Modern Anti-Semitism in Germany

4.0 credits

This course will explore "Anti-Semitism" as a historical phenomenon and a rhetorical one from the end of the 18th Century until today, particularly in Germany. We also examine the specific discursive history of anti-Semitic tropes –– with a special focus on the figure of the "enemy of the state." We will engage with a variety of genres of texts (historical documents, legal texts, theoretical / historiographic texts, cultural objects, newspaper articles, fictional narratives, state propaganda) to think about the construction and political exploitation of tropes, and the different forms of state violence they explicitly or implicitly underwrite. Discussion and readings in English, but German minors and majors will have opportunities to work with German language primary materials.