{"id":27645,"date":"2026-05-13T14:22:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/?post_type=cu_description&#038;p=27645"},"modified":"2026-05-13T14:22:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T18:22:16","slug":"antisemitism-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"cu_description","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/description\/antisemitism-then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Antisemitism, Then and Now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p><strong>Antisemitism, Then and Now<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RELI 3142A\/HIST3122A<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong class=\"myprefix-text-bold\">Fall 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Course Description:<\/strong><em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This course is offered for credit by both History and Religion and is taught by one professor from each discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What is antisemitism? It is sometimes called the world\u2019s oldest hatred but is it one long, continuous history or it does it change over time and place? There are many contemporary arguments about how to define antisemitism. Why is it so hard to agree on a definition? If it is directed at Jews why does it use the term Semite? The Semites include people who are not Jewish so what does that mean? Why is it so persistent, present in ancient times and in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century, in places where there are no Jewish people and in places where Jews lived for a thousand years? How is it different from or related to other forms of racism or prejudice? Why is antisemitism so frequently missing from wider discussions of racism? Some argue antizionism is the new manifestation of antisemitism but others say antizionism is not antisemitism. What does any of that mean? Jews suffer 70% of all police verified, religiously motived hate crimes in Canada but they are less than 2% of the population. Jewish Canadians are 25 times more likely to experience a hate crime than other Canadians. Why? How will understanding antisemitism help us to understand racism more broadly? Will studying history and religion help us to understand all these questions? Yes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This course looks at both historical and contemporary antisemitism. We examine the long history of antisemitism to understand the significance of antisemitism in historical contexts and to understand how it continues into the present.&nbsp; We look at continuity and change and the consequences of antisemitism, both in the past and present. We draw on religious texts, historical documents, legislation, political propaganda, oral histories, and film.&nbsp; Our work is shaped by the insights of critical race studies, particularly critical antisemitism studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This third-year course moves through the earliest expressions of antisemitism in religious and social contexts from the ancient world through the medieval period.&nbsp; We begin to trace modern forms of antisemitism through the 19<sup>th<\/sup> and early 20<sup>th<\/sup> centuries in Europe, North America and the Middle East and Africa to provide a context for the genocidal antisemitism of the Holocaust and the antisemitism of post-1948.&nbsp; The second half of the course focuses on contemporary expressions of antisemitism with attention to politics and popular culture, including films, social media, and the press.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>There are no prerequisites for the course. Second year standing or above is required. This course will include disturbing material that is difficult.&nbsp; Course materials include examples of hate speech, antisemitic propaganda, detailed descriptions of antisemitic violence and gendered violence. It is crucial for us to work together build a supportive classroom environment and forge collective knowledge. This process requires active engagement and listening intently to one another. Many issues we explore will be challenging, personal, and potentially painful. Therefore, we must work together to create a space in which we can learn together.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Graded Work<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Graded work will include in class presentations on assigned texts, in class writing on course material, essays that draw on both class materials and research on a chosen topic and other evaluations that assess your understanding of the course content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":520,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_description_type":[],"class_list":["post-27645","cu_description","type-cu_description","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description\/27645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_description"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description\/27645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27646,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description\/27645\/revisions\/27646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_description_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/history\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_description_type?post=27645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}