Event report: Entangled Otherings

The 2024 Entangled Otherings workshop was held at the University of Cambridge on 4 & 5 July. The main sponsor was the DAAD–Cambridge Hub for German Studies. 

In January, the convenors issued an open call on the topic Islamophobia, antisemitism, and philosemitism after October 7. The resulting workshop featured 15 talks. 

Sessions were closed to the public, although space was made for invited participants and other observers on enquiry. Additional funds from the Centre for Antisemitism Research (ZfA) at the Technical University Berlin provided for some observers’ costs. A few participants who were unable to join us on site were accommodated via Zoom, including two remote speakers. 

Overview

The summary programme (available to download below) shows the range of panels and topics. Most papers focused on more contemporary developments in antisemitism and islamophobia. Although some papers explored it in its historical depth, which was helpful. 

Due to interests of the organizers, the focus was a bit more on Germany. There were examples from other countries as well.

A safe environment

The meeting was very productive, with participants expressing great satisfaction. As it became difficult to talk about Jewish-Muslim relations openly during the aftermath of October 7, they found it helpful to have a closed room where discussion and exploration could be done freely in a safe environment. 

We hope to bring the contributions from the past three meetings together in a special journal issue. We may use the last meeting (scheduled for 2025) to workshop the contributions and prepare them for a publication.

Partnership

As with other workshops in the series, it was organised in partnership with Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, the Department of Germanic Studies at Indiana University, and the Center for Antisemitism Research (ZfA), Technical University Berlin. The Cambridge Interfaith Programme co-sponsored a drinks reception alongside the workshop dinner (hosted at Fitzwilliam College).

More on this topic

A copy of the call for papers remains available to read.

The Entangled Otherings programme can be downloaded.

Activities in the Entangled Otherings series are also reported on the Cambridge Interfaith Programme website.