Governing Religion, Mobilizing Faith: Religion and Mass Politics in the Late Russian Empire
Co-sponsored by the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at NYU.
The one-day conference brings together cutting-edge scholarship and revision. It focuses on the last years of the Empire and a variety of confessions, as religion and confession were recast as modern law, modern government, and modern mass politics. Alongside the notorious and the reprehensible events were signs that religion, too, could be recast as a modern form belonging in a modern state and a modern mass movement. The 100 year anniversary of the Beilis trial is perhaps the most notorious single example of the persecution of a minority. One panel gathers together new scholarly work on the case and considers many of the known and less-known events and reactions it inspired. A second panel considers some of the compelling revisionist scholarship that reassesses the integration of confessional groups into the administration of the Empire, looking at a variety of religions. And a third panel addresses religion as one version among many of mass politics and mass mobilization.
To attend the conference, please complete the registration form.
Schedule
October 18, 2013
Opening Reception
King Juan Carlos Center Atrium
53 Washington Square South, First Floor
(between Thompson and Sullivan Street)
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM EST
Conference Sessions
Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies
50 Washington Square South, First Floor
(entrance on Sullivan Street)
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM EST
Panel I | The Beilis Case (1913)
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM EST
Yanni Kotsonis (NYU), moderator
Gennady Estraikh (NYU)
“The Beilis Trial on the Pages of the New York Yiddish Daily Forverts.”
Nadieszda Kizenko (SUNY Albany)
"Blood accusation in Orthodox Christianity in the Russian Empire Before and After the Beilis Case."
Robert Weinberg (Swarthmore)
"Connecting the Dots: Jewish Mysticism, Ritual Murder, and the Trial of Mendel Beilis."
Hillel Kieval (Washington University in St. Louis), discussant
Panel II | Confession and Government
11:15 AM - 1:15 PM EST
David Engel (NYU), moderator
Ellie Schainker (Emory)
"The Politics of Religious Intimidation: Conversion and Jewish Violence in Late-Imperial Russia."
Karen Weber (NYU)
"Private Practice: Lutheran Apostates after 1905."
Robert Crews (Stanford)
"The Russian Worlds of Islam."
Eric Weitz (City College of New York), discussant
Panel III | Mass Politics
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM EST
Nadieszda Kizenko (SUNY Albany), moderator
Brian Porter-Szucs (Michigan)
“Fighting for Faith and Fatherland (or not): Catholic Politics in Partitioned Poland.”
Elena Campbell (University of Washington)
"The 'Muslim Question' in Late Imperial Russia."
Roy Robson (University of the Sciences)
"Of Antichrist and Duma: Old Believers and Mass Politics in Late Imperial Russia."
Charles Steinwedel (Northeastern Illinois University), discussant
Closing Reception
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM EST
