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Scholars will converge on Dartmouth Feb. 15 through 18 to take part in
Transnational Migrations of Identity: Jews, Muslims and the Modernity Debate.
Convened by Susannah
Heschel, Eli M. Black Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and associate
professor of religion, the meeting concludes a series of four conferences
supported by a 2005 Ford Foundation
grant earmarked to improve relations between the fields of Jewish studies
and Islamic studies.
Susannah Heschel (Photo by Joseph Mehling '69)
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This gathering will pay particular attention to Europe and the United
States, Heschel notes, presenting an opportunity to consider how studying the
Jewish experience in Europe prior to World War II might illuminate the current
situation of Muslims who have immigrated to Europe in recent decades.
All of the conference sessions are open to the public. The keynote lecture,
"Can the Experience of Diaspora Judaism Serve as a Model for Islam in
Today's Multicultural Europe?" will be given by Sander Gilman on Thursday,
Feb. 15 at 4 p.m. in 2 Rockefeller. Gilman, distinguished professor of liberal
arts and sciences at Emory University, is a renowned scholar of German-Jewish
culture who has published ground-breaking books on Freud, Franz Kafka, Jewish
self-hatred, and anti-Semitism. His most recent book is Multiculturalism
and the Jews (2006). Gilman will be joined in the conference's first
session by Jamal Malik, professor of Islamic studies at the University of
Erfurt, Germany, speaking on "Transnational Migrations of Sufism:
Constructions of Muslims' Identities in the West."
Gilman's and Malik's remarks, Heschel expects, "will set a tone for the
event, and pose the principal questions for the conference. But all the
speakers are eminent, and everyone involved is anticipating hearing their
presentations, and the subsequent discussions." Other speakers hail from
the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, representing a range of
disciplines including literature, political theory, anthropology, and
history.
Kenneth Yalowitz, director of the Dickey Center, notes, "These
conferences have brought important speakers to Dartmouth's campus, and have
been very illuminating for students, the College, and the community, provoking
thought and discussion on relationships among Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
That's an issue right at the very top of the list of concerns for citizens of
the world."
Conference co-sponsors include the Office of the Provost,
the Leslie Center for the
Humanities, the Department of German,
the William P. and Dewilda N. Harris German/Dartmouth Distinguished Visiting
Professorship, the Jewish
Studies Program, and the John Sloan Dickey Center for International
Understanding. For more information call 646-8172.
By KELLY SEAMAN
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