Jonathan Judaken is the Spence L. Wilson Chair in Humanities at

Rhodes College Rhodes College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Memphis, Tennessee. Historically affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), it is a member of the Associated Colleges of the Sout ...

. Judaken previously taught at the

University of Memphis } The University of Memphis (UofM) is a public research university in Memphis, Tennessee. Founded in 1912, the university has an enrollment of more than 22,000 students. The university maintains the Herff College of Engineering, the Center for Ea ...

where he was the Dunavant Professor of History and Director of the Marcus Orr Center for the Humanities. His fields of expertise include European cultural and intellectual history, discussions of

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

race Race, RACE or "The Race" may refer to: * Race (biology), an informal taxonomic classification within a species, generally within a sub-species * Race (human categorization), classification of humans into groups based on physical traits, and/or s ...

and

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonis ...

, and post-Holocaust

French philosophy French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern ...

. Judaken is a notable scholar of

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lit ...

and Sartre's relationship to Jews and

and race and racism, as well as contemporary French Jewish philosophers.

Scholarship

Judaken is the author of ''Jean-Paul Sartre and the Jewish Question: Anti-antisemitism and the Politics of the French Intellectual'', in which he argues that "representations of Jews and Judaism as persistent figures of alterity serve as a fecund site to interrogate and reevaluate artre'soeuvre, especially his conception of the role of the intellectual." He is the editor of three volumes compiling scholarly contributions to the study of race and racism, existentialism, and the intersection between them: ''Race After Sartre: Antiracism, Africana Existentialism, Postcolonialism'', ''Naming Race, Naming Racisms'', and most recently ''Situating Existentialism: Key Texts in Context'', which provides a history of the systemization and canonization of

existentialism Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and valu ...

as a philosophical movement. In addition, Judaken is U.S. consulting editor for the journal ''Patterns of Prejudice'' and has been a scholar in residence at the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

. He has held memberships in the Association for Jewish Studies,

American Historical Association The American Historical Association (AHA) is the oldest professional association of historians in the United States and the largest such organization in the world. Founded in 1884, the AHA works to protect academic freedom, develop professional s ...

, American Academy of Religion, and the International Society for the Study of European Ideas. Judaken is a founding member of the International Consortium for Research on Antisemitism and Racism (ICRAR), an organization of European, American, and Israeli scholars aimed at "revitalising and reshaping the study of antisemitism." In his scholarship on anti-Semitism, Judaken is critical of the concept of a "

New anti-Semitism New antisemitism is the idea that a new form of antisemitism has developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tending to manifest itself as anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government. The concept is included in some definition ...

", arguing "there is not much empirical evidence to support the idea that a new alliance between Leftists and jihadists cemented together by anti-Zionism is emerging." Judaken has expressed support for the term "new Judeophobia", coined by

Pierre-André Taguieff Pierre-André Taguieff (born 4 August 1946) is a French philosopher who has specialised in the study of racism and antisemitism. He is the director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in an Institut d'Etudes Politique ...

, as a better means of characterizing the recent upsurge of violence and hatred against Jews.

Biography

Judaken was born in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

, South Africa on February 23, 1968. Judaken's youthful experience as a Jew living under South African

apartheid Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...

, as a member of both a religious minority and the dominant racial group, helped to drive his career interest in subjects such as

and the so-called

Jewish Question The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other " national ...

. After immigrating to the United States as a teenager, Judaken received a B.A. in philosophy from the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...

and an M.A. and Ph.D in history from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...

. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Judaken joined the history faculty at the University of Memphis in 1999. He left the University of Memphis for Rhodes College in 2011, where he was appointed the first Spence L. Wilson Chair in Humanities. In his capacity as Spence L. Wilson Chair, Judaken directs the Communities in Conversation program, which facilitates interdisciplinary lectures and events for Rhodes students, faculty and the general public in

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

. In 2019, Judaken was selected as a committee member for Rhodes College's new Jewish, Islamic, and Middle East Studies Program, which houses three different minors in (1) Jewish Studies; (2) Islamic and Middle East Studies: and (3) Jewish, Islamic and Middle East Studies. Judaken hosts the educational interview program ''Counterpoint'' on WKNO-FM, the NPR affiliate station for the Mid-South.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Judaken, Jonathan 21st-century American historians Sartre scholars Rhodes College faculty University of Memphis faculty Historians of Jews and Judaism Writers from Johannesburg University of California, San Diego alumni University of California, Irvine alumni Hebrew University of Jerusalem alumni Historians of philosophy Humanities academics Living people 1968 births South African Jews