Benjamin and us: Christianity, its Jews, and history

Jeanne Favret-Saada (1)

1 EPHE - École Pratique des Hautes Études

In 2004, the author of this article published Le christianisme et ses juifs: 1800–2000, an essay that studied Christian anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, drawing insight from the connections between two histories: the microhistory of a village mystery play (Oberammergau, Bavaria) and the broad history of Christian anti-Semitism. Jeanne Favret-Saada’s methodology resembles Benjamin’s in the “Theses on the philosophy of history.” The work’s reception led the author to question Benjamin’s historical and intellectual commitments: his relation to Judaism, Europe, Nazism, materialism, and the methods of history as a discipline.

Mots clés: anti-Semitism; Walter Benjamin; Catholic Church; Europe; Franz Kafka; microhistory; mystery play; Oberammergau (Bavaria); Shoah

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Jeanne Favret-Saada. Benjamin and us: Christianity, its Jews, and history. Journal of Ethnographic Theory - HAU, 2014, Colloquia: Reflections on anti-Judaism, 4 (3), pp.317-340. ⟨halshs-01188434⟩