Early Modern Workshop: Resources in Jewish History

EARLY MODERN WORKSHOP: Jewish History Resources

History of Emotions/Emotions in History, Fordham University, New York, August, 23-24, 2016

The 2016 Early Modern Workshop on “History of Emotions/Emotions in History” was held at Fordham University.

Alongside earlier “turns” such as the linguistic and the cultural, an “emotional turn” has provided historians with a fresh perspective to consider the past. Emotion structures human experience. But emotions are shaped by languages of expression that can have ramifications for human thought and behavior. Historians pursuing research about emotions tend to follow one of two tacks: either to explore emotions as an object of inquiry in its own right (did people in the past “feel” differently than we do today?) or to use emotions as a category of analysis, examining the ways in which a vocabulary of emotions was used to establish political communities and hierarchies, social order, and legal regimes. This summer’s early modern workshop aims to extend that line of inquiry into early modern Jewish history. We invite scholars to consider the impact of “thinking with emotions” on the study of texts and practices relating to Jewish life in the early modern period in Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. How useful are emotions as a way of considering Jewish cultural and social life as it is shared with neighbors? How can emotions offer a consideration of Jewish “difference?” In what way do emotions infiltrate intellectual life and cultural creativity? How does emotional language subtly but significantly shape legal and political regimes?

The 2016 EMW was co-sponsored by:

• American Academy of Jewish Research,
• Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University,
• Center for Jewish Studies at CUNY-Graduate Center,
• Jewish Studies at Fordham University, and
• Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at the UNC-Chapel Hill.

Members of the 2016 organizing committee:
Francesca Bregoli, CUNY, Queens College, and Graduate Center
Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University
Debra Glasberg, Columbia University
Joshua Teplitsky, SUNY Stony Brook
Magda Teter, Fordham University