This book, the first to explore the politics of definitions from an interdisciplinary perspective, encourages readers to reconsider the value and limits of definitions in confronting antisemitism and Islamophobia. In recent years, definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia have become central to the struggle to combat the hostility, harassment and discrimination experienced by Jews and Muslims. Yet these definitions have also provoked fierce controversy: critics have questioned whether they are fit for purpose, or have criticised them as unwelcome attempts to restrict freedom of expression. In this edited collection, historians, social scientists and philosophers reflect on definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia in both the past and the present. Its contributors investigate the different historical contexts which have shaped definitions and examine their different political purposes and meanings, as well as addressing contemporary debates, and identifying ways for us to move beyond our current impasse. This book therefore provides a broad and new perspective from which to comprehend present day minority politics.

This book, the first to explore the politics of definitions from an interdisciplinary perspective, encourages readers to reconsider the value and limits of definitions in confronting antisemitism and Islamophobia. In recent years, definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia have become central to the struggle to combat the hostility, harassment and discrimination experienced by Jews and Muslims. Yet these definitions have also provoked fierce controversy: critics have questioned whether they are fit for purpose, or have criticised them as unwelcome attempts to restrict freedom of expression. In this edited collection, historians, social scientists and philosophers reflect on definitions of antisemitism and Islamophobia in both the past and the present. Its contributors investigate the different historical contexts which have shaped definitions and examine their different political purposes and meanings, as well as addressing contemporary debates, and identifying ways for us to move beyond our current impasse. This book therefore provides a broad and new perspective from which to comprehend present day minority politics.

The growing threat of antisemitism, racism and Islamophobia within the European political landscape poses urgent and difficult questions. These questions concern both commonalities and connections between these forms of prejudice and persecution, and differences regarding their discursive functions and the image of the ‘other’ they project. In this volume we interrogate the specific forms antiracism and anti-antisemitism take in the public sphere, their representation in scholarly discourses, and the fact that they increasingly seem to be at home in separate, and sometimes antagonistic, political and academic camps. We also address the conceptual resources and research tools required to study the unity that lies behind these varied phenomena. This collection has a new introduction and brings together papers that arose out of discussions in the European Sociological Association Network on Racism and Antisemitism, published in European Societies. The chapters relate to current issues in the area of racism and anti-Semitism such as the notable impact of the Israel-Palestine conflict on antisemitism in Europe, the contested ‘antizionist’ humour of Dieudonné in France, relations between antisemitic and Islamophobic attitudes in Italy and Spain, the problem of antisemitic reactions to Islamophobia in Arab media, the historical relation of antisemitism to other kinds of racism in German literary discourse and how their study can be instructive for the investigation of antisemitism and Islamophobia today, the difficulties Marxists internationally have faced in addressing concerns about antisemitism, and current disconnections between racism and antisemitism in the human sciences. These papers raise fundamental issues of understanding the modern world. This book was originally published as a special issue of European Studies.

"Islamophobia" is a term that has been widely applied to anti-Muslim ideas and actions, especially since 9/11. The contributors to this provocative volume explore and critique the usefulness of the concept for understanding contexts ranging from the Middle Ages to the modern day. Moving beyond familiar explanations such as good Muslim/bad Muslim stereotypes or the "clash of civilizations," they describe Islamophobia's counterpart, Islamophilia, which deploys similar oppositions in the interest of fostering public acceptance of Islam. Contributors address topics such as conflicts over Islam outside and within Muslim communities in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia; the cultural politics of literature, humor, and urban renewal; and religious conversion to Islam.

Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, based on often interchangeable historic stereotypes, fan the flames of fear and hatred against the other. Thus Jews and Muslims serve as convenient scapegoats for many of society's ills and leaders' misguided agendas. In the post-9/11 world, the Iraq War, the breakdown of homogeneous societies in Europe, the rise of fundamentalism, and the lack of a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have only served to exacerbate Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are breeding hatred and creating more difficulties in the face of any serious effort to solve the Israeli-Palestian conflict. They are threatening to transform it from a political into a religious conflict and thereby cloud the judgment of anyone attempting to resolve it, both in the region and in the broader international arena. In this context, a group of Israeli and Palestinian scholars and journalists joined together to start the Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture. Their goal is to clarify the positions of both sides and work toward a solution. Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism furthers the debate on these topics in its full complexity, marked at once by sharp differences and considerable common ground."

This volume is designed to assist university faculty and students studying and teaching about antisemitism, racism, and other forms of prejudice. In contrast with similar volumes, it is organized around specific concepts instead of chronology or geography. It promotes conversation about antisemitism across disciplinary, geographic, and thematic lines rather than privileging a single methodological paradigm, a specific academic field, or an overarching narrative. Its twenty-one chapters by leading scholars in diverse fields address the relationship to antisemitism of concepts ranging from Anti-Judaism to Zionism. Each chapter not only traces the history and major scholarly debates around a key concept; it also presents an original argument, points to avenues for further research, and exemplifies a method of investigation.

The apparent resurgence of hostility toward Jews has been a prominent theme in recent discussions of Europe; at the same time, the adversities faced by the continent's Muslim population have received increasing attention. In Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, Matti Bunzl offers a historical and cultural clarification of the key terms in these ongoing problems. Arguing against the common impulse to analogize anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, it instead offers a framework that locates the two phenomena in different projects of exclusion. According to Bunzl, anti-Semitism was invented in the late nineteenth century to police the ethnically pure nation-state. Islamophobia, by contrast, is a phenomenon of the present, marshaled to safeguard a supranational Europe. With the declining importance of the nation-state, traditional anti-Semitism has run its historical course, while Islamophobia threatens to become the defining condition of the new, unified Europe. By ridding us of misapprehensions, Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia enables us to see these forces anew.