Fordham-NYPL Lecture Series in Jewish Studies: Ilan Stavans, “Notes on Hispanic Antisemitism”

Antisemitism cannot be studied in the abstract, for its varieties are always tied to specific historical circumstances. These reflections by internationally renowned, award-winning public intellectual Ilan Stavans, author of The Seventh Heaven: Travels through Jewish Latin America and other works, on the varieties of Hispanic antisemitism, contemplate its vicissitudes and principal ideologues, from 1492 to the present, as it has mutated from a religious-based hatred to an economic rivalry and now a political ideology with catastrophic consequences.

Ilan Stavans is Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, the publisher of Restless Books, and a consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary. His work, translated into two dozen languages, has been adapted into film, TV, radio, and theater. His latest book is Conversations on Dictionaries: The Universe in a Book (Cambridge University Press). This academic year, Stavans is a New York Public Library-Fordham University fellow on Jewish Studies, completing a book on Hispanic antisemitism.