Dr. Silvana Kandel Lamdan
This interdisciplinary seminar explores the profound connections between Jewish and postcolonial thinking beyond frameworks of victimhood. We will examine how Jewish experiences of diaspora, minoritarianism, and cultural hybridity have provided foundational concepts for postcolonial studies, while investigating how postcolonial thinkers have strategically appropriated Jewish theological and philosophical heritage. Through readings of key Jewish authors including Mendelssohn, Buber, Benjamin, Levinas, and Derrida, alongside postcolonial theorists such as Fanon, Césaire, Du Bois, and Latin American revolutionary thinkers, we will analyze critical intersections in modern discourse around religion and politics, global North-South dynamics, diaspora and homeland, and intercultural encounters.
We will also engage with the place of Holocaust memory within postcolonial discourse and the concept of multidirectional memories. This seminar offers a timely opportunity to reimagine the critical reciprocity between Jewish studies and postcolonial studies, particularly relevant given current global tensions and the need for new frameworks of intercultural dialogue.