Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism
Upcoming events
Public lecture
How racism reclaimed its identity
Date: 18 November 2025
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Speaker: Kenan Malik, writer, lecturer and broadcaster
Location: In person – Birkbeck, University of London, Clore Lecture Theatre, Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL
Booking: Free event – book your place here: https://bisa.bbk.ac.uk/event/how-racism-reclaimed-its-identity/
Event page: https://bisa.bbk.ac.uk/event/how-racism-reclaimed-its-identity/
Short synopsis: Kenan Malik explores the erosion of the barrier between far-right and mainstream ideas, the resurgence of racism and what our response should be.
Long synopsis: From calls for “remigration” to the insistence that Rishi Sunak cannot be English, ideas and arguments that even two decades ago were confined to the fringes of politics are now part of mainstream debate.
In this talk, Kenan Malik traces the story of how this happened by looking at three interconnected strands: the embrace by the far-right of arguments for cultural pluralism; the rise of identity politics and its seizure by racial thinkers; and the erosion of the firewall that had existed for much of the postwar period between far-right and mainstream debates about race and immigration. He explores also the ways in which the resurgence of contemporary antisemitism relates to that of the new racism.
Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer, broadcaster and a columnist for The Observer. His latest book, Not So Black and White (Hurst, 2022), is a history of ideas of race and identity. Previous books include The Quest for a Moral Compass (Atlantic Books, 2017), a global history of ethics, and From Fatwa to Jihad (Atlantic Books, 2010, updated 2017), on the Rushdie affair and its legacy.
Public lecture
Antisemitism in America: the problem and politics of antisemitism on campus
Date: 2 December 2025
Time: 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm
Speaker: Dov Waxman, University of California, Los Angeles
Location: In person – Birkbeck, University of London, Clore Lecture Theatre, Clore Management Centre, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7JL
Booking: Free event – book your place here: https://bisa.bbk.ac.uk/event/antisemitism-in-america-the-problem-and-politics-of-antisemitism-on-campus/
Event page: https://bisa.bbk.ac.uk/event/antisemitism-in-america-the-problem-and-politics-of-antisemitism-on-campus/
Short synopsis: In this lecture, Professor Dov Waxman will consider not only the problem of antisemitism on US campuses but also how it has become a subject for political intervention and controversy.
Long synopsis: Since university students across the USA began protesting against Israel’s current war on Gaza, antisemitism on college campuses has become a major political issue, with far-reaching consequences. In this talk, Dov Waxman will ask: Is antisemitism widespread at universities and colleges in the US, as many now believe? Is the Trump administration genuinely committed to combating campus antisemitism? What are the implications for academic freedom and free speech on campus? In addressing these questions, Professor Waxman will consider not only the problem of antisemitism on US campuses but also how it has become a subject for political intervention and controversy.
Dov Waxman is the Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies and a professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also an Honorary Research Fellow at BISA. From 2020-2024, he served as the director of UCLA’s Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. He is the author of four books: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2019), Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (Princeton University Press, 2016), Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and The Pursuit of Peace and The Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending/Defining the Nation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).
Seminar
Jewish refugee artists in Britain: an untold story of visual resistance to fascism, 1930s–40s
Date: 9 December 2025
Time: 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
Speaker: Diana Popescu, Honorary Research Fellow, Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, University of London and Gerda Henkel Research Fellow
Location: Online – the joining link will be sent the day before the event
Booking: Free seminar for scholars – book your place here: https://bisa.bbk.ac.uk/event/jewish-refugee-artists-in-britain-an-untold-story-of-visual-resistance-to-fascism-1930s-40s/?hash=bfb3912d-2fcb-45a6-8123-d7460fc83827
Short synopsis: Diana Popescu uncovers an overlooked chapter in British and Jewish cultural histories: the role of Jewish refugee artists in shaping visual opposition to Nazism during the 1930s and 1940s.
Long synopsis:
In this seminar, Diana Popescu uncovers an overlooked chapter in British and Jewish cultural histories: the role of Jewish refugee artists in shaping visual opposition to Nazism during the 1930s and 1940s.
Persecuted and displaced, these artists took up pen, ink, and brush to create searing images: satirical cartoons, sketches, and prints that exposed Hitlerism and gave voice to Jewish resistance. Published in newspapers, shown in exhibitions, and circulated in activist networks, their works formed a striking body of anti-fascist imagery that confronted perpetrators directly while contributing to Britain’s wider cultural and political discourse.
Artists such as John Heartfield, Joseph Otto Flatter, Hermann Fechenbach, Victor Weisz, and Walter Trier, Stephen Roth, Fred Uhlman, and others are brought together here to trace their contributions and connections with antifascist British groups like the Artists International Association. This talk reveals how their art combined urgency, honesty, and defiance, offering a powerful and still resonant visual resistance to fascism.
Diana I. Popescu is a Gerda Henkel Fellow and Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. She specialises in Holocaust representation and memory, visual arts, and visitor experience at Holocaust museums and memory sites. Her edited books include Public Engagement with Holocaust Memory sites in Poland (Palgrave 2024); Visitor Experience at Holocaust Memorials and Museums (Routledge 2022); and co-edited volumes Performative Holocaust Commemoration in the 21st Century (Routledge 2021) and Revisiting Holocaust Representation in the Post-Witness Era (Palgrave 2015). She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.