Call for papers: The Musical Worlds of Polish Jews, 1920-1960

Call for Papers

The Musical Worlds of Polish Jews, 1920-1960: Identity, Politics and Culture

Arizona State University, November 17-18, 2013

The Center for Jewish Studies and the School of Music at Arizona State University in collaboration with The OREL Foundation announce an international conference devoted to the musical worlds of Polish Jews from 1920 to 1960. The conference will be held at Arizona State University in November 2013. 

For the past three years, the Center for Jewish Studies at ASU has focused on the recovery, study and performance of music composed by Jews whose music was suppressed by the Third Reich. Previously we have featured music of German-speaking Jewish composers; this conference will focus on Polish-Jewish composers.  The goal of the conference is to shed light on the richness of Polish-Jewish music from WWI to the decades after WWII and its relation to the complex problem of identity formation.

At the end of the First World War, almost three million Jews from the Russian, German, and Austrian Empires found themselves in the newly re-created state of Poland. In the subsequent two decades, this Jewish community, the largest in Europe, faced the challenge of becoming “Polish Jews.”   Out of this challenge was born a rich and vibrant culture that deserves more recognition by music lovers and close analysis by scholars. Even under German occupation, the cultural and musical creativity of Polish Jews did not cease but became an important element of camp and ghetto lives. For years after the war, whether in exile or at home, the art of Polish Jews continued to reflect the complex relationship with Polish-ness and Polish culture.

Papers on the following themes are solicited:

1.     Poland and Its Jews: Between Empires and Nation-States.

2.     Polish-Jewish Music: Within and Between Modernism and Nationalism

3.     Polish Jews/Jewish Poles:  Culture and the Quest for Identity

4.     Jewish Music under Nazi Occupation

5.     Polish-Jewish Composers in Exile

6.     Music Outside the Concert Hall: Cabaret, Theater, and Film

This will be a two-day event featuring both scholarly presentations and performances.  We cordially invite submissions that deal with the work of particular composers or related topics.  Scholarly papers should not be longer than 20 minutes and lecture recitals should not exceed more than 30 minutes.  Abstracts (500 words) along with a short biography of the presenter should be submitted by March 30, 2013 to:

Professor Anna Holian
Interim Director, Center for Jewish Studies
P.O. Box 874302
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-4302
Anna.Holian@asu.edu

Organizing Committee:

Ann Cichopek-Gajraj, Assistant Professor of History, ASU
Robert Elias, President, OREL Foundation, Los Angeles
Sabine Feisst, Professor of Music History and Literature, ASU
Anna Holian, Associate Professor of History, ASU
Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Irving and Miriam Lowe Chair of Modern Judaism and Director of Jewish Studies, ASU
Bret Werb, Musicologist and Curator of Music Collections, United States Holocaust Museum and Memorial, Washington DC