CFA: Yad Vashem/USHMM Workshop: Everyday Life of Jews in the USSR during the Holocaust and its Early Aftermath

Deadline: April 20, 2020


Dates: Monday-Friday, August 30–September 3, 2020, Jerusalem

The Moshe Mirilashvili Center for Research on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem and the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) are pleased to invite applications for a research workshop entitled, "Everyday Life of Jews in the USSR during the Holocaust and its Early Aftermath." The workshop is scheduled for August 30–September 3, 2020 at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. This is the third research workshop co-organized by Yad Vashem and USHMM with a focus on the former Soviet Union.

The workshop will focus on the Holocaust and everyday Jewish life during World War II and early years after the war in the countries of the former Soviet Union. Topics might include, but are not limited to the following themes: antisemitism, evacuation and Jewish life in the Soviet rear, ghettoization, collaboration, hiding, resistance, gender, violence, Jewish children and families during the Holocaust, survival in camps and ghettos, Jews in the Red Army, trauma, art and literature.  

Participants will be expected to submit a paper (no more than 15 pages) a month prior to the beginning of the workshop for circulation among the participants. Daily sessions will include 30-minute presentations followed by a discussion (up to 30 min), as well as an opportunity for participants to do research at Yad Vashem’s library and archives.

Applications will be accepted from doctoral candidates (aspirants) and scholars who obtained their Ph.D. (or candidate of science degree) within the last five years. Applications are welcome from scholars working in all relevant academic disciplines, including anthropology, archaeology, art history, geography, film studies, history, Jewish studies, law, literature, material culture, philosophy, political science, religion, sociology, and other fields.

All application materials must be received by 20 April 2020. Incomplete applications will not be considered after this date. Late applications will not be accepted. The selected participants will be notified by 20 May 2020. 

Please send all application materials via email to

shlomit.shulchani@yadvashem.org.il:

1. A current Curriculum Vitae outlining the applicant’s qualifications (including previous coursework, research projects, presentations, and publications).
2. An abstract of no more than 1000 words for your proposed paper (including title and discussion of methodological and theoretical issues).
3. A letter of recommendation (for students only) addressing the applicant’s scholarly potential. To preserve the confidentiality of recommendation letters, faculty recommenders must email their signed letters (on institutional letterhead) directly to shlomit.shulchani@yadvashem.org.il.

The workshop organizers are Dr. Arkadi Zeltser, Director of the Moshe Mirilashvili Center for Research on the Holocaust in the Soviet Union at Yad Vashem (arkadi.zeltser@yadvashem.org.il) and Dr. Daniel Newman, Program Manager of the Initiative for the Study of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union, USHMM (danewman@ushmm.org).

The organizers will cover the cost of economy class flights to and from the workshop, lodging for the seminar’s duration and meals. Participants must obtain their own health insurance.

The workshop will be conducted in English.

CFP: VII International Forum for Doctoral Candidates in East European Art History

Deadline: January 31, 2020


The professorship of Central and East European Art History at Humboldt-University Berlin is inviting to the 7th International Forum for Doctoral Candidates in East European Art History. The previous editions of the forum caused great resonance. This has shown us that young scholars from all over the world working in this field have a strong need for a direct, lively exchange of specific conceptual issues and methodological problems of art historical “area studies” of Eastern Europe across the different epochs. The annual meeting offers opportunity and space for a continuous exchange of ideas and experiences, for making and continuing contacts and bringing together expertise. Current research projects – and as well their progress and modifications over the years – are documented on the forum’s website. In this way and with a Facebook group, it is possible to build networks besides the annual forums.

Doctoral candidates engaged in a topic of art history (or a neighboring discipline) of Eastern Europe are cordially invited – explicitly also those who have come to the Forum in Berlin in the previous years. If you would like to participate, please send us your abstract. We ask you to outline concisely the subject and main question of your PhD project. Please discuss your methodological and analytical approach in a separate paragraph and name the problems and questions you would like to address. Dependent on the focuses resulting from the proposals submitted we will select up to eight contributions for presentations (20 min). All other participants will have the opportunity to present in brief themselves and their doctoral projects (5 min). It is important to us to have plenty of time for discussions and exchange.

Languages of the conference are German and English.

Please submit your proposal

• of ca. 4000 characters (including blanks)
• in a file format that can be edited (no pdf!)
• indicating your name, working title of the dissertation project, affiliation, e-mail

by January 31st, 2020 in German or English to:

• Vertret.-Prof. Dr. Katja Bernhardt (katja.bernhardt@culture.hu-berlin.de)
• Constance Krüger M.A. (constance.krueger@hu-berlin.de)

Please include in the abstract the following phrases and delete as appropriate:

• “I agree / do not agree that a printed copy of my abstract is available during the forum.”
• “I agree / do not agree that my abstract is published on the website of the doctoral forum http://www.kunstgeschichte.hu-berlin.de/institut/lehrstuehle/lehrstuhl-fuer-kunstgeschicht...
• “I agree / do not agree that my name, the title of my dissertation project, my affiliation and my email address will be included into the printed copy of the list of participants, which will be part of the conference material.”

The contributors (20 min paper) will be selected by the end of February 2020. They will be granted a travel allowance.

CFP: Marxism(s) in Art Historiography

Deadline to Apply: July 12, 2019


Conference organized by: the Chair of Art History of Eastern Europe, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Vert.-Prof. Dr. Katja Bernhardt)

In cooperation with: the Institute of Art History and Visual Culture (Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn) and the Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO, University of Leipzig)

Date of the conference: 31st Jan. – 2nd Feb. 2020

Place of the conference: Humboldt-Universtiät zu Berlin



The historical and dialectical materialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels provided a complex means of approaching the analysis of social processes that encouraged one to understand and analyse art as a moment integral to these processes. This approach presented an alternative worth taking seriously to art-historical models that had previously dominated discussion; models based on the idea of art as something that developed intrinsically. Nevertheless, it has always been a challenge to adapt Marxist theory for use in art-historical analysis and to link that theory to existing approaches to the subject. For art history, grappling with Marxism meant more than just a need for constant methodological reflection and updating. It was also necessary, and remains necessary, to define the Marxist conception of art itself within the various historical contexts in which it arose. Since Marxist theory aims at achieving social change, applying Marxism has demanded not only that art be set in relation to the social conditions that apply to it, but also to making a critical revision of the history of art and to revealing its social role in the relevant context in each case.


The conference sets out from these starting points. It aims to reflect on the history of Marxist approaches to Art History, hoping to reveal new insights for the wider discipline. It forms the third part in a series of conferences whose task was set as to investigate the history of art history in Eastern European countries formerly under socialist rule. In the wake of the first two conferences, “Art History and Socialism(s) after World War II” (2016, Estonian Academy of Arts, Tallinn) and “Socialist Internationalism and the Global Contemporary. Transnational Art Historiographies from Eastern and East-Central Europe” (2017, GWZO Leipzig), this third conference will make a programmatic break from the geopolitical framework set out up until now. It will thus bring together considerations on Marxist art history that have up until generally been treated separately in accordance with the political systems within which they arose. We believe that the potentials of and the variations between the various different Marxist approaches to art history – both in relation to the concepts that they contribute to art history methodology and in terms of their socio-political functions – can be elaborated using a comparative approach and can thus be subjected to a differentiated critique. The historical beginning of the period for our observations is set roughly around 1945. We would like observations to extend into the period after 1989 and all the way up until the present day, so that we can include in our reflection the response made to what was a fundamentally transformed political situation.


We would like to examine how Marxism was adapted for the purposes of art-historical analysis in each specific historical moment under whatever political system under which it found itself.

• What impulses and demands both from within and outside the subject of art history were available to tackle Marxist theories and/or to subject existing Marxist approaches to art history to criticism? What role did the relevant institutional, local, national and other contexts play in these processes?
• What key points of theory were addressed, what pre-existing concepts were seized upon and what new ones were coined, and what aspects of theory became subject to criticism? How did the actors interlock their approaches with established strategies of art-historical interpretation and/or with discourses and discussions outside the field of art history (for example, on questions of nation, socialism, post-colonialism, feminist theory, etc.)?
• To what extent did appeals to Marxist theories succeed in opening out potential insights into art history and in making a substantial contribution to the fruitful revision, critique and further development of models of art-historical analysis? Have any innovative new models emerged? What critiques were raised against art histories based on Marxism? In what contexts did the concept of 'Marxist art history' remain no more than a hollow formulation that responded to political requirements, inside which other conceptions could be concealed?
• To what extent did the art-historical reflections of Marxist theory succeed in delivering an approach to the critique of the theory itself and/or to the historicization of Marx's understanding of art and/or of conceptions that followed on from Marx?
• How was the concept of 'art' negotiated in this context? Is it possible to identify approaches to a theory of art through these processes? To what extent and on the basis of what theoretical premises were concepts of a comprehensive art theory, Kunstwissenschaft, discussed in connection with Marxism?
• Who were the actors in these processes (from within the discipline and from people involved in culture policy, publishing, etc.)? What forms of institutionalization did such actors use to establish a Marxist history of art? What types of subject-related, social, political criticism were formulated or demanded by that institutionalization?
• To what extent was political or ideological commitment derived from or required of art history on the basis of a Marxist concept of art? How was it, and how was it expected to be, practised?

These questions should be understood as suggestions: specific, object-related elaborations of the issues would be very much welcome. Case studies or cross-sectional presentations would also be positively received, as would reflections on theoretical models and methodological discussions.

The conference will take place in Berlin from 31 January to 2 February 2020 at the Department for Art and Visual History of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Please send your exposé, with a length of approx. 2000 characters, by 12 July 2019 to:
katja.bernhardt@culture.hu-berlin.de