“Antisemitism and postcolonial theory” - book presentation with Ingo Elbe
When: July 1, 2024, 7 p.m.
Where: Berlin - Mitte. The exact location will be announced two days before the event after prior registration.
Registration required: By email to: seminar@mideastfreedomforum.org
Postcolonial theories are currently shaping the global cultural and academic scene. What began as an attempt to take account of the specific experiences of colonized societies has mutated into a grand narrative of a critique of the “Western understanding” of reason and legitimate political order. Despite all the invocations of complexity, the motif of “coloniality” is declared to be the main criterion of historical observation, philosophical reflection and social criticism. The picture that prominent representatives of this approach paint of antisemitism and the Holocaust on the one hand, and Judaism and Zionism on the other, exhibits systematic distortions: Different forms and degrees of radicalism in the conceptual levelling or trivialization of antisemitism, the relativization of the Shoah as well as the demonization of Israel. The book shows that such long academically recognized thematizations of Judaism and antisemitism contribute nothing to the understanding of Jew-hatred and are a factor in its strengthening.
Dr. Ingo Elbe
is a research assistant and private lecturer at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Oldenburg. His latest book “Antisemitism and Postcolonial Theory. Der 'progressive' Angriff auf Israel, Judentum und Holocausterinnerung” was published in 2024 by the Berlin publishing house Edition Tiamat as a publication of the Gesellschaft für kritische Bildung: edition-tiamat.de/books/antisemitismus-und-postkoloniale-theorie
Further publications: (as co-editor) Probleme des Antirassismus. Postcolonial Studies, Critical Whiteness and Intersectionality Research in Critique, Berlin 2022 and: Hannah Arendt's image of the Holocaust - with an outlook on its postcolonial heirs. In: A. Stahl/S. Grigat/M. Seul (eds.): Remembering as the highest form of forgetting. (Re)interpretations of the Holocaust and the Historikerstreit 2.0, Berlin 2023. Online texts at: uol.de/philosophie/pd-dr-ingo-elbe/publikationen
An event organized by the Mideast Freedom Forum Berlin e.V. in cooperation with the Young Forum of the DIG Berlin-Brandenburg e.V. and the Gesellschaft für kritische Bildung e.V.
