“Three Moments in the History of Antisemitism”

This talk explores three pivotal moments in the history of antisemitism, tracing its evolution from antiquity through the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. In antiquity, we will examine the roots of anti-Judaic sentiments in the Greco-Roman world, zooming in on the famous Alexandria riot in the first century CE. In the Middle Ages, we will look at the features of Christian antisemitism, the impact of religious conflicts, and the consequent key moments of the persecution. Finally, we will consider the modern era, highlighting the transformation of antisemitic ideologies in the context of nationalism, racial theories. By exploring these key moments, we aim to highlight the historical complexities and discontinuities of antisemitism – a seemingly unique, transhistorical phenomenon that hides multiple antisemitisms.

Speaker Bios:

Giacomo Loi is an Azrieli Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of Haifa. He earned his BA and MA in Classics at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, and obtained his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in 2023 with the dissertation “‘Our Quarrel Is Of Old’: Classical Reception in Modern Hebrew Literature,” where he explores the presences, uses, and shifting meanings of Greco-Roman culture in modern Jewish Hebrew culture (1890s-2010s). As a 2021/22 doctoral fellow at the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, Paris, he developed his project There Is No Analogy Within History: Classical Myth and Holocaust Literature, and initiated the project “Gentile” Antiquity: The Reception of Antiquity in Modern Italian Jewish Culture.

Aamir Mufti is the Ralph S. and Becky G. O’Connor Professor of English at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Mufti is a scholar of the history and legacies of the British Empire in South Asia and of the crises contained within the so-called Jewish Question in Europe since the eighteenth century. How the figure of migrant impacts the project of European unification is one of his main preoccupations at the moment, in a book project called Strangers in Europa.

When: Thursday, November 7, 2024

Time: 12-1:15 pm

Where: Mergenthaler Hall, 431

Register here!