WHY THE JEWS? THEORIES OF ANTISEMITISM

Credit Hours: 3 · Undergraduate Upper-Level

This class explores some of the major theoretical statements on antisemitism produced in the modern period. Beginning with a brief look at the history of Jewish emancipation and the ensuing debates about the “Jewish Question,” the course will consider the ways that antisemitism has been understood from the perspectives of history, theology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, critical theory, postcolonial thought, and more. The class will conclude with a consideration of the fraught contemporary arguments about the relationship between antisemitism and Zionism.