Formats

The annual conference is the centerpiece of the institute’s scholarly events program. It is dedicated each year to a thematic focal point drawn from the institute’s research activities. It is always interdisciplinary in makeup, featuring both internationally renowned representatives of various fields as well as early career scholars. The conference also includes a public event outside of the institute, in which the annual focal point is presented to the broader public. A selection of presentations from the annual conferences are presented in the Dubnow Institute Yearbook.

The Dubnow Institute organizes several scholarly workshops per year, usually in cooperation with other institutes, which take place either on site or externally. These thematic meetings last from one to two days and are usually based on an existing research project, serving primarily to exchange ideas within the subject area. A keynote lecture or cultural event makes the workshop format accessible to the public, too.

The research colloquia constitute a part of the Dubnow Institute’s teaching program at Leipzig University. In six to eight lectures per semester, invited speakers illuminate a given topic, which is selected for its topical relevance and reflects a focal point of the institute’s research program. The colloquia typically take place in the seminar room at the institute and are directed at students as well as the broader scholarly public. Interested parties are welcome to sit in on the lectures any time, no registration required.

The Simon Dubnow Lecture has taken place annually every November since the year 2000. It is hosted in a festive format at a central location in the city, for example in the Alte Handelsbörse or the Bibliotheca Albertina. The institute invites prominent scholars to Leipzig to illuminate the history of Jews in the context of general history before both a scholarly and general audience. The speakers have to date included Saul Friedländer addressing current developments in Holocaust research, Atina Grossmann addressing Jews in postwar Europe, Jan Tomasz Gross addressing the Kielce Pogrom of 1946, and Renée Poznanski addressing Eastern European Jews in the Résistance. The annual lectures are generously supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

Aside from the events geared toward the academic professional context, the Dubnow Institute also offers a lecture series addressed to the broader public as well as the scholarly community in Leipzig. This regular series features renowned scholars as well as public figures, whose talks offer new impulses for the thematic focal points of the institute. A further series of so-called lunch talks offers Fellows and Guests at the institute the opportunity to present their ongoing projects and to discuss their current findings.

Particularly during the Leipzig Book Fair, but also in other contexts like the Jewish Week or the Long Night of Scholarship, the Dubnow Institute presents select publications from its own program. Both academic and non-academic audiences are invited to inform themselves about these new publications and to enter into a direct discussion with the authors concerning questions about Jewish history and culture.