Description
Book SynopsisIn Antisemitism and the White Supremacist Imaginary: Conflations and Contradictions in Composition and Rhetoric, Mara Lee Grayson calls attention to the complicity of academic institutions and the discipline(s) of rhetoric, composition, and writing studies in the simultaneous perpetuation and denial of anti-Jewish racism. Despite the persistence of antisemitism and Christian hegemony in the United States and its academic institutions, and despite a growing body of antiracist and anti-oppressive scholarship, antisemitism remains largely unaddressed in disciplinary scholarship, curricula, and pedagogy. This book begins to fill that gap by exploring how the rhetoric through which Jewish identity is conceptualized and weaponized by the white supremacist imaginary essentializes Jewish identities and obscures the racist aims and character of antisemitism. Drawing upon rhetorical analysis, personal narrative, and original phenomenological research, Grayson highlights how deeply embe
Trade Review
“I take this book personally. Grayson’s theoretical framework, historical overview, personal anecdotes, and phenomenological research locate antisemitism nestled in the heart of the white supremacist imaginary. I felt such sadness, anger, and pain reading this book—recognizing myself as a Jew in its stark reflection—and yet her words also charge me, explicitly in my Jewishness, with the urgent need to join others in imagining a more just world through cooperative action and frank dialogue. It’s a powerful and vibrant contribution to our field.” —Eli Goldblatt, Co-Author, with David Jolliffe, of Literacy as Conversation: Learning Networks in Urban and Rural Communities
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments – Introduction – Jewish Whiteness, Christian Hegemony, and Disciplinary (Mis) Representation – The Antisemitic Imaginary – The Racialization of Jewish People in the United States – On Being Jewish: Existing and Original Research – Difference and Defense: Experiences of Jewish Identity in a Christian Hegemonic Society – Antisemitism in the Profession: Contemporary Manifestations and Microaggressions – The "Bizarre" Absence of Jewish Discourse in Rhetoric and Composition – Talking about Israel, (Anti)Zionism, and the Politicization of Jewish Identity – Resisting the Whitewashing of Jewish Identity: Finding Our Space(s) and Place(s) in the Field – Index.
