Sander Gilman Presents: Antisemitisms and Anti-antisemitisms

In his 2026 book, Antisemitisms: A History of Jew-Hating, Sander L. Gilman summarizes how the hatred of Jews came to be used as a political cudgel by non-Jews and Jews alike. In this talk, he will begin with the rise of 19th c. political antisemitisms, illustrating how “combatting” antisemitisms begins to sort out those who argue that Jews should be “treated just like everyone else”–without defining what that means–and those, acknowledging the persistence of Jew hatred, who believe that Jews should be the object of the “sympathy” accorded to perpetual victims. Such views were echoed in the 1913 founding of the Anti-Defamation League and have resonated ever more loudly in our present moment of rising antisemitisms and their instrumentalization.

Sander L. Gilman is a distinguished professor emeritus of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University. A cultural and literary historian, he is the author or editor of over one hundred books, ranging from Readers for Life: How Reading and Listening in Childhood Shape Us(2024) to the study of the visual stereotyping of the mentally ill, Seeing the Insane (1982) to his classic study, Jewish Self-Hatred(1986). In addition to many distinguished positions in North America, he has held positions in Berlin, Oxford, London, Hong Kong, Munich, South Africa, Israel, and New Zealand. Gilman became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016.

Cosponsors: Center for German & European Studies, Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Department of Classical & Near Eastern Religions & Cultures, Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature, Department of German, Nordic, Slavic, & Dutch, Department of History, Institute for Global Studies