Columbia University Faculty House
Benjamin Balthaser (Indiana University South Bend) on Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left (2025), in dialogue with Benjamin Ratskoff (Occidental College). Moderated by Sonali Thakkar (New York University).
Benjamin Balthaser is an associate professor of multiethnic US Literature at Indiana University, South Bend. His scholarship, teaching, and creative work investigates the relationships among social movements, racial identity, and cultural production. He is the author of Anti-Imperialist Modernism: Race and Transnational Radical Culture from the Great Depression to the Cold War (2015) and a collection of poems, Dedication (2011). His most recent book, Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left, was published by Verso Books in 2025.
Benjamin Ratskoff is an assistant professor of Critical Theory and Social Justice at Occidental College. His current research interrogates the politics of Holocaust memory and representation and the relationship between antisemitism, colonialism and white supremacy.
Information regarding campus access for non-Columbia affiliates will be sent prior to the event. This event will be in person only. Please contact cumemory@gmail.com if you have any questions.
There will be an optional dinner at Faculty House before this event at 5:30pm. The full-course dinner costs $30 per guest for non-students and $20 for students. Attendees can pay in advance using this form, or on the day of the meeting by check. Checks should be made payable to “Columbia University,” and the following should be written on the memo line: “[Cultural Memory] FH Meal.” It is a full-course dinner buffet with white and red wine, soft drinks, dessert, and coffee/tea. Advance registration is required.
