Learning about Antisemitism

Fall 2024

518: Anti-Semitism in European Culture, 1700-1945
Cross-listed with History 518, Sociology 496-003
Although antisemitism was once considered dormant, individuals and political movements espousing antisemitism have made headlines in both the US and Europe in recent years. On the one hand, attempts by policymakers and activists to identify and combat antisemitism are often hobbled by a lack of knowledge about the history of the phenomenon. On the other hand, scholarship by historians sometimes suffers from a lack of attention to its contemporary manifestations. This course provides a critical and interdisciplinary review of the history and major theories of modern antisemitism, with attention to both past and present-day forms of this phenomenon.

Summer 2024

310: The Holocaust
Cross-listed with History 310
References to the Holocaust abound in contemporary political debates and in our popular culture. But most people know very little about the history of the Holocaust, despite the mountains of superb historical scholarship that experts in the field have produced over decades of dedicated research. Utilize correspondence, diaries, or other firsthand accounts of Holocaust victims, together with study of the larger events around them, to reconstruct the experiences of ordinary families swept up in the Nazi genocide.

Spring 2024

340: The American Jewish Life of DNA
Cross-listed with Religious Studies 340
Explore the range of relationships between DNA and American Jewish life, from Biblical genealogies, to early twentieth century racial science; to the second half of the twentieth century, when the discovery of the double helix and the atrocities of Auschwitz reinvigorated and reshaped American Jewish relationships to DNA.

Fall 2023

423: Modern Jewish Thought
Cross-listed with ILS 423, Sociology 423
While the “Jewish Question” initially referred to debates about Jewish emancipation, it later served to describe modern Jewish political and social thought about the identity, place, and role of the Jews in the modern world. Beginning in the late 19th century, as cultural assimilation, economic impoverishment in eastern Europe, and rising antisemitism sowed doubts about the viability of emancipation and traditionalism alike, Jewish thinkers proposed new answers to the Jewish question. Learn about some of the major answers they debated, and work to contextualize these ideas historically while also considering whether and how they remain relevant to the present.

430-002: Anne Frank
Cross-listed with German 325, LitTrans 326
Examine the context in which Anne Frank’s diaries were written, the various ways in which they were received, and what her work and life have to say to people today amid the continued scourge of racism. Topics include the nature of literature. Is what Ms. Frank wrote literature? Why, or why not?

518: Anti-Semitism in European Culture, 1700-1945
Cross-listed with History 518
Although once considered dormant in the United States, political movements and individual actors espousing antisemitism have made headlines here in recent years. On the one hand, attempts by policymakers and activists to identify and combat antisemitism are often hobbled by a lack of knowledge about the history of the phenomenon. On the other hand, scholarship by historians sometimes suffers from a lack of attention to its contemporary manifestations. This seminar aims to help build a rigorous conception of antisemitism as a set of strangely persistent ideas, with attention to both historical and present-day forms of antisemitism.

631: Blacks and Jews in Urban America
Cross-listed with History 500
Both African Americans and Jews were persecuted minorities in their places of origin and continued to suffer discrimination after migration. Yet their positions in American society differed in key respects. With recognition of their differences, we will investigate in a comparative fashion how Blacks and Jews shaped their cultures and communities during a formative era in their respective histories. The seminar’s geographic focus is the urban north, and the temporal focus is the late 19^th to the mid-20^th century.

632: Art, Visual Culture, and the Holocaust
Cross-listed with Art History 430
What do we see when we think of the Holocaust? How can art and visual culture help us to begin comprehending the incomprehensible and reckon with the past in the present, finding connections to other moments and locations? Engage these questions through canonical texts and more recent pathbreaking interventions. Authors include Marianne Hirsch, Lisa Saltzman, and Tina Campt. Discussed artists include Art Spiegelman, Phillip Guston, and Charlotte Salomon.

Summer 2023

310: The Holocaust
Cross-listed with History 310
References to the Holocaust abound in contemporary political debates and in our popular culture. But most people know very little about the history of the Holocaust, despite the mountains of superb historical scholarship that experts in the field have produced over decades of dedicated research. Utilize correspondence, diaries, or other firsthand accounts of Holocaust victims, together with study of the larger events around them, to reconstruct the experiences of ordinary families swept up in the Nazi genocide.

Spring 2023 

423: Modern Jewish Thought
Cross-listed with ILS 423, Sociology 423
While the “Jewish Question” initially referred to debates about Jewish emancipation, it later served to describe modern Jewish political and social thought about the identity, place, and role of the Jews in the modern world. Beginning in the late 19th century, as cultural assimilation, economic impoverishment in eastern Europe, and rising antisemitism sowed doubts about the viability of emancipation and traditionalism alike, Jewish thinkers proposed new answers to the Jewish question. Learn about some of the major answers they debated, and work to contextualize these ideas historically while also considering whether and how they remain relevant to the present.

631: Advanced Topics in Jewish History: Zionism and Its Critics
In the late 19th century, Jews in Europe initiated a movement for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Known as Zionism, this movement eventually led to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. There were multiple forms of Zionism that pursued various strategies and goals. Zionism also generated fierce criticism from various quarters within and outside the Jewish community. Much was at stake in the debates among Zionists and between Zionists and their critics. Framed most broadly, this seminar explores the interplay between nationalism, socialism, and liberalism through the case of the Jews as they became entangled with nation-states, empires, and revolutions from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century.

632: Advanced Topics in Jewish Philosophy and the Arts: Music and Genocide
Cross-listed with Music 497-053
Explores music and its multiple functions, from resistance to weaponization, during the Holocaust (1938 – 1945), as well as in more recent genocides. Students identify and investigate topics relevant to their present and future lives. The course is open to any student who appreciates music and is interested in how it has been utilized by both victimizers and victims.

Named for Professor Rachel Feldhay Brenner (1946 – 2021), and open to both undergraduate and graduate students at UW, this award reflects Brenner’s own intellectual focus on the Holocaust.

More info on the award available here.

“University Students in the 1930s: Antisemitism and Racism on Midwestern Campuses”
Professor Riv-Ellen Prell (University of Minnesota, emerita)
The Stanley I. Kutler Lectures in American Jewish Studies
November 6, 2023

“Assessing the Significance of Left-Wing Antisemitism: Intimacy, Disappointment and Obsession”
Dr. Keith Kahn-Harris (Leo Baeck College)
February 28, 2023

“Resurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Poland’s Jewish Revival”
February 22, 2023
Professor Geneviève Zubrzycki (University of Michigan)

“By the Grace of the Game: The World’s Only Journey from Auschwitz to the NBA”
The Inaugural Darren M. Latimer Series on Jews and Sports with Dan Grunfeld
Co-sponsored with UW Hillel
October 20, 2022

“Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth”
Professor Magda Teter (Fordham University)
February 8, 2022
Co-sponsored with the Mosse Program in History
“Weaving Disparate Narratives: Behind the Scenes of Bergen-Belsen’s Liberation”
Dr. Bernice Lerner, in conversation with Professor Francine Hirsch

“The American Influence on Nazi Race Law: Assessing U.S. Responsibility”
Professor James Q. Whitman (Yale University)
The Paul J. Schrag Lecture
February 11, 2021

“Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II”
Professor Francine Hirsch (University of Wisconsin-Madison), in conversation with Tony Michels
October 12, 2020

Chad Alan Goldberg (Martindale-Bascom Professor of Sociology, CJS Joint Governance Appointment)

“From Multiculturalism to Antisemitism? Revisiting the Jewish Question in America,” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 11, no. 2 (June 2023): 269–292

“UW Professor on Rise in Antisemitism,” interview on WISC-TV (CBS) Channel 3 News; November 20, 2023

Interview with Rob Ferrett, “White House Releases First-Ever National Strategy to Fight Antisemitism,” Central Time, Wisconsin Public Radio, June 2, 2023

Interview with Aditi Debnath, “The Chronic Scourge of Casual Antisemitism in a Divisive Era,” Here & Now, Wisconsin Public Television, February 24, 2023

Tony Michels (George L. Mosse Professor of American Jewish History)

“Is America ‘Different?’ A Critique of American Jewish Exceptionalism,” American Jewish History, Vol. 96, No. 3, (September 2010 [published in 2012]), pp. 201-224; recipient of the Wasserman Essay Prize, American Jewish Historical Society

Through the generosity of our donors, CJS has offered scholarship funds to UW graduate students conducting research on the Holocaust and other subjects related to antisemitism. Current students and recent alumni include:

Ludwig Decke
Ph.D. candidate, History

Alex Scheepens
Ph.D. candidate, History

Ilana Weltman
Ph.D. candidate, Curriculum and Instruction

Chad S. A. Gibbs, Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and Director, Zucker/Goldberg Center for Holocaust Studies, College of Charleston (UW Ph.D., History)

James Osorio, Ph.D. candidate at Brown University
(UW M.A., Historical Musicology, M.M., Piano Performance, Mead Witter School of Music)

Britt Tevis, Phyllis Backer Chair in Jewish Studies, Syracuse University
(UW Ph.D., History)

In the book Wisconsin, the New Home of the Jew: 150 Years of Jewish Life at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, CJS Honorary Scholar Jonathan Z. S. Pollack (Madison College) describes the daily lives, contributions, and challenges of Jewish students, faculty, staff, and alumni at UW–Madison since the late nineteenth century. The early establishment of student Zionist groups, Hillel, and fraternities and sororities at UW set examples for campuses nationwide. In the decades that followed, Madison’s Jewish faculty included a remarkable constellation of internationally renowned scholars. As Pollack shows, however, this is also a story of fluctuating reactions to the Jewish presence and recurring antisemitism on the part of the administration, local residents, and state government. Amid periods of acceptance and embrace, discrimination and exclusion, Jews with a stake in the University invested in their community and left a lasting imprint on UW and beyond.

Commissioned by the Center for Jewish Studies, and made possible through support from Julie and Peter Weil (members of the CJS Board of Visitors), Pollack’s book is available in full on our website and through the UW Madison Libraries’ digital collection.

To hear a WORT-FM interview with Pollack about the book, click here.

To report antisemitic incidents that occur on campus,

follow the instructions provided here by the Dean of Students Office.