Semitic
Philology within European Intellectual History:Constructions of Race,
Religion and Language in Scholarly Practice
19.06.2013-21.06.2013, Berlin
Zukunftsphilologie Konferenz
in Kooperation mit dem Dahlem Humanities Center
Convener
Islam
Dayeh (Zukunftsphilologie/Freie Universität Berlin), Ya'ar
Hever
(Zukunftsphilologie Fellow 2012-2013), Elizabeth Eva
Johnston
(Zukunftsphilologie Fellow 2012-2013) und Markus Messling
(Universität
Potsdam)
Participants
Maurice Olender (EHESS, Paris),
Tuska Benes (The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg), Avi Lifschitz
(University College London/Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
2012/2013), Pascale Rabault-Feuerhahn (CNRS, Paris), Lena Salaymeh (Berkeley
School of Law), Tomoko Masuzawa
(University of Michigan), Céline
Trautmann-Waller (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III), Yair Adiel (Hebrew
University), Tal Hever-Chybowski (Paris/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin),
Netanel Anor (TOPOI Excellence Cluster, FU & HU Berlin) und Daniel
Boyarin (UC Berkeley/Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
2012/2013)
Description
The scientific field of Semitic philology
developed out of European Christian Bible studies, taking its name from the
son of Noah, Shem (Sem). The term Semitic first appears in the 18th century
as a designation for a family of cognate languages including Hebrew,
Aramaic and Arabic, as well as for the peoples who spoke them. The
conceptual leap from language to people, informs ways race and religion
were thought and perceived over the nineteenth century.
Such essentializations have played, and continue to play, a decisive role
in European and world history.
This symposium is inspired by Maurice
Olender's book from 1989 Les langues du Paradis (The Languages of Paradise,
1992), which describes the emergence and development of a discourse dividing
humanity into
Aryans (or Indo-Europeans) and Semites. Gil Anidjar engages
Olender's work in his Semites: Race, Religion, Literature (2008),
interrogating the ways Jews and Arabs, once equally "Semites," became a race
and a religion, respectively, as the "Aryans" disappeared from discourse.
"Semitic Philology within European Intellectual History" aims to
rethink the category "Semitic" and its discursive dynamics. Questions to
be explored include: What from 18th century Bible Studies is maintained
and transformed in and through the field of Semitic philology? In what
ways have peoples identified as "Semites" come to view themselves as
Semitic, and towards what ends? How are Orientalist discourse, Semitic
philology, and Antisemitism entangled? What is the contemporary relevance of
the term
"Semitic"?
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Wednesday,
June 19, 2013
Venue: Freie Universität Berlin, "Rostlaube", Seminarzentrum,
Raum L115,
Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin
18.15 Maurice
Olender (EHESS, Paris) Keynote Lecture
La Fabrique des origines: philologies
européennes entre sciences et religions
The Fabrication of Origins.
European Philology Between Science and Religion
Welcome word: Joachim
Küpper (DHC/FU Berlin)
Introduction by Markus Messling (Universität
Potsdam)
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Main Venue: Forum Transregionale
Studien, c/o Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin,
Villa Jaffé, Wallotstr. 10,
14193 Berlin
10.00 - 10.15 Introduction
Islam Dayeh
(Zukunftsphilologie/Freie Universität Berlin)
10.15 - 11.00 Pascale
Rabault-Feuerhahn (CNRS, Paris)
Reflections on Institutional Categories and
the Location of "Semitic" Studies
11.00 - 11:45 Avi
Lifschitz
(University College London/Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu
Berlin 2012-2013)
J. D. Michaelis among the Semites: From the Ancient
Israelites to Modern Jews
11.45 - 12.00 Coffee Break
12.00 -
12.45 Tuska Benes (The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg)
Race,
Religion, and the Shared Descent of Semitic and Indo-European in the Sacred
Histories of Christian Bunsen (1791-1866)
12.45 - 13.30 Netanel
Anor
(TOPOI Excellence Cluster, Freie Universität Berlin
& Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Joseph Halévy and the Sumerian
Problem: On Race, Language and Culture in 19th- Century Ancient Near East
Studies
13.30 - 14.45 Lunch
14.45 - 15.30 Ya'ar Hever
(Zukunftsphilologie Fellow 2012-2013)
Modern Hebrew: The Uncanny Story of the
Life and Death of an Undead Language
15.30 - 16.15 Yair Adiel (Hebrew
University)
On the Linguistic and Political (Im-)Possibilities of
Language Classification Following Sayed Kashua's Arab Labor
Friday,
June 21, 2013
10.00 - 10.45 Elizabeth Eva Johnston (Zukunftsphilologie
Fellow 2012-2013)
On Distinctions and Similarities across Oriental and
Semitic Studies,
and the Wissenschaft des Judentums
10.45 - 11.30
Tomoko Masuzawa (University of Michigan)
Good Semites: A Fulcrum of
Comparative Religion That Never Was
11.30 - 11.45 Coffee
Break
11.45 - 12.30 Céline Trautmann-Waller (Université Sorbonne
Nouvelle Paris III)
Resisting against the Philological Invention of the
Desert: Ignác Goldziher's Mythology among the Hebrews between the Essence of
Tradition and the Invention of Nations
12.30 - 13.15 Tal
Hever-Chybowski (Paris/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
The Semitic
Component in Yiddish and its Ideological Role in 20th-Century Yiddish
Philology
13.15 - 14.30 Lunch
14.30 - 15.15 Lena Salaymeh
(Berkeley School of Law) What is a "Semitic" Legal Tradition?
15.15 -
16.00 Islam Dayeh (Zukunftsphilologie/Freie Universität Berlin)
Israel
Wolfensohn, Taha Hussain and the Introduction of Semitic Philology in
Cairo
16.00 - 16.15 Coffee Break
16.15 - 17.00 Daniel Boyarin (UC
Berkeley/Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin 2012-2013)
"The
Martyrs of Caesarea": New York, 1944
17:00-17:30 Concluding
Discussion
