Semites: Race, Religion, Literature

by Gil Anidjar

This collection of essays explores the now mostly extinct notion of "Semites." Invented in the nineteenth century and essential to the making of modern conceptions of religion and race, the strange unity of Jew and Arab under one term, "Semite" (the opposing term was "Aryan"), and the circumstances that brought about its disappearance constitute the subject of this volume. With a focus on the history of disciplines (including religious studies and Jewish studies), as well as on lingering political, theological, and cultural effects (secularism, anti-Semitism, Israel/Palestine), Race, Religion, and Literature turns to the literary imagination as the site of a fragile and tenuous alternative, the promise of something like a "Semitic perspective."

Genres: Theory

160 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 2007

About the author

Gil Anidjar is a professor in the Departments of Religion and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies (MESAAS)at Columbia University in the City of New York