College:
Wolfson College
Course:
DPhil Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (Modern Jewish History)
Thesis Title:
Producing New Women: Work, Consumer Culture and the Jewish Garment Trade in Wilhelmine Germany
Contact:
angelina.palmen(a)wolfson.ox.ac.uk
Research Interests:
My dissertation, supervised by Professor David Rechter, examines the promotion of the feminism and women’s rights by companies in the Berlin industry for ready-made fashion and their mostly Jewish owners and directors 1890–1914. My broader areas of interest include Modern Jewish history, German history, Feminism, Gender Studies, Visual Culture, Labour and Business history, the history of the First World War, and the Digital Humanities. I have been a Dr Sophie Bookhalter Graduate Fellow at the Center for Jewish History in New York 2021–22, a member of the Posen Society of Fellows 2018–20 and a Leo Baeck fellow with the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes 2018–19. In 2021, I initiated and organised the workshop "Jews, Gender, and Economies in History Workshop," hosted by the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and co-sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Recent Publications and/or Conferences:
Peer-reviewed journal article: "Berlin Jews, Business, and Bourgeois Feminism 1890–1914: Commerce and the Making of a Cultural Moment," in a special issue of Jewish Culture and History (Taylor & Francis) titled "Jews, Europe and the Business of Culture" ed. Maja Hultman, Anders Houltz, and Benito Peix Geldart.
Peer-reviewed journal article: "Modern Confections: Jews, New Women, and the Business of Fashion in Imperial Berlin," in a special issue of Textile: Cloth and Culture (Taylor & Francis) titled "Jewish Dress through Visual Sources" ed. Svenja Bethke and Gil Pasternak. DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2022.2141038.
Labour and Precarity across Time and Space, Workshop of the Oxford Labour History Group (Oxford / online) - "Intersectionalising the History of the Garment Trade in Imperial Berlin"
Jews, Gender, and Economies Workshop (Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies / online) "Kaufhaus N. Israel (1815–1939): Reframing the Picture of Capitalism’s Favourite Child" - Paper with response from Professor Rebecca Kobrin
Jewish Studies Graduate Student Association Conference (Bloomington, Indiana): ”Gender and Work in the Berlin-Jewish Garment Trade Jewish Feminists and Jewish 'Capitalists' in Conversation,” - Panel: ”Fashioning Jewish Girls and Women in Germany at the Turn of the Century,” with response from Professor Kerry Wallach (Gettysburg College)
Summer Institute for Modern and Contemporary Judaism (Oxford): Respondent on panel for Modern Jewish History & Gender
Posen Fellows' Workshops (Berkeley): Thesis presentation and Response
Leo Baeck Fellows' Workshops in German-Jewish History (Leipzig; Brighton): Thesis presentation and Response
Gender and Inequality Interdisciplinary Workshop (Glasgow/Oxford): ”Patriotism, Patronage and Empowerment: German-Jewish Clothiers and 'their' Women Workers 1914–1918”
