This project concerns the symbolic meaning of the term ‘Judeo-Christianity’ in relation to European identity formation. The goal is to investigate the roots of the relationship between the creation of the European community and the exclusion of ‘others’. My research hypothesis is that it is necessary to understand the process of identity formation in relation to the construction of enemies in order to avert violence and to develop a notion of community that is not defined by exclusion. To do so, I will consider a particular case of enemy production which has played a fundamental role in the formation of the European community and which may shed light on the current political debate on the rise of Islam in
Europe.
Concretely, I will (1) investigate by means of a discursive analysis how the ‘Jew’ emerged as Europe’s ‘other’ (2) examine how, and why, this once excluded ‘other’ has now come to be included in Europe’s identity by means of the term ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition (3) aware of the significant differences between Europe’s ‘others’, one Judaic the other Islamic, I will consider how the notion of a ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition is a carrier of new modalities of exclusion with regard to Islam.
Related Publications:
(2016). Is there a Judeo-Christian Tradition? A European Perspective. (Topolski, A., Ed., Nathan, E., Ed.). De Gruyter.
(2020) The Dangerous Discourse of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ Myth: Masking the Race-Religion Constellation in Europe. Patterns of Prejudice. Genealogies of ‘Jews’ and ‘Muslims’: Social Imaginaries in the Race–Religion Nexus. A special issue guest-edited by Yolande Jansen and Nasar Meer Volume 54. Issue 1 & 2. 71-90.
(2017) Good Jew, Bad Jew: ‘Managing’ Europe’s Others. Ethnic and Racial Studies (Special issue ‘Islamophobia and Surveillance: Genealogies of a Global Order’). Ed. James Renton. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01419870.2018.1391402
(2017). The Islamophobic Inheritance of the Resurrected Saint Paul: From F.C. Baur’s Judeo-Christianity to Badiou and Žižek’s Event. ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies. Vol II, No. 1