Vidal Sassoon Research Grant

Grant award for the study of antisemitism. The Centre for Jewish Studies would like to congratulate Simon Mayers, who recently completed his PhD at the University of Manchester, on winning a research grant from The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The award is in support of his next project entitled 'Myths and Stereotypes of “the Jew” in English Catholic Discourse (1850-1900)'.

BAJS Student Essay Prizes 2013

Manchester students are the joint winners. The annual national undergraduate Student Essay prize of £200 offered by the British Association for Jewish Studies was shared between two students at Manchester this year: Leo Mercer for the dissertation 'Is a Nonfoundationalist Jewish Philosophy Possible? The Thought of Tamar Ross and Peter Ochs as a Case Study', which also won the university's own Philip Alexander Prize 2013 (supervised by Alex Samely), and Rhian Evans for the dissertation 'The Early Transmission and Interpretation of Malachi' (supervised by George Brooke). Further information.

Holocaust Workshop

Holocaust Workshop at the Imperial War Museum North. The Centre for Jewish Studies and the Imperial War Museum North are presenting a free one-day conference on Monday 7 October 2013 entitled 'The Nature of Anti-Semitism'. The conference has been organised by  Jean-Marc Dreyfus and is aimed at anyone wishing to deepen their knowledge of the Holocaust, including educators, teachers, community organisers, students, or interested members of the public. To book a place, please email Victoria Howarth, Formal Learning Manager at the IWM-N. Further details.

AHRC Fellowship

Cosmopolitanism and the Jews. This nine-month AHRC fellowship was awarded to Cathy Gelbin, working with Sander L. Gilman (Emory University). The £96,161 project will run from 2013-14 and will focus upon self-identified German-Jewish writers participating in modern Jewish cultural and political discourses during the 19th and 20th centuries, in order to explore how concepts of Jewish mobility and fluidity arose in particular contexts of social change. Further information.

Corpses Project: 2nd Annual Conference

Corpses: Search and Identification in post-Genocide and Mass Violence Contexts. This second conference of the research project Corpses of mass violence and genocide aims to explore another severe manipulation of bodies after the killings: the search and identification of the remains. The organisers, who include Jean-Marc Dreyfus, are therefore calling for papers dealing with the search and recovery of bodies in the context of mass crimes. The conference will focus in particular on the twentieth century. Studies may deal with any geographical area and should focus on the methods and processes for identification, as well as the motivations and interests behind these pursuits, taking an instrumental perspective which promises to open up new avenues of research. The conference is to be held at the University of Manchester, UK, 9–11 September 2013. Further details.