BIRKBECK INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM
Seminar: The Politics of Redemptive Anti-Antisemitism
Time: 13:00 to 14:00 (GMT)
Date: 18 March 2025
Speaker: Adam Sutcliffe, King’s College London
Location: Online – the joining link will be sent the day before the event
Booking: Free seminar for scholars. Click the link below or contact bisa@bbk.ac.uk for further information.
Event page: https://bisa.bbk.ac.uk/event/the-politics-of-redemptive-anti-antisemitism/
Short synopsis:
In this seminar, Adam Sutcliffe will attempt to chart the increasing emphasis across the West since the 1990s of ‘redemptive anti-antisemitism’ and consider its problematic role in contemporary politics.
Long synopsis:
In this seminar, Professor Adam Sutcliffe will attempt to chart the increasing emphasis across the West since the 1990s of ‘redemptive anti-antisemitism’. This association of opposition to antisemitism with the historical lessons of the Holocaust has important conceptual and cultural roots in the deep history of the special signification of Jewish collective purpose in the world. Sutcliffe will particularly focus on the redemptive dimension of this outlook, exploring the importance of this to the psychological appeal of redemptive anti-antisemitism, and in its extremely problematic role in contemporary politics.
Adam Sutcliffe is Professor of European History at King’s College London. He is the co-editor of Philosemitism in History (CUP, 2011), and the author, most recently, of What Are Jews For? History, Peoplehood and Purpose(Princeton UP, 2020). He is currently working on a history of the idea of historical empathy.