"Sweet France" and the Jews

FAIN: FT-57686-10

Kirsten Anne Fudeman
University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA 15260-6133)

Between May 15 and July 15, 2010, I will finish researching and writing one chapter of my book manuscript, "SWEET FRANCE" AND THE JEWS, which explores how Jews represented France and the royal domain in Hebrew, French, and Occitan writings from the 13th to the 15th century. I argue that before and after the 14th-century expulsions of the Jews from the French royal domain, Jews repeatedly asserted their membership in a French national community bound together by the monarchy, shared symbols, a common past composed of real and mythic elements, and hope for a shared future. This project will lead scholars to a fuller and more nuanced understanding of the emergence of national consciousness in France and contribute to our understanding of the place that Jewish people occupied in medieval Europe and of the ways in which minority groups negotiate their identity in the face of emerging national consciousness.