HSTCMP 490 A: Advanced Topics in Comparative/Global History

Spring 2024
View in MyPlan View in Time Schedule
Meeting:
TTh 12:30pm - 2:20pm / CDH 115
SLN:
15386
Section Type:
Lecture
Joint Sections:
JEW ST 462 A
Instructor:
"ANTI-SEMITISM AS A CULTURAL SYSTEM " ****** THIS COURSE IS NOT ELIGIBLE FOR REGISTRATION BY AUDITORS OR ACCESS STUDENTS.
Syllabus Description (from Canvas):

Antisemitism

JEW ST 462 /HSTCMP 490

Spring 2024

T/Th 12:30-2:20

CDH 115


Professor Devin Naar                                          

Email: denaar@uw.edu                                      

Office hours: W 11 am-12 pm (THO 322); and by appointment   



“If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him.”

~ Jean-Paul Sartre, Réflexions sur la question juive (translated as Anti-Semite and Jew) (1945)

 

“Antisemitism is the rumor about the Jews.”

~ Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life (1951)

 

 

Course Description

 

This course was created about twenty years ago and has not been taught in at least twelve years. The original description reads as follows:

 

What is antisemitism? Merriam-Webster defines it as: “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.” The term may invoke images of Hitler and of the Holocaust, which transpired eighty years ago. Is antisemitism (or anti-Semitism) a thing of the past? Some, in contrast, claim that antisemitism is the world’s oldest hatred. Approaching the question historically, the claim poses a problem because the term “antisemitism” was coined only in the late nineteenth century. Does that mean that there was no hatred of Jews before the term antisemitism was invented? No, but is does mean that the forms that that kind of hostility has taken and the frameworks, contexts, and ideologies that have shaped it, have changed over time—so much so that scholars disagree over the utility of the term itself; some prefer Judeophobia or make sharp distinctions between premodern anti-Judaism and modern antisemitism. Other scholars suggest that a focus on anti-Judaism helps us understand more than hostility towards Jews but rather reveals how Western society has fundamentally defined itself in relationship—indeed in opposition—to Judaism over the generations as a kind of primordial “other.”

These are some of the questions and themes we will tackle in this course on antisemitism as we explore and discuss anti-Jewish attitudes, actions, policies, violence across history. We will delineate several salient anti-Jewish tropes or accusations made against Jews as they emerged historically: Christ killer, blood libel, money lender, dual loyalty, racial inferior, conspiracy to take over the world, among others. As the course is not only rooted in the past, there is a present-day dimension as antisemitism and its meaning is hotly contested today, including in the U. S. The White House issued its first plan to combat antisemitism – not in the 1930s – but rather in 2023; presidents of elite universities have lost their jobs following congressional hearings related to antisemitism; and even the UW has just established a new antisemitism task force, along with an islamophobia one.

 

Furthermore, this course does not evaluate antisemitism in isolation but rather analyzes it in relationship to other forms of prejudice, including islamophobia, white supremacy, white nationalism, anti-black racism, and sexism. We will see how antisemitism is linked to, and diverges from, these other systems of oppression. We will also address the most contested contemporary aspects of the debate in considering sources of antisemitism, both from the political right and left; the fraught and contested relationships between antisemitism and anti-Zionism; and various efforts to codify definitions of antisemitism.

Given the sometimes contested nature of some of the material to be discussed in course and in the readings, it is the expectation of this class that all participants engage in conversation with curiosity and respect.  

 

 

Course Goals and Objectives:

 

Content

  • To understand the development and changes of anti-Jewish attitudes and behaviors across time and geography
  • To identify key historical anti-Jewish tropes
  • To understand the terms of the contemporary debates over the meaning of antisemitism and the political positions and ideologies of those espousing them

Craft

  • To understand how historiographical debates about the meaning and nature of antisemitism have changed and shifted
  • To develop skills of close reading and analysis of primary source materials
  • To craft well-researched and clearly written assignments

Consciousness

  • To consider the impact of the history and contemporary debates about antisemitism on you as an individual, as a member of the UW community, as a resident of Washington state and of the United States, and as a citizen of the world
  • To develop your own understandings, utility, and pit falls of various definitions of antisemitism and how they relate to other forms of oppression
  • To be able to identify historical anti-Jewish tropes in contemporary political and social media spaces

 

Requirements and Grades:

 

  1. Weekly posts and replies in online Discussion Board: 20 % PLEASE SIGN UP FOR SESSIONS HERE

A vital component of this class will be our discussion board, a space where we can express our ideas and engage with each other.  It is also the place where the instructor can gauge your understanding and investment in our subject, and to follow the dialogue that develops among the members of the class. 

 

You will be responsible for crafting THREE response posts throughout the course. Please complete the week’s readings prior to crafting your responses. Each post should be 150-300 words. You must post your response by 5 pm PDT the evening before a particular set of texts will be discussed in class.

 

In addition to the five posts responses, you will also be responsible for at least THREE brief replies of 50-100 words to your classmates’ responses. You may choose to reply to any, and as many, of your classmates’ posts, but at minimum five. Please feel free to develop threads and conversations.

 

The goals here are to ensure that you are staying engaged with the course material throughout the duration.

 

In crafting your postings, please be thoughtful and please make a point. Your point should demonstrate that you’ve done the readings, but please do not spend much time reiterating the material. Assume everyone has else has also done the readings and is following the lectures, etc. Instead, reflect critically and thoughtfully on material and make an informed point; consider concluding with a question to generate additional responses from your classmates. See some netiquette tips here.

 

  1. Participation and final presentation: 20 %

Each class session becomes an opportunity to participate in discussion about course materials and to earn participation credit.

 

  1. Final Projects (60%): Details TBA 

 

Late Assignments: Extensions will be granted on a case by case basis. If you need an extension please inform the instructor prior to the deadline. Late papers will be penalized.

 

Course Materials:

All course materials will be accessible in digital format:

 

 

Class Schedule

The course syllabus is a living document; readings may be altered

 

  1. 3/26: Welcome and Introduction

 

  1. 3/28: Key Terms and Frameworks: Anti-Judaism, Judeophobia, Anti[-]Semitism

 

  1. 4/2: No Class – Watch film of your choice on your own - come prepared to discuss

                       

Incendiary Nazi propaganda films:

  • Jud Suss (1940) can be viewed: https://archive.org/details/JudSuess_487
  • The Eternal Jew (1940) can be viewed: https://archive.org/details/DerEwigeJude

                       

Early Hollywood films dealing with antisemitism

  • Gentleman’s Agreement (1947 Academy award): can be viewed onn amazon prime or youtube for $3.99
  • The Pawnbroker (1955 Academy award for best actor): can be viewed onn amazon prime or youtube for $3.99

 

  1. 4/4: Interlocking and Diverging Systems of Oppression

 

 

  1. 4/9: Antiquity
  • Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, ch 2.: “Early Christianity.”

Alternative or additional scholarly readings:

primary sources:

 

  1. 4/11: Middle Ages
  • Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, ch 5: “‘The Revenge of the Savior: Jews and Power in Medieval Europe,” 183-216.

Alternative or additional scholarly readings:

primary sources:

 

  1. 4/16: Inquisition and Reformation
  • Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, ch 6: “The Extinction of Spain’s Jews and the Birth of its Inquisition,” 217-245.
  • Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, ch 7: “Reformation and its Consequences,” 246-268.

Alternative or additional scholarly readings:

 primary sources:

 

  1. 4/18: Shakespeare and the Renaissance [THIS SESSION WILL BEGIN AT 1:30 IN THOMSON 403; everyone is invited to the Jewish studies workshop beforehand, at 12:30, in Thomson 317]
  • Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism, ch 8: “‘Which is the merchant here, and which is the Jew?’: Acting Jewish in Shakespeare’s England,” 269-299
  • Susannah Heschel, "The Merchant of Venice and the Theological Construction of Christian Europe," in Lauren B. Strauss and Michael Brenner, eds., Mediating Modernity: Challenges and Trends in the Jewish Encounter with the Modern World (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), 74‐92.

 primary sources:

  • Shakespeare, Shylock (excerpt)

 

  1. 4/23: No Class: Passover

 

  1. 4/25: The Jewish Question and Racial Antisemitism

Albert S. Lindemann, The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs – Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank 1894-1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 79-128. This chapter, on the Dreyfus affair, can be read via archive.org here. You can access this for free. 

Emile Zola,“J’Accuse: Letter to the President of the Republic,”

  

  1. 4/30: Nazism and the Holocaust

primary sources:

  • Hitler, Mein Kampf, excerpt
  • Nuremberg Laws--peruse selections here, pp. 723-733.
  • These are two accounts by the same author - a Greek Orthodox Christian in Salonica (Thessaloniki), Greece - recalling the fate of the Jews in his city during the Nazi occupation. How does each account depict relations between Jews and their Christian neighbors? When the author's Jewish neighbors are removed from the area, both accounts indicate that the homes owned by Jews were pillaged, but each account suggests a different group was responsible. Which is true? Did those neighbors pillage the Jews' homes due to antisemitism or other causes?
      • George Ioannou, “The Bed,” The Literary Review 16, no. 3 (Spring 1973): 303-308
      • George [Yorgos] Ioannou, “And it came to pass...” in Refugee Capital (Athens: Kedros, 1997), 85-102

 

12. 5/2: Echoes of the Enlightenment: GUEST SPEAKER

Dr. Gilah Kletenik, Affiliate Faculty, Stroum Center for Jewish Studies

Primary sources on Spinoza and the reception of his work:

 

13. 5/7: The Muslim World

 

primary sources:

 

 14. 5/9: American Exceptionalism?

 

 primary sources

  • The Leo Frank Case—court case and newspaper coverage
  • Henry Ford, The International Jew (excerpt)
  • James Baldwin, “Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White,” The New York Times (9 April 1967)

 

 15. 5/14: “New Antisemitism” and the Question of Anti-Zionism

 

 16. 5/16: Competing Definitions Today

GUEST SPEAKER: Maxima (Max) Patashnik, Director of the Greater Seattle Jewish Federation's Jewish Community Relations Council and Public Affairs (see the final two links connected to this session for insights into her work; also of relevance are readings from session on Debates in Seattle and King County).

 

 

 

 

 17. 5/21: National Debates Today

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. 5/23: Debates in King County and Seattle

 GUEST SPEAKER: Diana Dvora Falchuk, team member of Diaspora Alliance

 

 

  1. 5/28: Contested Cases

 

--We will discuss as a class which contested cases and accusations of antisemitism in recent years we will read about and discuss

 

  1. 5/30: Final presentations

 

 

 

Catalog Description:
Examines special topics in history.
GE Requirements Met:
Social Sciences (SSc)
Credits:
5.0
Status:
Active
Last updated:
May 5, 2024 - 3:10 am