Ever since the seminal 2005 volume Connected Worlds - History in Transnational Perspective co-edited by Ann Curthoys and Marilyn Lake brought transnational approaches to Australian history into focus, a growing scholarship has examined the ways in which the past and its representations are shaped through processes and relationships across national borders. Jewish historical scholarship has traditionally been alive to these approaches with mobilities, diaspora, travel, memory and mobilities as key themes (Kahn and Mendelsohn 2014). Despite this, as Sarah Green (2008) and others remind us, borders are processes; acts of imagination as well as objects that perform in myriad ways to try and halt the movement of people, things and ideas. This conference seeks to explore what new ways of approaching Jewish histories might be developed through the intersection between transnational histories and border studies. How have borders interrupted the transnational flow of people, things and ideas? How have material and imaginative borders been overcome? In what ways can thinking with and across borders shed new light on the people and process of the past? How have the complexities of these transnational histories been told and represented through film, photography, testimony, literature and in galleries, archives, and museums?
We invite proposals for papers relating to current research in this broad area.
Proposals for special sessions (roundtables, film screenings or discussions of new book releases will also be considered).
Outstanding papers on other Judaic related topics will be considered, but preference will be given to those bearing directly on the conference theme.
Papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. Deadline for proposals is September 18, 2021. Submissions should include an abstract of no more than 250 words, and a short biographical note, no longer than 50 words and sent to: steven.cooke@deakin.edu.au
We encourage postgraduate students to apply. After the conference, presenters are also invited to submit written articles for consideration for publication in the Australian Journal of Jewish Studies. Presenters at the conference must be current AAJS members for 2021 (membership can be paid as part of the conference registration fee).
Further details about the conference can be found at: http://www.aajs.org.au/next-conference/
Supported by the Contemporary Histories Research Group at Deakin University.
Convenors:
Associate Professor Steven Cooke (Deakin University), Dr Donna-Lee Frieze (Deakin University), Dr Anna Hirsh (Jewish Holocaust Centre, Melbourne)
Dr. Steven Cooke
steven.cooke@deakin.edu.au