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Postgraduate workshop 'Reflections on Insiders and Outsiders'

with Steven Aschheim

Thursday 3 November, 10:00 - 12:00, IAS Seminar Room, 1st floor, Millburn House

(followed by lunch in the Millburn House Foyer)

This workshop is aimed at postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers in a variety of disciplines, working on issues connected to the constructions of diasporic and minority identities, processes of assimilation and self-assertion, belonging/non-belonging, centre/periphery, cultural hybridity, and the formation of stereotypes and patterns of exclusion along the lines of ethnicity and culture. The workshop aims to give participants the opportunity to discuss questions arising either from their own research or from their reading of the suggested article by Steven Aschheim (below), and to explore different theoretical frameworks and methodologies.

Numbers will have to be limited - if you are interested in attending, please contact Sofia Mercader, S dot Mercader at warwick dot ac dot uk, as soon as possible, at the latest by 27 October. Please also briefly indicate the topic of your research or send us a short abstract.

We would ask participants interested in discussing issues arising from their own work to prepare a brief (5min!) presentation of your research with a focus on the issues outlined above, and of methodological, theoretical and other challenges you are facing and would like to discuss.

Optional reading: Participants might find it useful to read the short text 'Reflections on Insiders and Outsiders' by Steven Aschheim (in: At the Edges of Liberalism: Junctions of European, German, and Jewish History, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, pp. 145-155), available for download here. With reference to modern Jewish history, this text raises questions regarding the relation of insider and outsider, the problems of identity and assimilation, particularity and universality, and the reconfiguration of these categories in the development of modern society. Participants working on the history of other groups might also find it a productive starting point to raise more general questions, or to think about the degree to which their own research reflects similar issues or, on the contrary, calls for different categories and approaches.