Call for Proposals

This Section welcomes proposals in any area of Judaism and is especially interested in theoretical and methodological approaches to Judaism and the Jewish textual tradition in the context of the study of religion. Priority will be given to the following topics:

• Rethinking Jewish Orientalism
• Judaism and the American West
• Judaism as Diaspora
• Judaism and media/music
• The Jewish Jesus
• The “Judeo-Christian tradition” revisited
• Judaism and Islam
• Jews and Islamophobia
• Jewish responses to Carl Schmidt
• Giorgio Agaemben, Alain Badiou, or Slavoj Zizek
• Jewish spirituality and new religious movements
• Rethinking uses of “modern” midrash
• The canon of medieval and modern Jewish thought revisited
• Jewish heresy/hetereodoxy
• The Jewish political tradition
• Jews and food

Preorganized panels are welcome.

Mission

The goal of this Section is to develop and expand the relationship between the study of Judaism and the broader study of religion. We work to meet this goal in three primary ways: methodologically, topically, and by cosponsorship with other Program Units. First, this Section engages in active conversation with the methodologies common to the study of religion by exploring the historical, social, aesthetic, and political aspects of Jewish religion in its various contexts. All the while, we challenge methodologies in place at the AAR and offer new approaches to the study of religion through our focus on text study and the engagement between texts/doctrines and other aspects of religious culture. Secondly, we wrestle with topics of concern to the community of religious scholars in general, including community and commitment, gender, and the intersection between religion and politics. Finally, we actively pursue cosponsorship with other AAR Program Units. In the future, we hope to also pursue cosponsorships with Society of Biblical Literature Program Units.

Anonymity of Review Process

Proposer names are visible to Chairs but anonymous to Steering Committee Members.

Questions?

Aryeh Cohen
American Jewish University
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Shaul Magid
Indiana University, Bloomington
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Method of Submission