Appropriation in (and of) the Premodern World Conference

This conference examines the question of how members of different cultures and religious communities appropriated each other’s ideas, texts, legal practices, spaces, art, and material culture. Through contributions from a plurality of disciplinary fields and drawing on diverse methodological and theoretical approaches, we hope to explore the reasons, manners, and effects of those acts of appropriation and their historical and historiographic implications.

Schedule of Events

October 7
9:45 a.m.: Coffee and Bagels

10:15 a.m.: Welcome

10:30 a.m.: Keynote Address by Marina Rustow, Princeton University

12 p.m.: Lunch

1 p.m. pm: Appropriation in Late Antiquity
Chair: Richard Teverson, Fordham University

The Sabbath, the Lord’s Day, and Questions of Temporal Appropriation in Late Antiquity
Sarit Kattan Gribetz, Fordham University

Christian Appropriation of Zion in 5 Ezra
Karina Martin Hogan, Fordham University

A Lament on the Destruction of Jerusalem: Appropriation of Josephus, Hegesippus, and Yossipon
Peter Sh. Lehnardt, Ben-Gurion University

The Appropriation of Theological Labels in the Fourth-Century Trinitarian Controversies
Emanuel Fiano, Fordham University

3 p.m.: Coffee Break

3:30 p.m.: Appropriation of Law and Traditions in an Islamic Context
Chair: Elisha Russ-Fishbane, NYU

Appropriations of the Qur’an of the Caliph ‘Uthman
Daniella Talmon-Heller, Ben-Gurion University

Making and Shaping Islamic Legal Sources
Nimrod Hurvitz, Ben-Gurion University

Approaches to Comparative Legal History
Wolfgang Mueller, Fordham University

6 pm: Dinner

October 8
8:30 a.m.: Breakfast

9 a.m.: Appropriation in Medieval Aristocratic Culture
Chair: Christopher Rose, Fordham University

Always the Same Game? The Hunt and Social Status Between Latin and Muslim Aristocracies in the Crusader Levant
Nicholas Paul, Fordham University

Dukus Horant: Bridal Quest on a Jewish Crusade
Uri Shachar, Ben-Gurion University

“Mîn herze und mîn lîp diu wellent scheiden:” Friedrich von Hausen Goes on Crusade
Susanne Hafner, Fordham University

10:30 a.m.: Coffee Break

11 a.m.: Appropriation in the Medieval and Early Modern World
Chair: Paola Tartakoff, Rutgers University

Appropriating the Figure of Rabbi Judah “the Pious” in 15th-Century Folktales from Regensburg
Ephraim Shoham-Steiner, Ben-Gurion University

Appropriating Texts and Facts
Magda Teter, Fordham University

The Myth of the Last World Emperor and the Making of Ottoman Universal Ideology in the Late Medieval Mediterranean
Ebru Turan, Fordham University

12:30 p.m.: Lunch

1:30 p.m.: Memory, Forgetting, and the Study of the Past
Chair: David Hamlin, Fordham University

Shimon bar-Kosibah’s Letters in Modern Israeli Discourse
Haim Weiss, Ben-Gurion University

Digitization as a Form of Silencing: The Armenian Genocide
Dror Zeevi, Ben-Gurion University

The Forgotten Documents in Leningrad/St. Petersburg and the Study of the Karaite Past
Daniel J. Lasker, Ben-Gurion University

3 p.m.: Coffee Break

3:30 p.m.: Roundtable and Wrap-Up