A Very Depressing Course to Plan

I’m way behind schedule but I’m desperately trying to get my course outline and syllabus ready for my Religious Studies 3400 class that starts on Wednesday. It is mostly done, but I’m getting just plain depressed by it. It is called “Anti-Semitism through the ages”. My shattered nerves there are some twisted people on this planet. I’ve just finished visiting “Stormfront” and the the “National Socialist Party of Canada” websites.

Found this on “Stormfront”, posted on Christmas freakin’ eve, by some jerk who calls him/herself “The Fancy1″.

A few of us here in Lethbridge Alberta have JUST started some covert activism. Posters, info sheets inside the newspapers in the news boxes on corners, ect.
We need to do something, sitting back and watching our country slide further into the **** pool isn’t helping anything.
I challenge ALL WN to put forth an effort, even if it is only ONE poster, or ONE leaflet inside a returned library book.
This is too important to ignore. United we stand people!

Frikkin’ jerkoffs.  I suppose I should send an email to the Library asking them to check returned books. Here are a couple of gems from the Canucko-nazis “Proposed Constitution of Canada”.

Adolf Hitler was the gift of an inscrutable Providence to a world on the brink of Jewish-Bolshevik catastrophe, and that only the blazing spirit of this heroic man can give us the strength and inspiration to bring the world a new birth of radiant idealism, realistic peace, international order and social justice for all men.

…

Residents of Canada will consist of citizens, subjects, and guest workers.

1. Citizens must be of at least 75% White European extraction. They cannot be Jews or of the Jewish religion. Citizenship courts will be established under the judicial branch of government to judge all cases of ambiguous ancestry based on the best available science.

Natives, by the way, are not citizens but “subjects”…

Anyway, here is a draft of the course’s blurb (subject to change…) and the booklist

This course will trace the history of anti-Jewish sentiments and anti-Semitic thought and action from the late pre-Common Era to the present. While some consideration will be given to Islamic Jewish relations the bulk of attention will be on Europe and North America. Students will be expected to become familiar with the major episodes in this history along with the impact on Jewish life, Jewish defensive strategies and self-perception.

Besides looking at the development of significant caricatures, stereotypes and images of Jews, the course will investigate the demonization of Judaism as a satanic “anti-Christianity”, a situation that lead to Jews being accused of defiling and inverting key Christian rituals and ideals, of all Jews bering regarded as greedy hypocrites, apostates, Christ-killers, ritual murderers and cannibals. This religious mythology lead to frequent instances of legal restrictions, expulsion, of Jews and many executions, lynchings and mass-murders.

The rise of more secular anti-Semitic mythology and conspiracy theories about Jews  in the 19th century as part of the backlash against modernization and the enlightenment and the rise of nationalism will also be studies.  Particular attention will be given to the formation and impact of one of the most influential expressions of anti-Semitic thought in the modern world, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and to key documents written as part of the Nazi industrialization of hate and genocide.

Modern phenomena such as Holocaust denial and the use of European modes and mythology of anti-Semitism in the continuing Middle East conflicts and the resulting rise in hate crimes in Canada and elsewhere will also be considered.

Required Reading

Antisemitism: Myth and Hate from Antiquity to the Present, Marvin Perry and Fredrick M. Schweitzer

A Rumor about the Jews: Reflections on Antisemitism and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Stephen Eric Bronner

Sources of the Holocaust, Steve Hochstadt (ed.)

Antisemitic Myths: A Historical and Contemporary Anthology, Marvin Perry and Fredrik M. Schweitzer, (eds.)

This is the first time I’ve taught this course, and I’m nervous as hell about it. It really is a new area for me, and I hope I manage to teach the class something. There are around 30 students registered. A few friendly faces, so that is good.

ALSO on the Thinking Shop: Calgary Aryan Guard on the Run and Protocols.