Experimental Laboratory of Identities

The course Experimental Laboratory of Identities is conceived as a possible interdisciplinary space for thinking and working toward the critical analysis of social constructions of identity. It is based on the assumption that identities are not natural or given, but emerge through complex historical, cultural, religious, and political processes. They are shaped, among other factors, by linguistic images, narratives, and discourses, as well as by visual images, visual representations, and iconographic traditions.

A particular focus of the course lies in analyzing the images, projections, and attributions that have accompanied Judaism and Jews since antiquity. For nearly 2,500 years, Jewish identities within European and broader Western culture have been strongly shaped by anti-Judaic and antisemitic discourses. These discourses produced powerful external images, religiously, culturally, socially, and racially coded—often without consideration of Jewish self-perspectives and without including the lived experiences, self-interpretations, and understandings of Jewish individuals and communities.

In the Experimental Laboratory of Identities, these historical and contemporary images are systematically questioned. The aim is to uncover the mechanisms of their emergence, transmission, and transformation. The following guiding questions will be addressed:

• How do linguistic and visual images of the “Other” emerge?

• What role do religious polemics, political ideologies, and media representations play in the construction of collective identities?

• In what ways do anti-Judaic and antisemitic narratives persist into the present?

• Which Jewish self-descriptions and counter-narratives challenge these external attributions?

Methodologically, the course combines approaches from history, Jewish studies, cultural studies, visual analysis, discourse analysis, and memory studies. In addition to working with historical sources (texts, sermons, pamphlets, caricatures, propaganda materials), students will also examine modern media, digital visual cultures, and contemporary political discourses.

The “laboratory” format means that students are not merely recipients of knowledge, but actively analyze, deconstruct, and reflect. Through group work, case studies, and experimental analytical formats, images and narratives are dismantled, contextualized, and critically re-examined. The goal is to foster sensitivity to the mechanisms of identity construction and to strengthen critical-analytical competencies in dealing with historically entrenched as well as contemporary stereotypes.

In this way, the course contributes to a reflective engagement with memory culture, critical education on antisemitism, social diversity, and the responsibility of scholarly analysis in addressing both historical and contemporary forms of antisemitism, exclusion, and discrimination.

course with continuous assessment