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As part of the ongoing efforts to transition to an actively anti-racist department at Dartmouth College, in 2020 the faculty of the Religion Department announced the establishment of a series of panel discussions and colloquia focusing on the intersection of race and religion. This initiative is being undertaken in response to the distressingly frequent incidence of racial violence not only in the United States but in many countries throughout the world. Sadly, religions have played important roles in encouraging and legitimating racial and ethnic oppression. However, religion has also inspired extraordinary acts of resistance and critiques of racial injustice. These series of events will explore the complexity and volatility of the relationship between race and religion, not only in the United States, but in other parts of the world. Each forum will allow time for discussion and will be open to students, faculty, and staff of Dartmouth College.
Noah Tamarkin, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Science & Technology Studies
Cornell University
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
3:30 PM
Location: Rocky 003
Free and open to all
Lecture title: Black Jewish Indigeneity and the Remapping of Jewish Histories and Futures
Abstract: This talk considers how Jewishness and race converge. It builds on my book, Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa (Duke University Press, 2020). The book traces how a group of black South Africans known as the Lemba gave new meanings to late 1980s and 1990s genetic studies that aimed to demonstrate their links to Jews. This talk shows how Lemba Jewishness, and the decision between geneticists and Lemba people to locate that Jewishness in Lemba bodies, provides new ways to think about Jews, race, place, and belonging. I argue that Lemba Jewishness provides openings through which to rethink and ultimately remap Jewish histories and futures.