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Visiting scholar illuminates history of prejudice, persecution

June 30, 2006

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"Witches and Jews in late medieval culture" is just one of the topics with which a visiting Canadian scholar has stimulated lecturers and students at The University of New England over the past two months.

Professor Diana Relke (pictured here) is returning to the University of Saskatchewan with much of the background information she needs for a key chapter in the book she is writing on the relationship of anti-Semitism and misogyny throughout European history. She spent her time at UNE presenting and discussing her ideas, and gaining fresh insight into relevant aspects of Judaism and Christianity.

Diana Relke founded the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, where she is now a Professor. Her research interests and expertise extend over literary, cultural, feminist and psychoanalytic theory, and include American popular culture and Jewish cultural studies. "In planning my new book, it occurred to me that I needed to learn a lot more about Christianity and Judaism," she said. "And what better place to do so than in the Religious Studies discipline within UNE's School of Classics, History and Religion?"

She contacted UNE's Professor Majella Franzmann, an international authority in religious studies, after hearing her speak - via the Internet - on ABC Radio. Professor Franzmann invited her to UNE as a visiting scholar in the School of Classics, History and Religion, where her own sister, Dr Joan Relke, is a member of the academic staff.

Professor Relke brought with her the material for a seminar series titled "Devils, witches, and the making of modern Europe", which she presented with great success. "It was good to be closed up with so many fine minds," she said. "Once you get among the right people, you start thinking about the topic all the time. I think I can go home and sketch out this chapter now."

The book will present what she refers to as a "genealogy" of prejudice and discrimination against women and Jews from the early centuries of the Christian era to the present day. "In the third and fourth centuries AD," she said, "the language that the Church Fathers used in talking about women was similar to that used in connection with Jews. Both Jews and women represented 'a threat to the souls of Christian men'."

Professor Relke is the first scholar to follow this relationship through history - including that period of the early modern era when, as she said, "they stopped burning Jews and started burning witches", and the ascendancy of Zionism and feminism at the end of the nineteenth century. (She relates this focus throughout history on "the Satanic other", such as witches and Jews, with modern-day equivalents which political leaders use "to frighten people into supporting their wars".)

While at UNE, Professor Relke has presented a number of lectures, including "Patriarchy, misogyny, and the politics of fear", "Gay rights, reproductive rights, and the religious Right", and "Blood and borders: Jews, women, and state-building in late medieval and early modern Europe". Her most recently-published book is a study of the American television and film series Star Trek.

Professor Relke returns to Canada today, but will keep in touch with Classics, History and Religion at UNE. "It's been a privilege to be part of a School in another university," she said.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at June 30, 2006 12:45 PM