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

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Schedule
2016
Tuesday, August 23rd
12:00 AM

EMW 2016: History of Emotions/Emotions in History

Fordham University

Fordham University

12:00 AM - 12:00 AM

10:30 AM

Keynote: Must We Divide History into Periods? An Answer from the History of Emotions

Barbara Rosenwein

Fordham University

10:30 AM - 12:00 PM

1:00 PM

Emotions and Preaching

Sara Lipton, SUNY Stony Brook

Fordham University

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

2:00 PM

Emotions in the Margins: Reading Toledot Yeshu after the Affective Turn

Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Fordham University

Fordham University

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

3:30 PM

Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav's Teachings on Melancholy and Joy

Lawrence Fine, Mount Holyoke College

Fordham University

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM

4:30 PM

For the Love of God: Spiritual Purpose and Mastering Emotions in the Pietistic Writings of Moses Hayim Luzzatt

David Sclar, Princeton University

Fordham University

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM

5:45 PM

A Short History of Horror: Early Modern Jews and their Monsters

Iris Idelson-Shein, Goethe University, Frankfurt

Fordham University

5:45 PM - 6:45 PM

Wednesday, August 24th
10:00 AM

“For we Jews are merciful”: Emotions and Communal Identity

Elisheva Carlebach, Columbia University

Fordham University

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

11:00 AM

The Quality of Mercy Strained--regret and repentance in early modern law

David Myers, Fordham University

Fordham University

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

1:00 PM

Fear in the Archive: Police Dossiers and the History of Emotions in Old Regime France

Jeffrey Freedman, Yeshiva University

Fordham University

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

2:00 PM

Half-Friends and Whole Friends: Telling Emotional Stories in Yiddish

Ruth von Bernuth

Fordham University

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM

3:30 PM

Emotions and Business in a Trans-Mediterranean Jewish Household

Francesca Bregoli, Queens College of the City University of New York

Fordham University

3:30 PM - 4:30 PM