On the 150th anniversary of the Austro-Hungarian Compromise (1867) and the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolutions (1917), the Jewish Studies Program at Central European University invites proposals for papers to be presented at a workshop on Jewish emancipations in the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires. The workshop will take place in Budapest on June 11-12, 2017.

The workshop aims to showcase ongoing work on Jewish emancipations in Central and Eastern Europe, with a particular focus on multinational empires. The workshop will cover a wide range of topics relating not only to political and legal debates about emancipation, but also  to ways in which emancipated Jews grappled with competing nationalisms and fledgling nation-states. Full legal citizenship promised to open a variety of novel avenues of social and economic development for Jewish communities and individuals, and thus the workshop will attempt to address the consequences of emancipation, as well as the reactions to post-emancipation processes from inside and outside the Jewish communities.  We are particularly interested in papers addressing the interplay between Jewish emancipation in both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and revolutionary Russia. Possible topics might engage with one or more of the following themes:

-          Comparative approaches to emancipation in the two multiethnic empires

-          Emancipation and the imperial gaze: the circulation of ideas of Jewish emancipation

-          Emancipation and nation-building: acculturation, assimilation, and integration in     nation-states

-          Jewish women and emancipation, and Jewish and women’s emancipation movements

-          Discourses of modernity and backwardness in the debates around emancipation

-          The role of space and geography in emancipation

-          Economic, legal, and social aspects of emancipation

-          The impact of emancipation on communal and religious life

-          Jewish cultural self-fashioning in view of emancipation

The papers presented will be published in a conference volume. Limited funding may be available to defray accommodation and travel expenses. Applicants should submit a paper abstract (300 words) and a brief CV to kalmanm@ceu.edu by February 20, 2017.