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.

Author: Jonathan Boyarin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 12/01/2009
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780226069197

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 01/29/2010 pg. 16

About the Author

Jonathan Boyarin is the Leonard and Tobee Kaplan Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Thought in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, with adjunct appointments in the departments of Anthropology and Communications. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of a dozen books including Thinking in Jewish, also published by the University of Chicago Press.