Anti-Semitism at the Limit: Critical Theory and Psychoanalysis

"Much easier to trigger than explain, anti-Semitism is showing itself even harder to eradicate in our troubled world. Nimbly combining insights from Zygmunt Bauman's theory of proteophobia and Theodor W. Adorno's negative psychology, Benjamin Strosberg has written a nuanced, theoretically astute, deeply felt study of its over-determined causes. Anti-Semitism at the Limit offers a master class in the application of psychoanalysis to pressing cultural and social problems."
--Martin Jay, Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor Emeritus of History, University of California, Berkeley, USA

"A compelling, insightful and timely engagement with the age-old historical dilemma of anti-Semitism. Strosberg's analysis is multi-dimensional in scope, original, ambitious, and genuinely pathbreaking in how he guides us from an applied discussion of 'proteophobia' as one underlying basis of anti-Semitism, to a consideration of Adorno's 'negative psychology' as a crucial resource for both Psychosocial Studies and the fight against bigotry and racism."
--Derek Hook, Professor of Psychology, Duquesne University, USA, author of Six Moments in Lacan

In this book, Benjamin Strosberg explores difficulties and anxieties inherent in studying, defining, and defending against anti-Semitism by tracing a concurrent difficulty in thinking about Jewishness, which has historically served as a limit case for central social categories such as outsider, religion, race, gender, and nation. Dr. Strosberg draws on Zygmunt Bauman's concept of proteophobia--the anxious fear of what doesn't fit into clear-cut categories--to think more carefully about anti-Semitism as response to the complex-realities of ambivalence and otherness. The book proposes 'negative psychology' as a methodology for studying anti-Semitism and proteophobia rooted in psychoanalysis and Theodor Adorno's Critical Theory. Drawing from lived experiences, contemporary events, and debates in the field, this compelling work explores the broad implications of the investigation of anti-Semitism for politics, education, and psychoanalysis, as well as the specific implications for Jewish identity and resistance.

Benjamin B. Strosberg is a psychotherapist and professor of clinical psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, CA, USA.