Defense Date

10-30-2023

Graduation Date

Fall 12-15-2023

Availability

Immediate Access

Submission Type

dissertation

Degree Name

PhD

Department

Psychology

School

McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts

Committee Chair

Leswin Laubscher

Committee Member

Derek Hook

Committee Member

Stephen Frosh

Keywords

anti-Semitism, antisemitism, racism, proteophobia, Adorno, Critical Theory, Psychoanalysis, Bauman, Jewish

Abstract

Anti-Semitism is a pervasive global issue, particularly prominent in the United States. Studying and defining anti-Semitism prove remarkably challenging for scholars, leading to inadequate understanding and exclusion from contemporary academic discourse and social justice initiatives. In this dissertation, I made the case that anti-Semitism is hard to categorize, stemming, in part, from the difficulty in categorizing what it is to be Jewish, which seems to be multi-form (a figure of thought, a race, an ethnicity, a religion, a nation, none of the above). In thinking about the difficulty in categorization, I constellated various instances of anti-Jewish practices across historical epochs where the Jew stands in the changing and ambivalent position of the troubling outsider-within—both for others, and for Jews as well. I found that the difficulty in thinking categorically is mimicked in the very scholarly study of anti-Semitism. To account for this double difficulty (in the subject and its study), I turned to Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of proteophobia, or the anxious fear of what doesn’t fit into clear-cut categories. I proposed that thinking of anti-Semitism through the lens proteophobia can help scholars think about anti-Semitism (and Jewishness) without lapsing into essentialism, exceptionalism, or eternalism. I offered a methodology for studying proteophobia and anti-Semitism through psychoanalysis and the return to psychoanalytic critical theory, specifically Adorno’s formulation of a negative dialectics and negative psychology. I explored the broad implications of the investigation for politics, education, and psychoanalysis, and the specific implications for Jewish identity and resistance to anti-Semitism.

Language

English

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