Project Overview
Since the Enlightenment, Jews have had a double-relation to political power and the modern state. On the one hand, they have been liberated from tutelage to become minority subjects in liberal states. On the other, they have become sovereigns through participation in those liberal governments and also through the creation of their own state.
The purpose of the two-day symposium is three-fold:
- to explore Jewish perspectives on the central paradoxes and limits of modern liberalism and the nation-state;
- to see what is unique about the Jewish experience of modern politics;
- to find out what this experience has in common with other ways of negotiating the nation-state and the modern world order.
Conference Program
Conference E-Flyer (pdf)
No advance registration required.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
All events at UW Hillel (4745 17th Ave NE) Directions
2-3:15 pm: 1st Panel - Rabbinic Political Thought in the Modern World
Moderator: Bob Stacey (History, University of Washington)
Speaker: Charlotte Fonrobert (Religious Studies, Stanford University) "Replacing the Nation – Judaism, Diaspora and the Neighborhood"
Commentator: Marty Jaffee (Jewish Studies, University of Washington)
3:45 - 5 pm: 2nd Panel - American Jewish Political Experience
Moderator: Susan Glenn (History, University of Washington)
Speaker: Tony Michels (History, University of Wisconsin) "Against Exceptionalism: An Attempt to Revise the Liberal Paradigm in American Jewish History"
Commentator: Sarah Stein (History, University of Washington)
7 pm: Evening Lecture
Opening Remarks: Paul Burstein (Sociology, University of Washington)
Speaker Introduction: Michael Rosenthal (Philosophy, University of Washington)
Speaker: Derek Penslar (Jewish Studies, University of Toronto) "Uniform Identities: Jews and the Military in Modern Europe"
Reception to follow
Monday, February 25, 2008
All events will take place in the Simpson Center for the Humanities, Communications 202 Directions
10 am -12pm: 3rd Panel - Jews and Political Theology
Moderator: Gad Barzilai (Political Science and Law, University of Washington)
Speaker 1: Peter Gordon (History, Harvard University) "The Place of Judaism in the History of Secularization: Reflections on Charles Taylor's 'A Secular Age'"
Speaker 2: Samuel Moyn (History, Columbia University) "Hannah Arendt's Critique of Political Theology (and Was It Jewish?)"
Commentator: Richard Block (Germanics, University of Washington)
2-4 pm: 4th Panel (2-4pm) - Zionism & Contemporary Politics
Moderator: Joel Migdal (International Studies, University of Washington)
Speaker 1: Jeffrey Spinner-Halev (Political Science, University of North Carolina) "Zionism and Post-Zionism in Comparative Perspective"
Speaker 2: Noam Pianko (International Studies, University of Washington) "Breaking the Sovereign Mold: Jewish Nationalism and the Boundaries of Collective Identity in a Global Era"
Commentator: Derek Penslar (Jewish Studies, University of Toronto)
4-5 pm: Open concluding discussion
Events
Conference: February 24-25, 2008
Invited speakers include:
Charlotte Fonrobert
(Religious Studies, Standford University)
Peter Gordon
(History, Harvard University)
Tony Michels
(History, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Samuel Moyn
(History, Columbia University)
Derek Penslar
(Jewish Studies, University of Toronto)
Jeffrey Spinner-Halev
(Political Science, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill)
Conference sponsors include the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Jewish Studies Program, the Departments of Philosophy and Germanics, the Program on Values in Society, the Institute for Transnational Studies, UW Hillel, and the College of Arts and Sciences.
Undergraduate Courses