Place and Displacement in Jewish History and Memory

An international and interdisciplinary conference
organised and hosted by
Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research
University of Cape Town, in association with the
AHRC Parkes Centre for the Study of Jewish/ non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton

3-5 January 2005

The original call for papers:

The Kaplan Centre and the AHRC Parkes Centre are please to announce an international and interdisciplinary conference exploring the connections between location and migration in the formation of Jewish identity, memory and their role in Jewish history. The conference will mark a continuation and extension of the highly successful conference on Port Jews held in Cape Town in January 2003 and the first Port Jews symposium convened at Southampton University in 2001.

The third conference in this series intends to range far beyond the experience of Jewish communities in cosmopolitan maritime trading centres, embarking on comparative studies between different migratory and diasporic groups. It will have a special focus on the role of place in the construction of identity amongst immigrants and the interaction between migration, place and memory in the formation of ethnic identities. Building on prior research into the specificity of port cities and cognate locations, conference sessions will explore the significance of loci such as river and lake port cities, frontier towns, and areas of first settlement (the East End, Lower East Side, Pletzl, District 6) in the formation of local Jewish and ethnic identities and the memory (or forgetting) of origins.

It is intended that the conference will bring together Jewish historians, researchers in urban history, geographers, and cultural historians in an attempt to define the role of place and displacement in the Jewish experience. The conference organisers welcome proposals for papers based on original research or theoretical explorations on these themes from all relevant disciplines. Papers will be selected by the organisers on the basis of what they deem to be the originality and quality of the research as well as its relevance and proximity to the themes.

The conference will form an important component of the activities of the AHRC Parkes Centre for the Study of Jewish/ non-Jewish Relations at the University of Southampton and the Kaplan Centre’s Migration and Genealogy Centre.

The conference will take place on 3-5 January 2003 at the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Professor David Cesarani (University of Southampton)
Professor Tony Kushner (University of Southampton)
Professor Milton Shain (University of Cape Town)