CfP: Jewish Medieval Spaces and Places

The interdisciplinary conference, held at the University of Münster from 18 to 20 May 2026, aims to broaden our understanding of Jewish spaces and places in the medieval period and to rethink the methodological approaches through which they are studied. It invites submissions for papers.

Deadline: 13 March 2026

Since the 1980s, the significance and potential of space as an analytical category for a wide range of sources—particularly for understanding social dynamics—have become widely acknowledged in the humanities. However, spatial theories and concepts have often been treated in isolation within Medieval Studies, a tendency particularly evident in research on Jewish medieval contexts.

To advance our understanding of this still underexplored field, Prof. Katrin Kogman-Appel, Dr. Friederiker Schöpf, and Franziska Kleybolte will host an interdisciplinary conference on “Jewish Medieval Spaces and Places” at the Institute of Jewish Studies, University of Münster from 18 to 20 May 2026, addressing questions such as the following:

What constitutes Jewish medieval space? How were such spaces constructed, and what symbolic meanings did they embody? Where do the boundaries of Jewish space lie? How do spaces evoke emotions, and in what ways did religious and social ideas structure spatial environments? How is Jewish space defined across different fields of research? What role do heritage preservation, archaeology, and the possibilities offered by digital methods and the digital humanities play in making Jewish spaces accessible and publicly visible today?

We invite submissions addressing, among others, the following themes:

– Theories of space and social dynamics in relation to medieval Jewish communities,
– Shared spaces and social networks and their social and spatial impact,
– Jewish architecture and its place within the surrounding environment,
– Spaces as reflections of social hierarchies: discrimination, gender, and the formation of contested or hidden spaces in medieval urban contexts,
– Jewish mobility and movement through space, including travel, pilgrimage, immigration and emigration, as well as expulsions (e.g., the settlement of Jewish populations in Eastern Europe) in the Middle Ages,
– Perceptions of space and place, the construction of space, and imagined spaces (e.g., sacred spaces or spaces of commemoration),
– The role of heritage preservation and archaeology in the study of historical Jewish sites, as well as the possibilities offered by digital tools,

Further Information:
– Please send abstracts (max. 500 words) and a Short Bio (max. 300 words) to Franziska Kleybolte: fkleybol@uni-muenster.de
– Deadline for Abstracts: 13 March 2026
– Papers: 15–20-minute presentation followed by ca. 10 minutes of discussion
– Conference language: English
– A conference volume is planned
– Alimentation will be covered by the organisers, but travel and accommodation costs must be covered by participants


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Franziska Kleybolte (March 4, 2026). CfP: Jewish Medieval Spaces and Places. medievalJewishStudiesNow! Retrieved April 15, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15t7m


About Franziska Kleybolte

After completing her studies in History and Art History in Munich, Pisa, Tel Aviv, and Oxford, Franziska Kleybolte began her PhD at the Cluster of Excellence ‘Religion and Politics’ at the University of Münster, which she is now finalizing. Her doctoral research examines the phenomenon of synagogue-to-church conversions in late medieval Castile. Currently, she is a research assistant in the Jewish Studies Department at the University of Münster, where she teaches undergraduate courses, and at the Bet Tfila Research Centre for Jewish Architecture at the Technical University of Braunschweig, where she develops a teaching network in Jewish Heritage Studies. Her research focuses on Jewish-Christian relations in medieval Europe and their reflection in material culture, as well as the application of postcolonial concepts to premodern contexts. In January 2026, she will join the research project “Contending with Crises” (Hebrew University, lead by Prof. Elisheva Baumgarten) as a postdoctoral fellow, focusing on Jewish responses to spatial crises in Iberia and Ashkenaz.