CFP: Writing Semitic

CFP: Writing Semitic: Scripts, Documents, Languages in Historical Context - Munich 10/14

Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Committee of Semitic Philology; International Society for Arabic Papyrology; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies

07.10.2014-10.10.2014, Munich
Deadline: 31.08.2014

During the last years, Arabic papyrology has started to contribute significantly to Arabic and Islamic studies: we now dispose of a number high standard editions of documents; scholars working on the Islamic
World up to the 16th century counterbalance literary tradition with documentary evidence; and cooperation with Demotic, Greek, and Coptic papyrology has steadily improved.

The thematic framework of the "Sixth International Society for Arabic Papyrology (ISAP) Conference" in 2014 will be somewhat wider. We intend to bring together scholars using documentary evidence for the history of the Early Islamic world (including Arabic, Coptic, and Greek papyri, inscriptions and coins) with scholars working on Semitic languages and writing systems in general. About one third of the contributions will be devoted to this wider perspective.

The Sixth ISAP Conference will be hosted by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (http://www.badw.de) and be organized by the Academy's Committee of Semitic Philology, ISAP, and the Munich Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies. The conference will start on the morning of Tuesday, October 7, 2014, and continue through the afternoon of Friday, October 10, 2014. The programme will include 20-minute lectures, evening lectures, and a poster exhibition of current PhD projects, as well as a visit of the Bavarian State Library with its holdings in Oriental manuscripts (and Sabaic wood sticks). Optional visits will include the newly reopened Egyptian Museum and the State Museum for Ethnology. Conference languages will be English, German, French and Arabic. However, all lectures will be given in English.

Giving a lecture and/or presenting a poster: -

Participation with no lecture: Please send a notice of intent to participate to Dr. Kathrin Müller (pap@semphil.badw.de) no later then end of August, 2014. There will be no conference fee charged. Yet,
participants will be asked, on spot, to be or become members of ISAP. Information on membership can be found on the ISAP website (http://www.naher-osten.lmu.de/isap).

Travel Subsidies: It is hoped that the Conference will be able to offer a few awards for scholars not able to get institutional subventions for travel to Munich. Please let us know as soon as possible whether you will be in need for such sponsoring.

Conference Organizers: If you have any further questions about the Conference, please contact Dr. Kathrin Müller (pap@semphil.badw.de), Professor Andreas Kaplony (andreas.kaplony@lmu.de) or Dr. Daniel
Potthast (daniel.potthast@lmu.de).

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Kathrin Müller

Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Kommission für Semitische Philologie
Alfons-Goppel-Strasse 11, 80539 München
pap@semphil.badw.de
Homepage http://www.naher-osten.lmu.de/isap/isap_conference_2014

Semitic Philology within European Intellectual History

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