Hofshteyn’s Early Poetry
Between Yidishkayt and Eyropeishkayt

18:00 – 19:00 Exhibition (Goethe Museum)
Opening of the Exhibition “Jüdische Künstler in jiddischen Büchern und
Zeitschriften. Russische Künstler aus der Sammlung LS des Van Abbemuseum,
Eindhoven”
Reception

19:00 Public Lecture (Goethe Museum)
Efrat Gal-Ed (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf): Jiddischland –
Verheißung einer Zugehörigkeit
June 5, 2018

09:30 – 11:00 The First World War and Its Aftermath
Samuel Kassow (Trinity College, Hartford): Yiddish Europe from a Vilna
Perspective, 1915–1921
Karolina Szymaniak (Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw): Debates on Poland
and Europe in Yiddish Literary Discourse in the Interwar Period

11:30 – 12:30 Keynote
Mikhail Krutikov (University of Michigan at Ann Arbor): Reading Europe in
Yiddish: A Literary History of Space

14:00 – 15:30 Avant-Garde Movements
Andrea von Hülsen-Esch (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf): The Impact
of Transnational Yiddish Culture on Jankel Adler’s Artistic Expression and
His Struggle for Jewish Art in the Rhineland
Inna Goudz (Düsseldorf): Kultur-lige – Jewish Art between Zionism and
Yiddishism

16:00 – 17:30 Yiddish Periodicals
Joanna Nalewajko-Kulikov (Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw): The Interwar
Yiddish Press: A Pan-European Network?
Aleksandra Geller (Rehovot): Literarishe bleter – Mapping an Intellectual
Community

19:30 Concert
Zwischentöne – Poetry and Songs from Yiddishland

Bavat Marom (mezzo-soprano)
Eyal Bat (piano)

June 6, 2018

09:30 – 11:00 On the Eve of the Second World War
Nick Underwood (University of Colorado Boulder): The Kultur-lige, the
World’s Fair, and the Making of Yiddish Paris
Gennady Estraikh (New York University): The Controversies of the 1937
Yiddish Congress in Paris

11:30 – 13:00
Marion Aptroot (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf): Reflections on the
Conference
Discussion: Gennady Estraikh, Andrea von Hülsen-Esch, Mikhail Krutikov,
Kenneth B. Moss

Venues:
- Haus der Universität, Schadowplatz 14, 40212 Düsseldorf
- Goethe Museum Düsseldorf, Schloss Jägerhof, Jacobistraße 2, 40211
Düsseldorf (Monday evening)

The conference, the exhibition and the concert were made possible through
the generous support of Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), Heinrich Heine University, Gesellschaft von
Freunden und Förderern der HHU Düsseldorf, Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven,
Goethe Museum Düsseldorf, Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, NRW
Kultursekretariat, Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes
Nordrhein-Westfalen.