The Howard Gilman International Conference: Racism in
Western Civilization before 1700
December 13-15, 2005
Sponsors:
School of History, Tel Aviv University
The S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies
Tuesday, December 13
Opening Evening, 18:00
Chair: Raanan Rein, Vice-Rector, Tel-Aviv University
Greetings: Itamar Rabinovich, President, Tel-Aviv University
Keynote Address: Anthony Pagden (University of California, Los Angeles)
Ethnos, Race and Empire: The Fabrication of Identity
Wednesday, December 14
9:30 – 11:00
Chair: Irad Malkin (Tel-Aviv University)
Benjamin Isaac (Tel-Aviv University)
Racism or Proto-Racism in Classical Antiquity?
Alan Shapiro (Johns Hopkins University)
The Invention of Persia in Classical Athens
11:30 – 13:00
Chair: Paula Fredriksen (Boston University)
Gideon Bohak (Tel-Aviv University)
Some Jewish Uses of Orientalism in the Greco-Roman World
David M. Goldenberg (University of Pennsylvania)
Racism, Color Symbolism, and Color Prejudice
15:00 – 16:30
Chair: Margalit Finkelberg (Tel-Aviv University)
Denise K. Buell (Williams College)
Early Christian Universalism and Racism
Robert J. Bartlett (St Andrews University)
Illustrating Ethnicity in the Middle Ages
17:00 – 18:30
Chair: Maurice Kriegel (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
Peter Biller (University of York)
Spirited but Stupid Europeans, Intelligent but Spiritless Asians, and Wonderful
Greeks: the Medieval Reception of Aristotle’s Comparison in the Politics, Book 7
Charles de Miramon (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales)
Nobility, Heredity and Blood in France and England in the Late Middle Ages
Thursday, Dec. 15
9:30 – 11:00
Chair: Gadi Algazi (Tel-Aviv University)
Joseph Ziegler (University of Haifa)
Was Late-Medieval and Early-Renaissance Physiognomy Proto-Racial?
Valentin Groebner (University of Luzern)
The Carnal Knowing of Coloured Bodies: Skin Colour in Sexual Relations in Late
Medieval Europe
11:30 – 13:00
Chair: Ora Limor (The Open University)
Ronnie Po-chia Hsia (Pennsylvania State University)
Religion and Race: Protestant and Catholic Discourses on Jewish Conversions in the
16th and 17th Centuries
Jorge Canizares-Esguerra (University of Texas at Austin)
Stars, Imagination, and Demons: The Early-Modern Body in the Tropics
15:00 – 16:30
Chair: Ron Barkai (Tel-Aviv University)
Joseph C. Miller (University of Virginia)
A History of Homogeneity: “Race” and Other Novelties of Modernity
Ehud R. Toledano (Tel-Aviv University)
Is Racism a Useful Concept for Understanding Social Attitudes in Muslim Societies?
The Ottoman Case
17:00 – 18:30
Chair: Shulamit Shahar (Tel-Aviv University)
Mechal Sobel (University of Haifa)
'Charter Generation' or/and Chattel Generation: The Impact of Racism in Seventeenth
Century North America
Miriam Eliav-Feldon (Tel-Aviv University)
In Conclusion: What about the Gypsies?
Tel-Aviv University School of History
Mrs. Beverley and Dr. Raymond Sackler
Fred W. Lessing Institute of European Civilization
The S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies
The Morris E. Curiel Institute for European Studies
The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center
The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism
The Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities