Adam Stern: Assistant Professor, Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+ AND THE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES, UW-MADISON
Beginning with Hannah Arendt’s well-known distinction between medieval, religious Jew-hatred and modern, secular antisemitism, this talk reconsiders contemporary debates concerning the periodization of race, religion, and settler colonialism. The discussion follows Arendt’s terms into more recent historiographical writing by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (Jewish history), Geraldine Heng (race in the Middle Ages), and Patrick Wolfe (colonization). It concludes by speculating on how this constellation of figures and texts can contribute to a theological-political genealogy of Zionism as a form of island-thinking.
Please note: A catered lunch will be provided at this Friday Lunch event. Seats are limited and available on a first-come basis. To register, please send an email to rsvp@humanities.wisc.edu with your name, title, or affiliation.
Adam Stern is an Assistant Professor of German and Jewish Studies at UW–Madison. His first book, Survival: A Theological-Political Genealogy, was published with the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2021. Recent work has appeared in journals such as CR: The New Centennial Review, Modern Intellectual History, Critical Times, and Theory & Event. He is currently working on a new book-length project, tentatively entitled: Settlers, Natives, Jews.
