Historicizing Universalisms: Reflections on Studying Law and Culture

James Loeffler, Johns Hopkins University

How does the particular become the universal? In this seminar, James Loeffler discusses methodological approaches to historicizing key modern universal concepts ranging from human rights to classical music to racism. Using case studies drawn from his work, Dr. Loeffler looks at how multidisciplinary Jewish Studies presents new possibilities for thinking the universal in contemporary thought.

James Loeffler is Felix Posen Professor of Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University. His writings include two award-winning books, Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century and The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire. He is currently writing a book about antisemitism and the First Amendment in postwar America.

Cosponsored by UWM’s Center for 21st Century Studies; Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; History Department; and Honors College

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James Loeffler, “The Crime of Menticide: Antisemitism and Hate Speech in American Law”

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Can law stem hate speech without violating the First Amendment? In 1977, a group of Holocaust survivors from Skokie, Illinois filed a class action lawsuit to stop a planned neo-Nazi march by alleging menticide—the psychological equivalent of genocide. Nazi words and symbols constituted a form of violence, they claimed, not constitutionally protected speech. In this lecture, historian James Loeffler reconstructs this curious episode and discusses its larger implications for the contemporary debate over antisemitism and free speech in American law.

James Loeffler is Felix Posen Professor of Jewish History at Johns Hopkins University, and co-editor of the Association for Jewish Studies Review. His writings include two award-winning books Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century and The Most Musical Nation: Jews and Culture in the Late Russian Empire, and two edited volumes, The Law of Strangers: Jewish Lawyers and International Law in the Twentieth Century and A Jew in the Street: New Views on European Jewish History. He is current writing a book about antisemitism and the First Amendment in postwar America, which grew out of his Atlantic magazine article about his coverage of the trial of the White Supremacist organizers of the 2017 attack on Charlottesville.

Cosponsored by UWM’s Center for 21^st Century Studies; Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; History Department; and Honors College.

Download the event flyer.