The Workshops
The “The Early Modern Workshop” project grew out of conversations among scholars engaged in research on the early modern period in Jewish history. We seek to establish a community of students and scholars working on this period and intend to provide a venue for publishing both primary source material and scholarly papers on this subject.
In order to accomplish our goal, we have adopted a somewhat unusual working format. Instead of traditional papers, each participant was asked to prepare one or two primary texts that s/he felt illustrate(s) the change and transformation typical of the period, or of the given theme. The texts served as the basis for a presentation. These sources are available here in both the original and English translation together with explanatory notes provided by the scholars who post them. In addition, selected lectures on, and discussions of the sources will be available for view.
The workshops are planned to be organized annually. The first took place at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT, in August 2004 and dealt with the general theme “Early Modern Jewries.” The second in August 2005 at the University of Maryland, College Park, addresses the theme of “Jews and Urban Spaces.”