The First Shall Be the Last: Rethinking Antisemitism

Adam Katz is assistant teaching professor at the University of Quinnipiac, Connecticut, USA.and is the editor of The Originary Hypothesis: A Minimal Proposal for Humanistic Inquiry (2007). Eric Gans is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of French and Francophone Studies at UCLA. With The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation (1981) he created the discipline of Generative Anthropology. His major recent works in that area are The Scenic Imagination from Hobbes to Freud (2007) and A New Way of Thinking: Generative Anthropology in Religion, Philosophy, Art (2011). A new edition of his 1990 Science and Faith: The Anthropology of Revelation appeared in 2015. Since 1995, he has edited the online journal Anthropoetics and produced nearly 500 online "Chronicles of Love and Resentment." His latest book is a translation of Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal (2015).

At a time when there is an evident socio-economic, political and cultural structural shift in the processes and practices associated with contemporary manifestations of antisemitism globally, it is important to explore its origins and examine whether the circumstances of its genesis can shed light on its longevity and adaptability. Few scholars are more qualified to undertake such a task than the authors of this volume, who have done so much to develop and advance the discipline of generative anthropology. In this study their groundbreaking hypothesis on the singular event that gave rise to human language and by extension human culture finds a fascinating parallel in the Jewish people's discovery/invention of monotheism, giving rise to historical resentments and hostility. The volume will be of interest to scholars working in the field of anti-discrimination and antisemtitism, as well as human rights scholars and cultural historians in general.