Book at Lunchtime: Jews, Liberalism, Antisemitism

Book at Lunchtime is a series of bite-sized book discussions held
weekly during term-time, with commentators from a range of
disciplines. The events are free to attend and open to all. About
the book: The emancipatory promise of liberalism - and its
exclusionary qualities - shaped the fate of Jews in many parts of
the world during the age of empire. Yet historians have mostly
understood the relationship between Jews, liberalism and
antisemitism as a European story, defined by the collapse of
liberalism and the Holocaust. This volume challenges that
perspective by taking a global approach. It takes account of recent
historical work that explores issues of race, discrimination and
hybrid identities in colonial and postcolonial settings, but which
has done so without taking much account of Jews. Individual essays
explore how liberalism, citizenship, nationality, gender, religion,
race functioned differently in European Jewish heartlands, in the
Mediterranean peripheries of Spain and the Ottoman empire, and in
the North American Atlantic world. Speakers: Professor Abigail
Green is Professor of Modern European History at Brasenose College,
Oxford. Her recent work focuses on international Jewish history and
transnational humanitarian activism. She is currently completing a
three year Leverhulme Senior Research Fellowship, working on a new
book on liberalism and the Jews, tentatively titled Children of
1848: Liberalism and the Jews from the Revolutions to Human Rights.
Working in partnership with colleagues in the heritage sector, she
is also leading a major four year AHRC-funded project on Jewish
country houses. Professor Simon Levis Sullam is Associate Professor
of Modern History at Ca’ Foscari, University of Venice, Italy. His
fields of interest include the history of ideas and culture in
Europe between the Nineteenth and the Twentieth century, with a
particular focus on nationalisms and fascism; the history of the
Jews and of Anti-Semitism; the history of the Holocaust; the
history of historiography, and questions of historical method. His
many publications include, most recently, The Italian Executioners:
The Genocide of the Jews of Italy. Professor Adam Sutcliffe is
Professor of European History and co-director of the Centre for
Enlightenment Studies at King’s College London. His research has
focused on in the intellectual history of Western Europe between
approximately 1650 and 1850, and on the history of Jews, Judaism
and Jewish/non-Jewish relations in Europe from 1600 to the present.
Professor Sutcliffe’s most recent publication, What Are Jews For?
History, Peoplehood and Purpose, is a wide-ranging look at the
history of Western thinking on the purpose of the Jewish people. Dr
Kei Hiruta is Assistant Professor and AIAS-COFUND Fellow at the
Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark.
His research lies at the intersection of political philosophy and
intellectual history, with particular interest in theories of
freedom in modern political thought. His book Hannah Arendt and
Isaiah Berlin: Freedom, Politics and Humanity will be published
from Princeton University Press in autumn 2021.