Brown Bag Seminar: Zionism, Judaism, and the Politics of Religious Dissent in the Contemporary United States

This guest lecture with Visiting Professor Elizabeth Shakman Hurd (Northwestern University) excavates and explores a cultural, religious and political consensus that appears to unite the US and Israel as if they were one supra-national state: “AmericaIsrael”. AmericaIsrael banks on a historical, religious, eschatological, topographical, and commercial fascination with the Holy Land among many Americans which predates 1948 and encompasses and exceeds Christian and Jewish Zionisms. This suspension of the US border with Israel is also bound up with the suspension of the border between Zionism and Judaism, such that to be or become American is to be or become a Zionist. In recent months and years, however, this consensus has begun to crumble.

The Methodological unit at the Helsinki Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (Uni Helsinki) organizes a recurrent Brown Bag Seminar to highlight novel methodological approaches in the humanities and social sciences. The idea of the meetings is to introduce methodological innovations and cutting-edge research in various disciplines in an easily accessible manner and have an interdisciplinary discussion in an easy-going atmosphere over lunch.

The seminars are open to everybody and welcome a multidisciplinary and methodologically curious audience. Please note that this is a 2-hour Brown Bag Seminar special. Coffee and snacks will be served – sign up here for catering by 14.4.2026!

This is a hybrid event taking place at the University of Helsinki, Fabianinkatu 24 A, 5th floor, room 532. For remote participation, use this link.

More information is available on the event site.