Antisemitism: Past and Present

Key information

Start date
End date
Year of study
Any Year
Duration
Term 2
Module code
15PNMH067
FHEQ Level
7
Credits
15
Department
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics & Near and Middle East Section

Module overview

With growing awareness to the dangers of antisemitism, and with fierce debates on its definition, this MA module will provide students with a conceptual and historical introduction on Antisemitism past and present.

We will discuss the changing nature of antisemitism as ideology and praxis. How do the "classical" forms of antisemitism - financial power, conspiracies, the blood libel relate to contemporary discussion? From Christian anti-Jewish polemics, through early modern persecution based on heritage and blood, to 19th-20th century racial theories, pogroms and the Holocaust, anti-Jewish prejudice persecution changed its nature and manifestations.

In the 21st century, the relation of antisemitism and Israel/Palestine politics is fiercely debated.  We will discuss the Holocaust - its uniqueness and comparability to other genocides and consider the connection between antisemitism and coloniality. How do we think of the relation between Antisemitism, Zionism and anti-Zionism?  How does antisemitism intersect with Whiteness? How do we understand antisemitism in the wider context of racism – against anti-Blackness, and Islamophobia? The module will provide students with an academic space to reflect on and explore these hotly debated and consequential contemporary questions.

Syllabus

  • Antisemitism, medieval and modern
  • Religion, Money and power: the changing face of antisemitism
  • Antisemitism, Zionism and anti-Zionism
  • Antisemitism and Coloniality
  • The Holocaust and Multidirectional Memory
  • The Holocaust, genocides and ethnic cleansing
  • Antisemitism, Whiteness, and Anti-blackness
  • Islamophobia and antisemitism

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this module, the student will be able to:

  • identify and differentiate various types of antisemitism, and how they change historically
  • consider how antisemitism fits within (but is also different from other types of) racism and bigotries consider antisemitism in relation to Whiteness, Islamophobia, anti-Blackness, and the history and legacy of Colonialism
  • consider the relation of the Holocaust and other forms of genocide and racialised persecution;
  • understand current debates on the meaning of Antisemitism, and on its place in the political right and left; its relation to Israel, Zionism and anti-Zionism
  • develop the ability to navigate and disentangle contentious academic and public debates

Workload

1 hour lecture per week, 1 hour seminar per week, for 10 weeks.

Method of assessment

  • 30% - Digital assignment: podcast/Wikipedia/exhibition panel (1000 words or 10 minutes)
  • 70% - Essay (2000 words)
  • Exact assessment deadline dates will be published on the relevant module Moodle/BLE page

Core reading

  • Achcar, Gilbert. The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. London: Saqi, 2011.
  • Bashir, Bashir, and Amos Goldberg, eds. The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History. Columbia University Press, 2018.
  • Gidley, Ben and James Renton (eds.). Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe: A Shared Story?. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
  • Valman, Nadia, and Tony Kushner, eds. Philosemitism, Antisemitism and ‘the Jews’: Perspectives from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. Studies in European Cultural Transition. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2004.
  • Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford University Press, 2009.
  • Rothberg, Michael. The Implicated Subject : Beyond Victims and Perpetrators. Cultural Memory in the Present. Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, 2020.
  • Wistrich, Robert, ed. Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in the Contemporary World. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990.