This workshop will explore how blood, in its regulation and its representation, has been interpreted and traded as a symbol between Jews and non-Jews, and in particular between Christians and Jews, through the centuries – from the biblical past to the present day.
The blood libel is a challenging subject in many ways. It raises the question of how we understand continuity (and discontinuity) in anti-Judaism. It also raises the problem of how we approach similar narratives that arise in widely different temporal and spatial contexts.
The workshop will address the following questions among others: how does blood libel change over time and between places? How should we approach blood libel methodologically? How were blood libels proven and disproven? Did this change over time and place? Why do blood libels cease to be propagated?
Speakers:
- The Libel and the Lamb: Violence and Metaphor in Fourteenth-century Crete, Susan L. Einbinder, University of Connecticut
- Blood Libel: Themes and Variations in Spain from c.1250-1492, Julian Weiss, King’s College London
- Learning the Language of Science: Disciplining the Modern Ritual Murder Trial, Hillel J. Kieval, Washington University in St. Louis
- Cautionary Tales: How Ottoman Muslims Imagined Jews, Marc David Baer, London School of Economics and Political Science
- Round table with Anthony Bale, Birkbeck, University of London and Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London
This workshop is one of a series of events taking themes from the exhibition, Blood – Uniting and Dividing which ran at the Jewish Museum London from November 2015 to the end of February 2016 which was jointly conceived by the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism