Jewish Studies and Israel Studies in the Twenty-First Century

Klaus Hödl teaches the history of Israel and related topics at Graz University. His latest book, Jews inViennese Popular Culture around 1900, will be published in late 2019.Carsten Schapkow is L. R. Brammer Jr. presidential professor in history at the University of Oklahoma, where he also serves as the director of the Center for the Study of Nationalism. His most recent book is Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German-Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation (Lexington Books).

Jewish studies has been a vibrant academic discipline for many decades, and since the establishment of the Association for Israel Studies in 1985 to engage in research on the history, politics, society, and culture of the modern state of Israel, the two disciplines have worked along parallel tracks in universities. This book focuses on the vibrant academic field of Israel studies and its complex and dynamic relations and intersections with its "older sibling" Jewish studies. Scholarly contributions from around the globe illustrate that the ongoing and growing interest in Israel studies, in particular since the early 2000s, must be analyzed and understood in its relationship to Jewish studies. Only this will allow scholarship to reflect on not only the intersections between the two fields but also on the prospects of cross-pollination between the disciplines for research and teaching. This will become ever more vital in an increasingly globalized world with shifting concepts, borders, and identity concepts.

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