Call for Papers
Remapping Yiddishlands: Global Yiddish Culture in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Kaplan Center, University of Cape Town
In cooperation with Monash University and the University of Toronto
26-28 May 2025
The past 120 years witnessed mass migrations of Yiddish speakers, as well as tremendous cultural creativity alongside decline and dislocation wrought by mass violence. The diasporic “Yiddishland” has shifted its centers, and firmly moved from mostly Euro-centric in the mid-19th century into all five continents. As part of an ongoing process of revisioning, remapping, and diversifying the idea of Yiddishland, this workshop asks scholars to think outside of national borders in conceptualizing Yiddish as a transnational culture.
The focus will be on how Yiddish speakers, writers, performers, and idealogues have grappled with the shifting centres of Yiddishland over the last century. We invite studies that explore marginalized regions and topics and access underexplored resources as the basis for new narratives about Yiddish migration and innovation. We are particularly interested in papers that move beyond the New York-Warsaw-Moscow axis, explore Yiddish culture as a transnational or comparative phenomenon, and investigate the interconnections of Latin America, South Africa, and Australia with broader Yiddishland.
Submissions should relate to at least one of the following thematic areas:
Yiddish Diaspora/Cultural Networks/Travel Literature
Communism/Anti-communism/Zionism/Anti-Zionism
Migration/Refugees/Race/Colonialism
Memory/Violence/Trauma
Archives/Sources
The workshop will enable us to collectively hone our thinking and provide space for comparison between contexts. In order to facilitate discussion, we expect contributors to share a 3,000-4,000-word draft chapter with the other participants by May 1, 2025. Instead of traditional presentations, each author will briefly introduce their chapter for discussion.
Based on this feedback, and perspectives provided by the workshop as a whole, presenters will then revise and complete chapters for an edited volume to be published in Brill’s IJS Studies in Judaica series. Final drafts of 8,000-10,000-words will be due 15 December 2025.
The Kaplan Centre will cover accommodation and most meals during the workshop. We expect to provide graduate students with travel stipends.
The conference will include panels, round-table discussion, and visits to local cultural sites.
Proposals, including a 500-word abstract and a 2-page cv, should be sent to kc@uct.ac.za by September 15, 2024. Notifications will be available by November 2024.
Co-organizers:
Adam Mendelsohn, Cape Town University
Shirli Gilbert, University College London
Rebecca Margolis, Monash University
Eliyana Adler, Binghamton University
Anna Shternshis, University of Toronto