Tag Archives: race

(James Loeffler) After Charlottesville: Antisemitism, Race, Law (Rudolph Lecture)

Posted on April 22, 2022 by zjb
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Animism, Affect, Spiritual Beings (E.B. Tylor)

Posted on October 4, 2021 by zjb

In late mid-career, I finally got around to E.B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture and more of these musty nineteenth century contributions to the science of Religion. I am now including in my graduate seminar on Theories and Methods Max Müller’s Lectures … Continue reading →

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Anti-Black & White in Jewish Texts (Abraham Melamed)

Posted on April 15, 2021 by zjb

Abraham Melamed’s The Image of the Black in Judaism was first published in Hebrew in 2002 and then translated into English in 2003. While the title does little to recommend itself and the theoretical apparatus is dated, the data are … Continue reading →

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Teaching the Holocaust (Jewish Difference)

Posted on February 9, 2021 by zjb

First day teaching Shoah: Responding to the Holocaust. The last time I taught this class was in 2018. This year, a very diverse group of students., not just Jewish, not just White. The students were unclear about wanted to talk … Continue reading →

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(Jacob Lawrence) Black Americans & the American Revolution (Struggle)

Posted on February 4, 2021 by zjb

  This richly illustrated article here by Rachel Himes at Jacobin about Struggle: From the History of the American People, the 1954-1956 series of 30 panels by Jacob Lawrence illuminating the place of Black Americans in the American Revolution. The … Continue reading →

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Black-Jewish Prisms (Jews for Black Lives Matter Movement)

Posted on September 1, 2020 by zjb

  Itself atypical for reasons I will note below, the recent statement of support from across the mainstream liberal and progressive spectrum of the Jewish community for the Black Lives Matter movement raises critical questions about what Jewish things Jews … Continue reading →

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Black Lives Matter in Yiddish בלעק לײַװס מעטער

Posted on June 5, 2020 by zjb

Deciding not to translate is the most Yiddish thing to do. Kudos to Anthony Russel and Jewish Current for this piece here cutting to a core, here about translating BLM into Yiddish and the attempt “to touch Blackness from inside … Continue reading →

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(Black Christian Religion) Letter from a Region in My Mind (James Baldwin)

Posted on December 1, 2018 by zjb

The 1946 photo of James Baldwin is by Richard Avedon, which makes me wonder if Baldwin was already that famous that early on. It accompanies and this piece which you can read here. It was republished in this week’s New … Continue reading →

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(Synthesis of Intuitions) Philosophy Art Race Religion (Adrian Piper)

Posted on July 25, 2018 by zjb

A series of black and white photographs, Food for the Spirit (1971) documents the artist and philosopher Adrian Piper, holed up and isolated at home, having thrown herself one summer into a close reading of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.  … Continue reading →

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(On Recognition) Blacks & Jews & the Women’s March (Farrakhan Again)

Posted on March 8, 2018 by zjb

The details, of course, are well-known by now. Farrakhan, a master conspiracy theorist, emerges from out under the rocks like some monster to pronounce against his longtime enemies, “the “powerful Jews,” warning that “their time is up, your world is … Continue reading →

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