application: hkfz@uni-trier.de deadline 28.05.2012 Abstract:

The term ‘conversion’ – when referring to the religious sphere – describes a (not necessarily voluntary) conversion from one faith to another. However, in the case of Jewish history, this definition is not sufficient. Since over the centuries Jewish people have always been in exchange and thereby in “contact zones” with a predominantly non-Jewish majority, forms of conversion also took place in social, economical and cultural spheres, which did not necessarily involve a conversion to Christianity or Islam.

To what extend this was a matter of assimilation, acculturation, or more ambivalent forms of adaptation, offered and still offers a lot of room for discussion. In particular, conceptual ideas and considerations in the Humanities concerning the ambiguity and hybridity of (post-) modernism have influenced the Jewish Studies, so that today the idea of an essentialist Judaism in space and time can no longer be represented. Therefore, the conference’s aim is to look at the diverse changes of location, view and roles that the different forms of Jewish conversion entailed for individuals or whole groups, and to examine how these amalgamations of “old” and “new” locations of the converts are reflected in their respective modes of knowledge and representation.