"A Mediterranean Society? Jews and the Mediterranean from the Middle Ages to the Present" - An International Conference

Department: Jewish Studies

Date and Time: April 3, 2016 | 10:00 AM-6:00 PM

Event Location: HG 1010

Event Details


The first day of the conference, held at UCI, will include: 

10:15-12:15 | The Theoretical Mediterranean Chair: Cavan Concannon (USC)
Jonathan Ray (Georgetown) Pluralism vs. the Melting Pot: Mediterraneanism and the Study of Jewish History
Marina Rustow (Princeton) Mediterraneanism, from Peristiany to Horden and Purcell: The Geniza Retorts
Jonathan Decter (Brandeis) Mediterranean Regionalism in Hebrew Panegyric: Three Poems by Judah Halevi

1:30-3:30 | The Early Modern Mediterranean Chair: Ian Coller (UC Irvine)
Andrew Berns (University of South Carolina) Botanical Knowledge, Agricultural Practice, and Sartorial Propriety in Late Medieval Mediterranean Jewish Culture
Corey Tazzara (Scripps College) Maintaining Religious Boundaries in Italy during the Age of Free Trade, 1550-1750
Evelyne Oliel-Grausz (Université Paris 1) Livorno, the Mediterranean, and Beyond: The Court of the Massari and Transnational Disputes in the 18th Century

4:00-6:00 | Pre-Modern Trade Chair: Ra’anan Boustan (UCLA)
Jessica Goldberg (UCLA) The Mediterranean, the Cairo Geniza, and the Commercial Revolution
Daniel Hershenzon (University of Connecticut, Storrs) Captivating Redeemers: Jews and Ransom in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean
Francesca Bregoli (Queens College) “Your Mother is Three-Quarters Dead Because of You:” Kinship, Business, and Jewish Identity in a Trans-Mediterranean Household

Another conference will be held on Monday, April 4th, 2016 at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles in Doheny Memorial Library 241. Please click on this event for the full schedule. 

MONDAY, April 4, 2016 University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Doheny Memorial Library 241

9:00-11:00 | Commerce and Citizenship in the Modern Mediterranean Chair: Claudia Moatti (USC / Université Paris 8)
Sarah Abrevaya Stein (UCLA) Extraterritorial Dreams: Mediterranean Jews, Citizenship, and the Calamitous Twentieth Century
Constanze Kolbe (Indiana University) Jewish Trade Conflict Resolution in the Nineteenth Century Adriatic: The Role of Commercial Institutions and Extra- Legal Mechanisms
Devi Mays (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) A Guide to the Interwar Jewish Mediterranean? Travel, Transportation, Trade, Tariffs, Le Guide Sam and the Shaping of an Interwar Diaspora

11:15-1:15 | The Colonial and Post-Colonial Mediterranean Chair: Aomar Boum (UCLA)
Paris Papamichos Chronakis (University of Illinois at Chicago) Navigating Dark Waters? Greek Antisemitism in Mediterranean Perspective
Joshua Schreier (Vassar College) Mediterranean History and “Provincializing” the French Empire
Naomi Davidson (University of Ottawa) Synagogue into Mosque? Claiming Religious Places in Postcolonial Algeria, c. 1965-1975