Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Contention

Organizer: Amy Horowitz, Melton Center for Jewish Studies and Mershon Center for International Security Studies

Monday-Tuesday, Nov. 27-28, 2006
Mershon Center for International Security Studies
1501 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43201

Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Contention brings together two Israeli and two Palestinian scholars for a working conference to complete a publication begun in the 1990s. Participants will review, critique and revise essays on cultural identities and practices in Jerusalem written under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution's Jerusalem Project in light of events over the past decade. Two colleagues from the Smithsonian will join the working group. The publication will make a significant and timely contribution to questions that arise at the intersection of international security and cultural identity in disputed territories.

Public Forums

Monday, November 27, 12-1:30 p.m.
Dualing Jerusalems
Introduction: James Early, Director of Cultural Policy, Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage

Monday, November 27, 6-8 p.m.
Jerusalem's Shifting Identities
Introduction: Jacqueline Jones Royster, Executive Dean, OSU Colleges of the Arts and Sciences

These sessions are open to the public. Lunch or dinner will be served to invited students and faculty who RSVP to Beth Russell no later than Friday, Nov. 20, 2006.

Conference Participants

James Early
James Early is Director of Cultural Heritage Policy at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. He has investigated and participated in mediated cultural encounters that inform national and global policies. One of his recent publications, "Toward a New Cultural Democracy: Artistic Expression, Culture, and Sustainable Development in the New Global Era," reflects on the meeting of artists and cultural workers in Santorini, Greece, in 2000.

Galit Hasan-Rokem
Galit Hasan-Rokem is the Max and Margarethe Grunwald Professor of Folklore and Professor of Hebrew Literature at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is a founding member of the Women's Network for Peace in Israel. She is currently a Visiting Professor at the Departments of Anthropology and Near Eastern Studies at the University of California-Berkeley, and founding editorial board member of Palestine Israel Journal. Hasan-Rokem was director of the Israeli team convened by the Smithsonian Institution to undertake research on Jewish cultural traditions in Jerusalem. One of her recent publications is Tales of the Neighborhood: Jewish Narrative Dialogues in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 2003).

Amy Horowitz
Amy Horowitz is a research associate and scholar of folklore and music at the Melton Center for Jewish Studies and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies. She teaches courses on music, globalization, and disputed territories through the International Studies Program at The Ohio State University. While at the Smithsonian, Horowitz served as curator for the Jerusalem Project under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She recently published "Dueling Nativities: Zehava Ben Sings Umm Kulthum," a chapter in Palestine, Israel, and the Politics of Popular Culture (Rebecca Stein and Ted Swedenburg, eds.; Duke University Press, 2005).

Huda Imam
Huda Imam is Director of the Al-Quds University Center for Jerusalem Studies and member of Jerusalem Link, Palestine. She teaches courses on the peace process and the culture of nonviolent resistance to end occupation in Israel and Palestine, including a course called "The Strength of the Weak: The Power of Non-Violence." She assisted in the Jerusalem Project's pilot 2006 course.

Menachem Klein
Menachem Klein is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies. From 1999 to 2001, Klein was an advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the political advisory team for Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In October 2003, Klein, together with prominent Israeli and Palestinian negotiators, signed the Geneva Agreement -- a detailed proposal for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. One of his recent publications is The Jerusalem Problem: The Struggle for Permanent Status (University Press of Florida, 2003).

Vered Madar
Vered Madar is a doctoral student in Jewish and Comparative Folklore at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. An award-winning student, activist, educator, and folklorist, her research and professional interests include Yemenite women's cultures, feminist organizing, and the relationship between "east" and "west" in the Israeli society. She was involved in the Jerusalem Project as a student in the 2006 pilot course, and will assist with the 2007 pilot course.

Issam Nassar
Issam Nassar is Assistant Professor of Middle East History at Illinois State University. He previously was on faculty at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and was the associate director of the Institute for Jerusalem Studies. He is also associate editor of Jerusalem Quarterly and associate editor of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East. One of his recent publications is Pilgrims, Lepers, and Stuffed Cabbage: Essays on the Cultural History of Ottoman and Mandate Jerusalem, edited with Salim Tamari (IPS, 2005).

Peter Seitel
Peter Seitel is a folklorist with broad research experience in eastern Africa and the United States, practical experience in the educational presentation of community culture in multi-ethnic public contexts, and ongoing theoretical interests in oral literature, speech genres, and the safeguarding of community cultural traditions in the context of globalization. He is Senior Folklorist Emeritus at the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. He is the author of many publications, including The Powers of Genre: Interpreting Haya Oral Literature (Oxford University Press, 1999).

Salim Tamari
Salim Tamari is Professor of Sociology at Bir Zeit University in Palestine and Visiting Professor at the University of California-Berkeley. A noted Palestinian scholar and leading sociologist, Tamari has produced numerous studies dealing with sociology, development, urban studies, and other issues relating to Palestinian society in the occupied territories. In September 1994, he was appointed director of the Institute for Jerusalem Studies, a branch of the Beirut-based Institute for Palestine Studies that publishes Jerusalem Quarterly File . He has also served on the refugee committee in the multilateral peace talks that began in the wake of the 1991 Madrid peace conference. He is the author of several publications, including The Mountain against the Sea: Studies in Palestinian Urban Culture (al Jabal didd al Bahar, 2005).

The Ohio State University

www.osu.edu

Jerusalem: Cultures and Communities in Contention

Public Forums

Conference Participants