Applications are invited to participate in this workshop, to be held in Oxford, at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies in Yarnton Manor, on 16--17 June 2014.
Please submit your application in English, with a short CV and an abstract (not more than 500 words) of a research paper to be discussed in the workshop.
Bursaries to cover travel expenses and accommodation will be availablefor selected participants. Please indicate in your application whether you would like to be considered for a bursary, including an estimate
of your travel expenses.
The workshop will be devoted to discussion of the research papers, which will be circulated to all participants in advance.
Submissions should be sent to the AHRC Project Officer in the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford (josephus@orinst.ox.ac.uk <
mailto:josephus@orinst.ox.ac.uk>), by 26 February 2014. For further
information about participation in the workshop and about bursaries, please contact the Project Officer.
Applicants will be informed of the result of their applications on or before 7 March 2014.
The workshop will be the fourth in a series, as part of a project on the reception of Josephus in Jewish culture from the 18th century to the present.
In this workshop, on the Jewish reception of Josephus in the 20th and 21st centuries, participants are invited to examine the role of Josephus in the wide spectrum of Jewish politics, culture, religious life, scholarship and education from the early twentieth century through the foundation of the State of Israel to the present, raising
questions such as:
- How does Josephus figure in Zionist thought? How did Liberals, Orthodox Jews and Bundists use his works and image in debates about Jewish nationalism?
- What use was made of the writings of Josephus by Jews during the Shoah and in its aftermath?
- What was the role of Josephus' descriptions in interpreting the archaeology and geography of the land in the early years of the State of Israel?
- How has Josephus' work been re-evaluated in the late twentieth century and today in debates about post-Zionist reassessments of the foundation and ideologies of the State of Israel?
- How do Jews in Europe and the United States refer to Josephus in discussing the conditions and meanings of Jewish life in the diaspora?
- How is Josephus depicted in children's literature, educational material, museums and popular culture?
Previous workshops addressed "The Reception of Josephus by Jews and Christians from Late Antiquity to c. 1750" (7--8 January, 2013), "The Jewish Reception of Josephus in the 18th and 19th Centuries in Western Europe" (17--18 June 2013), and "The Jewish Reception of Josephus in the 19th and early 20th Centuries in Central and Eastern Europe" (6-7 January 2014). For more details, please visit:
We plan to publish a selection of the studies discussed at the four workshops in a volume, to share the results of the project and to help to define the agenda for future research.
Martin Goodman, Tessa Rajak, Andrea Schatz
