Jonathon Catlin
@joncatlin.bsky.social
Intellectual history, German & Jewish studies, climate catastrophe | Postdoc at the University of Rochester Humanities Center | PhD from Princeton | Edits @jhideas.bsky.social | Rochester • NYC • Berlin 🏳️🌈
https://rochester.academia.edu/JonathonCatlin
https://rochester.academia.edu/JonathonCatlin
Pinned
The special issue of New German Critique on "German Memory Politics at a Crossroads," which I co-edited with Andreas Huyssen and the late Anson Rabinbach, is finally starting to look real! It will be out in February 2026.
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Part 1 of a recent interview with my thoughts on the authoritarian turn in contemporary Germany - Staatsräson, the repression of pro-Palestine protests and the overall undermining of democracy
🎙️ In our new podcast, @robin-c.bsky.social examines the threat of far-right on German politics and discusses the country’s broader protest culture.
🎧 Listen to it now:
👉 tinyurl.com/mvhsdrk7
🎧 Listen to it now:
👉 tinyurl.com/mvhsdrk7
November 26, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Part 1 of a recent interview with my thoughts on the authoritarian turn in contemporary Germany - Staatsräson, the repression of pro-Palestine protests and the overall undermining of democracy
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Today on the blog, Jon Catlin interviews Federico Marcon on his latest book, "Fascism: History of a Word," which uses semiotics to chart fascism’s changing political and heuristic meanings from its invention in Italy in 1919 to the present.
@joncatlin.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
@joncatlin.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
The Disadvantages of “Fascism” for Life: An Interview with Federico Marcon (Part I)
by Jonathon Catlin
www.jhiblog.org
November 26, 2025 at 2:34 PM
Today on the blog, Jon Catlin interviews Federico Marcon on his latest book, "Fascism: History of a Word," which uses semiotics to chart fascism’s changing political and heuristic meanings from its invention in Italy in 1919 to the present.
@joncatlin.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
@joncatlin.bsky.social @uchicagopress.bsky.social
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
‘Germany has become a laboratory for the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine, testing how far it can go in suppressing free speech, banning protest, and bending the constitutional framework until it is almost unrecognisable.’
new report @tninstitute.bsky.social
www.tni.org/en/publicati...
new report @tninstitute.bsky.social
www.tni.org/en/publicati...
Solidarity under Siege | Transnational Institute
Since 7 October 2023, Germany’s unabating support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza is mirrored by a sweeping crackdown on Palestine solidarity at home. This report unpacks how over decades, authorities h...
www.tni.org
November 26, 2025 at 8:00 AM
‘Germany has become a laboratory for the criminalisation of solidarity with Palestine, testing how far it can go in suppressing free speech, banning protest, and bending the constitutional framework until it is almost unrecognisable.’
new report @tninstitute.bsky.social
www.tni.org/en/publicati...
new report @tninstitute.bsky.social
www.tni.org/en/publicati...
The special issue of New German Critique on "German Memory Politics at a Crossroads," which I co-edited with Andreas Huyssen and the late Anson Rabinbach, is finally starting to look real! It will be out in February 2026.
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
November 25, 2025 at 1:40 PM
The special issue of New German Critique on "German Memory Politics at a Crossroads," which I co-edited with Andreas Huyssen and the late Anson Rabinbach, is finally starting to look real! It will be out in February 2026.
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
Meron Mendel: Right-wing German politicians do not “love Jews.” “They hate Jews, but they hate Muslims more.” So they say, “we are for Israel” to “justify discriminating against Muslims for a ‘good cause’ – the cause of fighting antisemitism.”
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
‘Germany’s far right still hates Jews. They just hate Muslims more’
Podcast Episode · Haaretz Podcast · 11/20/2025 · 34m
podcasts.apple.com
November 24, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Meron Mendel: Right-wing German politicians do not “love Jews.” “They hate Jews, but they hate Muslims more.” So they say, “we are for Israel” to “justify discriminating against Muslims for a ‘good cause’ – the cause of fighting antisemitism.”
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/h...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Excited that my paper ‘Staatsräson as State Racism’ is part of this forthc. issue on ‘German Memory Politics at a Crossroads’
thanks to @joncatlin.bsky.social for including me along fantastic colleagues @danielloick.bsky.social, @vethompson.bsky.social & others!
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
thanks to @joncatlin.bsky.social for including me along fantastic colleagues @danielloick.bsky.social, @vethompson.bsky.social & others!
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
New German Critique: Forthcoming Issues
Widely considered the top journal in its field, New German Critique is an interdisciplinary journal that focuses on twentieth- and twenty-first-century German studies.
ngc.arts.cornell.edu
November 22, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Excited that my paper ‘Staatsräson as State Racism’ is part of this forthc. issue on ‘German Memory Politics at a Crossroads’
thanks to @joncatlin.bsky.social for including me along fantastic colleagues @danielloick.bsky.social, @vethompson.bsky.social & others!
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
thanks to @joncatlin.bsky.social for including me along fantastic colleagues @danielloick.bsky.social, @vethompson.bsky.social & others!
ngc.arts.cornell.edu/forthcoming....
So you call yourself an eco-Marxist? @alybatt.bsky.social and her dream team of respondents would love to know why, if capitalism is so good at commodifying everything, it‘s failed to put a price on nature to protect it from destruction. Excited to read her book! @princetonupress.bsky.social
November 21, 2025 at 8:52 PM
So you call yourself an eco-Marxist? @alybatt.bsky.social and her dream team of respondents would love to know why, if capitalism is so good at commodifying everything, it‘s failed to put a price on nature to protect it from destruction. Excited to read her book! @princetonupress.bsky.social
Still reeling from the intellectual richness and political urgency of Dagmar Herzog's talks this week at @urochester.bsky.social! We have a final event on 11/25: A hybrid Zoom event with Kathryn Brackney on her history of Holocaust representation. Register here:
events.rochester.edu/event/surrea...
events.rochester.edu/event/surrea...
November 21, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Still reeling from the intellectual richness and political urgency of Dagmar Herzog's talks this week at @urochester.bsky.social! We have a final event on 11/25: A hybrid Zoom event with Kathryn Brackney on her history of Holocaust representation. Register here:
events.rochester.edu/event/surrea...
events.rochester.edu/event/surrea...
Today is Zygmunt Bauman’s centenary! Born in Poznan, Poland in 1925, he survived the Holocaust by fleeing into the Soviet Union, returning to become a professor of Marxist-Leninism in communist Poland, only to be expelled in the antisemitic campaign in Poland in 1968.
jacobin.com/2025/11/zygm...
jacobin.com/2025/11/zygm...
Zygmunt Bauman’s Century
Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman was born 100 years ago today. He is best known as the theorist of “liquid modernity,” in which social bonds decline in favor of an atomized individualism.
jacobin.com
November 19, 2025 at 3:19 PM
Today is Zygmunt Bauman’s centenary! Born in Poznan, Poland in 1925, he survived the Holocaust by fleeing into the Soviet Union, returning to become a professor of Marxist-Leninism in communist Poland, only to be expelled in the antisemitic campaign in Poland in 1968.
jacobin.com/2025/11/zygm...
jacobin.com/2025/11/zygm...
Thrilled to be hosting the brilliant historian Dagmar Herzog in Rochester this week for events on her two (!) new books, which explore sexuality, racism, and anti-disability politics in 20th century Germany and on the far right today. Details here:
events.rochester.edu/search/event...
events.rochester.edu/search/event...
November 17, 2025 at 8:52 PM
Thrilled to be hosting the brilliant historian Dagmar Herzog in Rochester this week for events on her two (!) new books, which explore sexuality, racism, and anti-disability politics in 20th century Germany and on the far right today. Details here:
events.rochester.edu/search/event...
events.rochester.edu/search/event...
Fantastic virtual event going on right now (I believe it’s being recorded). Valentina Pisanty: In official, institutionalized Holocaust memory in the West, “Never Again” has become code for “There Is No Alternative” to (failing) capitalist liberal democracy.
November 17, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Fantastic virtual event going on right now (I believe it’s being recorded). Valentina Pisanty: In official, institutionalized Holocaust memory in the West, “Never Again” has become code for “There Is No Alternative” to (failing) capitalist liberal democracy.
At Smith College for the annual Critical Theory Roundtable. My paper, “‘Nichts Ähnliches’: The Uses and Abuses of Adorno in a Time of Genocide,” attempts to map the growing divide between (German) particularist vs. universalist readings of Adorno's "after Auschwitz" after the devastation of Gaza
November 14, 2025 at 2:58 PM
At Smith College for the annual Critical Theory Roundtable. My paper, “‘Nichts Ähnliches’: The Uses and Abuses of Adorno in a Time of Genocide,” attempts to map the growing divide between (German) particularist vs. universalist readings of Adorno's "after Auschwitz" after the devastation of Gaza
Brilliant piece by Bartov on how denial has always been an intrinsic component of genocide, from postwar Germany to today: "the reality in which most of the population in Israel lives is founded on layers of denial, amplified by the vast majority of the country’s media"
November 10, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Brilliant piece by Bartov on how denial has always been an intrinsic component of genocide, from postwar Germany to today: "the reality in which most of the population in Israel lives is founded on layers of denial, amplified by the vast majority of the country’s media"
Omer Bartov, in conversation with @hahauenstein.bsky.social: “After some thinking, I decided that I can’t go to Israel anymore, at least as long as this government is in power.”
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...
Holocaust Historian Omer Bartov: How Germany Enabled the Genocide in Gaza
Podcast Episode · Nullpunkt – mit Hanno Hauenstein · 11/09/2025 · 34m
podcasts.apple.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Omer Bartov, in conversation with @hahauenstein.bsky.social: “After some thinking, I decided that I can’t go to Israel anymore, at least as long as this government is in power.”
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
In the name of "fighting antisemitism," Indiana University appointed a Christian scholar to tell Jewish scholars what they can and cannot say - all while they invited Tucker Carlson to speak on campus. www.jta.org/2025/11/07/u...
In Indiana, a vaunted Jewish studies program is upended by red-state politics over Israel and speech - Jewish Telegraphic Agency
A leadership shakeup, a defunded graduate student and political pressure from above have turned a storied program into a flashpoint for Trump-era campus politics.
www.jta.org
November 8, 2025 at 3:22 AM
In the name of "fighting antisemitism," Indiana University appointed a Christian scholar to tell Jewish scholars what they can and cannot say - all while they invited Tucker Carlson to speak on campus. www.jta.org/2025/11/07/u...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
A sneak peek at the cover of next week’s issue, which celebrates Zohran Mamdani’s historic win. #NewYorkerCovers
https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/451hFM
https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/451hFM
November 5, 2025 at 3:15 AM
A sneak peek at the cover of next week’s issue, which celebrates Zohran Mamdani’s historic win. #NewYorkerCovers
https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/451hFM
https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/451hFM
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com
“If Americans want to challenge their country’s illiberal turn, they need to stop clinging to the recent past,” Sven Beckert says in a guest essay. “Like other economic regimes before it, it is gone. Resurrection is impossible and to aim for it is politically disastrous.”
“If Americans want to challenge their country’s illiberal turn, they need to stop clinging to the recent past,” Sven Beckert says in a guest essay. “Like other economic regimes before it, it is gone. Resurrection is impossible and to aim for it is politically disastrous.”
Opinion | Capitalism Is Constantly Reinventing Itself. That’s Why Things Feel So Volatile.
We are in the middle of the capitalistic order reinventing itself.
nyti.ms
November 5, 2025 at 4:15 AM
In @nytopinion.nytimes.com
“If Americans want to challenge their country’s illiberal turn, they need to stop clinging to the recent past,” Sven Beckert says in a guest essay. “Like other economic regimes before it, it is gone. Resurrection is impossible and to aim for it is politically disastrous.”
“If Americans want to challenge their country’s illiberal turn, they need to stop clinging to the recent past,” Sven Beckert says in a guest essay. “Like other economic regimes before it, it is gone. Resurrection is impossible and to aim for it is politically disastrous.”
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
„Wer verfolgt die Komplizen?
Europa und die USA sind für Menschenrechtsverletzungen in Gaza mitverantwortlich. Der Krieg ruft Assoziationen zu den Nürnberger Prozessen wach.“ Nitzan Lebovic (nach langem vor-sich-hin-schieben, wie er berichtet) in der TAZ
taz.de/Aufarbeitung...
Europa und die USA sind für Menschenrechtsverletzungen in Gaza mitverantwortlich. Der Krieg ruft Assoziationen zu den Nürnberger Prozessen wach.“ Nitzan Lebovic (nach langem vor-sich-hin-schieben, wie er berichtet) in der TAZ
taz.de/Aufarbeitung...
Aufarbeitung der Verbrechen in Gaza: Wer verfolgt die Komplizen?
Europa und die USA sind für Menschenrechtsverletzungen in Gaza mitverantwortlich. Der Krieg ruft Assoziationen zu den Nürnberger Prozessen wach.
taz.de
October 28, 2025 at 10:35 AM
„Wer verfolgt die Komplizen?
Europa und die USA sind für Menschenrechtsverletzungen in Gaza mitverantwortlich. Der Krieg ruft Assoziationen zu den Nürnberger Prozessen wach.“ Nitzan Lebovic (nach langem vor-sich-hin-schieben, wie er berichtet) in der TAZ
taz.de/Aufarbeitung...
Europa und die USA sind für Menschenrechtsverletzungen in Gaza mitverantwortlich. Der Krieg ruft Assoziationen zu den Nürnberger Prozessen wach.“ Nitzan Lebovic (nach langem vor-sich-hin-schieben, wie er berichtet) in der TAZ
taz.de/Aufarbeitung...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
As of today, five million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust have been identified. www.reuters.com/business/med...
Names of 5 million of 6 million Jews killed in Holocaust now identified
Five million of the more than six million Jews killed in the Holocaust have now been identified, and with the further help of artificial intelligence (AI), even more names could be recovered, Israeli researchers said on Monday.
www.reuters.com
November 3, 2025 at 11:22 PM
As of today, five million of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust have been identified. www.reuters.com/business/med...
"If, for the supposed safety of Jewish people, one is prepared to unleash a great wave of dehumanization once again because a German majority feels threatened by foreigners, then the consensus is merely the same old German tradition..." @deborahfeldman.bsky.social
www.fr.de/kultur/debor...
www.fr.de/kultur/debor...
Deborah Feldman: Deutschland, das Land ohne Immunsystem
Nach dem Terrorangriff vom 7. Oktober fühlt sich Deborah Feldman in Deutschland entfremdet und kritisiert die Instrumentalisierung jüdischer Menschen.
www.fr.de
November 4, 2025 at 12:41 AM
"If, for the supposed safety of Jewish people, one is prepared to unleash a great wave of dehumanization once again because a German majority feels threatened by foreigners, then the consensus is merely the same old German tradition..." @deborahfeldman.bsky.social
www.fr.de/kultur/debor...
www.fr.de/kultur/debor...
Jonathan Boyarin:
www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/...
www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/...
November 2, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Jonathan Boyarin:
www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/...
www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/...
Mark Mazower speaks on his new history of the term “antisemitism” and its distortion and abuse in recent years: newbooksnetwork.com/on-antisemit...
Mark Mazower, "On Antisemitism: A Word in History" (Penguin Press, 2025) - New Books Network
newbooksnetwork.com
October 31, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Mark Mazower speaks on his new history of the term “antisemitism” and its distortion and abuse in recent years: newbooksnetwork.com/on-antisemit...
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
Such an important conversation between @mashagessen.bsky.social and Marianne Hirsch about Holocaust memory, genocide, and Palestine.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/o...
Opinion | We Need to Rethink How We Think About the Holocaust
www.nytimes.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Such an important conversation between @mashagessen.bsky.social and Marianne Hirsch about Holocaust memory, genocide, and Palestine.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/o...
Tomorrow!
Excited to be hosting historian Doris Bergen at the @urochester.bsky.social Humanities Center on Oct. 29 for a lecture on the collapse of German democracy in the Nazi era. Could there be any parallels to today, I wonder? 🤔
events.rochester.edu/event/how-ea...
events.rochester.edu/event/how-ea...
October 28, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Tomorrow!
Reposted by Jonathon Catlin
I wrote about what the Weimar Republic tell us about political violence: time.com/7321664/poli...
Can Democracy Survive Political Violence?
Assassinations, coups, and street brawls may be symptoms of democratic decay—or an intentional strategy wielded by democracy’s enemies.
time.com
October 24, 2025 at 1:18 PM
I wrote about what the Weimar Republic tell us about political violence: time.com/7321664/poli...