The Unconverted Self
Jews, Indians, and the Identity of Christian Europe
Europe’s formative encounter with its “others” is still widely assumed to have come with its discovery of the peoples of the New World. But, as Jonathan Boyarin argues, long before 1492 Christian Europe imagined itself in distinction to the Jewish difference within. The presence and image of Jews in Europe afforded the Christian majority a foil against which it could refine and maintain its own identity. In fundamental ways this experience, along with the ongoing contest between Christianity and Islam, shaped the rhetoric, attitudes, and policies of Christian colonizers in the New World.
The Unconverted Self proposes that questions of difference inside Christian Europe not only are inseparable from the painful legacy of colonialism but also reveal Christian domination to be a fragile construct. Boyarin compares the Christian efforts aimed toward European Jews and toward indigenous peoples of the New World, bringing into focus the intersection of colonial expansion with the Inquisition and adding significant nuance to the entire question of the colonial encounter.
Revealing the crucial tension between the Jews as “others within” and the Indians as “others without,” The Unconverted Self is a major reassessment of early modern European identity.
“Intelligent and provocative. Boyarin approaches a major question in Western intellectual history, Europe’s formative encounter with its ‘others,’ through a deep cultural reading linking the Christian treatment of Jews during the Middle Ages and the colonial encounter with the Amerindians of the New World.”—Margarita Zamora, University of Wisconsin–Madison
“How does the medieval history of Christian thought about the Jews—and then about the indigenous inhabitants of the New World—enter into the formation of European collective identity? In this fascinating study Boyarin offers a thought-provoking answer. I learned much from it.”—Talal Asad, City University of New York
“Meet the New World, same as the Old World. Jonathan Boyarin’s The Unconverted Self persuasively undermines historical divisions of such endurance that they have come to seem truths of history. Through his focus on spatiality and temporality, through his mapping of the intricate hybridities that undergird and ultimately betray seeming purities, through his close attention to textual and contextual detail, Boyarin has composed a book that will change the way we think about the supposedly demarcative power of 1492. The Unconverted Self is a powerful work that anyone interested in the medieval and early modern periods, Jewish and Christian history, the New World encounter, or postcolonial studies will want to read.”—Jeffrey J. Cohen, George Washington University
“Jonathan Boyarin’s reflective essay demonstrates the enduring, and global, effect which Europe's inner demons—its fascinated preoccupation with Jews and Muslims—had on the encounters between Europeans and the peoples they conquered and converted after 1500. Based on a wide range of sources and animated by many interesting approaches The Unconverted Self will be enjoyed by scholars, students and general readers of history, and contribute to many new cross-cultural conversations.”—Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London
“This book asks a question so fundamental that it has passed unperceived. How are the categories of religious identity with which the West makes sense of itself —categories like Jew, Christian, or Muslim; European, Moor, or Indian—related to each other? Beginning with the fear of ‘Judaizing’ at the origins of Pauline Christianity, Jonathan Boyarin ranges across centuries, continents, religions, and disciplines in order to reveal to us the fear of the unconverted other within the Christian European self. If ‘every man is his own Indies,’ as a Spanish poet once put it, then Boyarin has given all of us a map for our voyages of self discovery.”—David Nirenberg, University of Chicago
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1: Until the Conversion of the Self
Chapter 2: Muslims
Chapter 3: Christendom
Chapter 4: The Universe of the Human
Chapter 5: Text and Translation
Conclusion: The Christian Dimension
Notes
Bibliography
Index
History: European History
Religion: Christianity | Comparative Studies and History of Religion | Islam | Judaism
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