www.unifr.ch/go/conference_exclusion

Organised by the Department of Historical Sciences, University of Fribourg and the Leo Baeck Institute London

Over the last decades, debates on how to deal with the “other” have raised new research questions and resulted in new theoretical assumptions. The emergence and consolidation of right-wing populism all over Europe has given rise to discussions about xenophobia and (neo)racism. In the aftermath of the “Second Intifada”, Western societies had to face the question whether harsh criticism of Israel showed tendencies of a “new” antisemitism. There is also a revitalisation of antisemitism in the Arab World and among Muslim communities in Europe. 9/11 and subsequent reactions have intensified debates whether the perception of Islam and Muslims has taken specific forms which can be circumscribed as “Islamophobia”.

These patterns of exclusion use a generalizing, negatively connoted representation of the “other”. They have to be seen against the shifts that have taken place in racist discourse, where the category of ”race” has been replaced by “culture” or “ethnic group” following the end of National Socialism, and the reconfiguration of antisemitism, which has found its expression in new topics such as how we deal with the Holocaust or the existence of the State of Israel. Islamophobia contains elements of traditional representations of the “East”/Orientalism as well as contemporary conspiracy fears and xenophobia.

The goal of the international conference is to compare the phenomena of racism, antisemitism, and Islamophobia. It will work out the differences of those patterns like the different cultural and political legacies they draw on, and the partial similarities, seen for instance in debates about Jewish and Muslim cemeteries or dietary laws.

Conference flyer to download

The conference organizers would like to thank the following bodies for their generous financial support:

• Administrationsrat des Kath. Konfessionsteils des Kt. St. Gallen
• Adolf und Mary Mil-Stiftung
• Alfred und Ilse Stammer-Mayer Stiftung
• Büro Toleranzkultur
• Geschwister Gondin-Stiftung
• Katholische Kirche des Kantons Zürich
• Philosophische Fakultät Universität Freiburg
• Reformierte Kirchen Bern-Jura-Solothurn
• Rektorat Universität Freiburg
• René und Susanne Braginsky Stiftung
• Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund
• Schweizerischer Nationalfonds
• Stiftung gegen Rassismus und Antisemitismus