Andreas Gotzmann

Andreas Gotzmann (* 1960 in Karlsruhe ) is a German historian and religious scholar with a research focus on Jewish history and culture. His 1999 -founded chair of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Erfurt is the first and only institution for research and teaching in the field of Judaism and Jewish history in the Free State of Thuringia.

Curriculum vitae

Study of Jewish Studies ( with a focus on: Jewish History, Jewish rabbinical and codices and Art History), which was founded in 1979 College of Jewish Studies in Heidelberg; parallel studies at the Ruprecht -Karls- University of Heidelberg. From 1990-1995: Studies and research fellow in New York and Jerusalem. 1995: PhD in Jewish Studies at the Free University of Berlin. From 1994-1999: Research Assistant, then Assistant Professor in Jewish Studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Since 1999: Professor of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at the newly founded University of Erfurt.

Member of numerous national and international professional associations, scientific advisory boards, collaborations and research groupings. Among other things, from 2002-2006 board member of the Association of Judaizers in the Federal Republic of Germany. For many years on the Board of the Scientific Working Group of the International Leo Baeck Institute.

Research

By Andreas Gotzmann are numerous scientific publications in particular for German - Jewish history. As a specialist in early modern and modern Jewish history, his work extends from the 16th century through to contemporary history. In the center of cultural studies oriented historical work in particular are questions about the structure and meaning of cultural change and cultural social stabilization processes. In addition to comprehensive analyzes, ranging from the history of law, on the religious and social history up mentalities, ideas and action- historical aspects, there are mainly questions of identity formation, to the formation, structure and strengthening Jewish community and independent cultural interpretation models Gotzmanns work through them. Another research focus is the history of science.

Andreas Gotzmann is a leading international representative culture of scientific thought within the Jewish Studies as well as the reorientation of the tray Jewish history towards a more integrative view of history '. With its special focus of cultural studies theory and analysis his work have also far beyond the narrow context of Jewish history.

In addition to numerous research projects and to the Jewish history of modernity Andreas Gotzmann is one of the initiators of the recent research interest in the early modern history of Judaism. Since 2003 he is speaker of the project cluster, Jewish Holy Roman Empire ', the largest international research combination to early modern Jewish history, in which many colleagues from different universities and research institutions from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Israel, the USA, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary are involved.

Recent Awards

In appreciation of his work published in 2008, basis for early modern Jewish history - Jewish autonomy in the early modern period. Law and Community in German Jewry ' - was Andreas Gotzmann 2010, awarded by the Polytechnic Society Foundation is the only German Science Award for Jewish History, the Rosl and Paul Arnsberg price.

" This is an extremely important contribution to our knowledge of the religious life of German Jewry in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. (...) The richness of this book lies as well in Gotzmann 's mastery of the material, Which allow him to develop fascinating ideas about the tensions of Jewish life. "

Shaul Stampfer ( Hebrew University Jerusalem)

Works (selection)

• Jewish law in the cultural process. The perception of the Halacha in the 19th century Germany, Tübingen 1997.
• Singularity and unity. Modernization discourses of German Jewry 's emancipation period, Leiden 2002.
• Jewish autonomy in the early modern period. Law and Community in German Jewry, Göttingen 2008.
• Andreas Gotzmann / Liedtke, Rainer / Rahden, Till van (eds. ), Jews - citizens - German. To diversity and limits in Germany, Tübingen 2001.
• Andreas Gotzmann / Makrides, Vasilios / Malik, Jamal / Rüpke, Jörg (eds. ): Religious pluralism in Europe, Marburg 2001.
• Andreas Gotzmann (ed. ) Kehilat Friedberg, 2 vols, Friedberg (H ) 2002: Vol 1: Kasper Holtkotte, Cilli, Jewish Life in Friedberg (. 16th-18th century); Vol 2: Litt, Stefan, log book and statutes of the Jewish community Friedberg (. 16th-18th century), Friedberg (Hessen) 2002.
• Andreas Gotzmann / Christian Wiese (eds. ), Modern Judaism and Historical Consciousness: Identities - Encounters - Perspectives, Boston 2007, 658 pp.
• Andreas Gotzmann / Michael Brenner / Yfaat Weiss ( eds. ), Germans - Jews - Czechs. The Case of the Czech Lands, Munich 2005 ( Bohemia; 46.1 / special edition).
• Andreas Gotzmann / Stephan Wendehorst (eds. ) Jews in the law. New approaches to the legal history of the Jews in the Old Reich, Berlin 2007 ( Journal of Historical Research, Supplement, 39 ), 419 pp.