Post-Colonial and Post-Shoah Readings: The Conundrums of Memory Politics

In April of 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a huge controversy erupted in Germany on the relation between Postcolonial and Holocaust Studies. Previously, in 2012, Judith Butler on the occasion of being awarded the Adorno Prize was assailed for her support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This time, the philosopher Achille Mbembe, from Cameroon, the former German colony, was accused of antisemitism. His comparison of Israel with the apartheid state in South Africa and his critique of Palestine's occupation as a form of settler colonialism is condemned for relativizing the Holocaust and questioning the Israeli state's right to exist. The allegation of "postcolonial antisemitism" resurfaced in 2022 in the context of the Documenta 15 in Kassel. The curators, ruangrupa, an Indonesian art collective, are accused of antisemitism, of supporting BDS and of the "silent boycott" of Jewish-Israeli artists.These controversies confront us with the challenge of how to think together antisemitism and racism. In this class, we will engage with critical scholarship to address the conundrums of memory politics and to engage with the "unfinished conversations" between Jewish and Postcolonial Studies.