George Rousseau builds on the historical record of British anti-Semitism and constructs his talk around the psychodynamic implications of a cultural divide between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. He identifies anti-Semitism as one of the most vexing phenomena in post-millennial British life to navigate through some of the psychodynamic aspects of the widespread hatred of groups and their alleged stereotypes. The talk is structured in two parts: the much shorter first part dealing with the historical profile of British anti-Semitism, a longer second part narrating three personal encounters in which Rousseau himself was the anti-Semitic target.  The group is invited to break in at any point during the second part, which shall be presented as if a live assessment in group therapy. Rousseau’s provisional conclusions are not for the faint-hearted.

George Rousseau is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Emeritus Professor of History in the University of Oxford where he was the Founding Co-Director of its Centre for the History of Childhood. He has taught at Harvard, UCLA, Aberdeen and Oxford and written books about Enlightenment culture, the role of medicine in modern society, and the development of Humanities in our time. He practiced lay psychoanalysis in Los Angeles while holding a professorship there, and after migrating to Britain was an Associate at the Isis Centre for almost a decade. Currently he is one of the Chairs of the Historicising Ageing Project funded by the Norwegian Research Council.