Both populism and antisemitism have been on the rise in the United States and around the world in the last decade. However, there is surprisingly little empirical research exploring this relationship. The lecture 1) presents evidence of rising populism and antisemitism, focusing on the cases of Germany and the US; 2) reviews the findings of a rare empirical study of the relationship between populist and antisemitic attitudes based on an analysis of German survey data from 2020; 3) outlines a new and similar empirical study in progress based on US survey data; and 4) draws on the work of the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and others to theorize the relationship between populism and antisemitism.

Chad Alan Goldberg is Martindale-Bascom Professor of Sociology and a faculty affiliate of the History Department, Political Science Department, and Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He writes about politics, history, and social theory. His award-winning books include Citizens and Paupers: Relief, Rights, and Race, from the Freedmen’s Bureau to Workfare (University of Chicago Press, 2008); Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought (University of Chicago Press, 2017); and (as editor) Education for Democracy: Renewing the Wisconsin Idea (University of Wisconsin Press, 2020). In the summer semester of 2025 he will be a senior fellow at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald.

Moderation: Professor Dr. Hubertus Buchstein