Neighborliness in Global Perspective. Annual Conference of the Max Weber Foundation

Neighborliness in Global Perspective. Annual Conference of the Max Weber Foundation

Organizer
Prof. Dr. Birgit Schäbler, Orient-Institut Beirut, Lebanon
Venue
Dec 12, 2019: Goethe Institut Cairo Dokki; Dec 13, 2019: Oriental Hall, American University in Cairo; Dec 14, 2019 Safir Hotel Bubyan Hall
Location
Cairo
Country
Egypt
From - Until
12.12.2019 - 14.12.2019
By
Orient-Institut Beirut

Neighborly relations are the most contingent relations in the triad kinship-friendship-neighborhood. Neighbors are close because they live close, not because we feel close to them as in friendships or are related to them through bonds of kinship. Neighborhoods came into being when humans decided to settle instead of roam; they can be found throughout history until this very day in (and between) villages, cities, countries, world regions, continents (and possibly in the future planets). The spatial character and the enforced closeness of shared space (in various dimensions) make the neighborhood boundaries special boundaries, sensitive of touch.
If the neighbor is not a friend and not a relative how can our relationship with her/him be described? For Max Weber, neighborliness is predominantly an unsentimental, economically inspired brotherliness, the neighborhood some kind of rational brotherhood in the economic sense. The neighbor then is the typical “helper in need”, acting on the principle of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Yet, neighborliness is also a theological, ethical and political-philosophical concept, apt to reflect on the human capacity of co-existence throughout global history.
This international conference brings together scholars from a number of disciplines, covering various world regions and epochs. It addresses the relations between neighborliness and friendship and neighborliness and enmity, and asks how neighborliness was historically regulated, gendered, performed, exhibited and globalized. It discusses the concept as a theological question in Islam and Christianity, as well as a philosophical, social and political question. Case studies range from the Middle East to India, China, Japan, Europe, the US, the Ottoman Empire and the USSR.
The conference “Neighborliness in Global Perspective” is the annual conference of the Max Weber Foundation and is conceptualized and organized by the Orient-Institut Beirut. It will be held in Cairo, Egypt from 12-14 December 2019. The Annual Conference of the Max Weber Foundation provides a forum for the foundation’s institutes and their research topics, as well as for other partner institutions. The event is organized and hosted by a different institute each year and offers the opportunity for an exchange of different international, comparative and transregional perspectives on current academic issues. Since 2015 it takes place on an annual basis.
Each conference is accompanied and documented by a blog, which contains information about program and speakers in advance as well as the conference papers subsequently.

Programm

Thursday, December 12, 2019
Goethe Institut Cairo Dokki

9:00 – 9.30 Registration

9.30 – 10.00 Welcome and Introduction by Birgit Schäbler (Orient-Institut Beirut)

10.00 – 12:15 Panel 1: Neighborliness and Friendship: The Neighbor as Friend
Chair: Birgit Schäbler (Orient-Institut Beirut)
Ajay Skaria (University of Minnesota): Political Friendship: Gandhi and the Remaking of the Neighbor
Regina Schäfer (Universität Mainz): Neighbours and Frunde - Negotiating the Conditions of Living Together in the Late Middle Ages
Patrick Rummel (Universität Marburg): Neighbors, Kinsfolk, Brothers? The United States, British North America and Victorian Empire Federalists

13:15 – 14:45 Panel 2: Neighborliness and Enmity: The Neighbor as Enemy
Chair: Milos Reznik (German Historical Institute Warsaw)
Katarina Ristić (Universität Leipzig): Neighbors as Brothers: Neighbors as Enemies – Memories of Neighborliness in (former) Yugoslavia
Aurora Sottimano (University of St Andrews): My Neighbour, my Brother, my Enemy: the Politics of (de)Mobilisation and Securitisation in the Middle East

15:15 – 17:30 Panel 3: Regulating Neighborliness: The Neighbor Between State and Neighborhood
Chair: Franz Waldenberger (German Institute for Japanese Studies Tokyo)
Robert Pekkanen (University of Washington): Making Neighbors: The Case of Japan’s Neighborhood Associations
Botakoz Kassymbekova (University Liverpool): Neighborhood Under Dictatorship: Surveillance and Co-Existence in a Soviet Apartment House
Betül Basaran (St. Mary's College of Maryland): Residents and Neighborhood Dynamics in Ottoman Istanbul, 17-19th centuries

Friday, December 13, 2019
Oriental Hall, American University in Cairo

09:30 – 11.00 Panel 4: Gendering Neighborliness: The Neighbor as a Woman
Chair: Mara Albrecht (Orient-Institut Beirut)
Betul Argit (Marmara University): Neighborly Relations Between Manumitted Former Ladies of the Harem and their New Neighbors
Jane Freeland (German Historical Institute London): “If you hear a woman screaming, don’t leave her alone!” The Role of Neighbors in Addressing Domestic Violence in Divided Berlin

11.30 – 13.00 Panel 5: Neighborliness and Religion: The Neighbor as a Theological Challenge
Chair: Thomas Maissen (German Historical Institute Paris)
Chafika Ouail (Orient-Institut Beirut): Revisiting Jiwār in Islam: Towards an Ontology of Co-Existence
Hans-Peter Mathys (Universität Basel): Love thy Neighbor as Thyself (LEV 19, 18) and the Concept of Neighborliness

14.00- 15.30 Panel 6: Globalizing Neighborliness: The Neighbor at a Distance
Chair: Sandra Dahlke (German Historical Institute Moscow)
Wolfgang Struck (Universität Erfurt): Distant Neighbors. Defining Neighborliness in the Age of Worldwide Communication
Irmgard Pinn (University of Tehran): My Digital Neighborhood. Local Internet Communities in a Globalizing World

16.00 - 17.30 Panel 7: Neighborliness across Borders: The Neighbor as a Political Problem
Chair: Abdallah Soufan (Orient-Institut Beirut)
Roula Abi Habib Khoury (Saint-Joseph University Beirut): Cross-Border Neighborliness Between Lebanon and Syria: a Sociological Perspective
Noriko Kawamura (Washington State University): A Historical Inquiry into Neighborliness and the Shifting Boundaries Surrounding Japan

18:30 Reception at Cairo Marriott Hotel
Welcome remarks
Sönke Siemon (Deputy Head of Mission, German Embassy Cairo)
Hans van Ess (President, Max Weber Foundation)
Pascale Ghazaleh (American University in Cairo)
Birgit Schäbler (Director, Orient-Institut Beirut)

Saturday, December 14, 2019
Safir Hotel Bubyan Hall

09.00 – 10.30 Panel 8: Neigborliness as a Challenge to the Self
Chair: Simone Lässig (German Historical Institute Washington)
Jakub Zbrzezny (University of Aberdeen): The Clash of Liturgical Calendars, the Clash of Neighborhoods – the Case of a Jewish Carnival in Christian Lent
Balthazar Beckett (American University Cairo): “Something Vulgar in a Holy Place”: African Americans as “Anti-Neighbors” in 1930s & 40s United States

11:00 – 12.30 Panel 9: Exhibiting and Performing Neighborliness
Chair: Thomas Kirchner (German Forum for Art History Paris)
Megan MacDonald (American University Cairo): Out of the Neighborhood and Into the Museum: Archival Space and the North African Neighbor in Contemporary French Exhibitions
Falko Schnicke (German Historical Institute London): Performances of Proximity. Using the English Channel to Stage Twentieth-Century British-Franco Relations

13.30 - 14.15 Panel 10: Neighborliness as a Concept Between Philosophy and Society
Chair: Martin Baumeister (German Historical Institute Rom)
Hans van Ess (Max Weber Foundation): Neighborliness in Chinese Thought

14.15 – 15.15 Panel 11: Shubra – A Neighborhood in Cairo
Chair: Pascale Ghazaleh (American University in Cairo)
Mina Ibrahim (Universität Gießen) and Gaétan du Roy (Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles):
Everyday Practices of Neighborliness in Urban Cairo

15.30 Departure to “Darb17/18” (Tour, Dinner, Film Screening)

Contact (announcement)

Prof. Dr. Birgit Schäbler
Director
Orient-Institut Beirut
Rue Hussein Beyhoum 44, Zokak el-Blat
P.O. Box 11-2988, Beirut - Lebanon
Tel.:00961-1-359423

schaebler@orient-institut.org

https://www.orient-institut.org/events/event-details/neighborliness-in-global-perspective/
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Published on
19.11.2019
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