Nate and Ann Levine Endowed Lecture in Jewish Studies

Dr. Jacques Berlinerblau of Georgetown University. On Thursday, November 5, Dr. Berlinerblau will speak on “Free Speech, Comedy, and Antisemitism: France’s Dieudonné M’bala M’bala and Perils of Jokes in a Digital Age”.

If there is an intersection where comedy, antisemitism and the power of social media all meet, then French humorist Dieudonné M’bala M’bala is certainly standing there. He has trafficked in Judeophobic comedy and commentary for nearly a quarter century. His various provocations, ranging from a jingle about the Shoah to songs celebrating suicide bombers have periodically roiled France. We’ll examine his body of work with an eye toward identifying a fascinating new shift in antisemitic discourse in the digital era. We’ll also scrutinize the rather interesting questions about free speech laws which Dieudonné himself has raised. We end by wondering if some subjects just can’t be joked about. Then again, if governments censor certain types of comedy what are the consequences for liberal democracies?

Dr. Jacques Berlinerblau is a Professor of Jewish Civilization at Georgetown University and an MSNBC opinion columnist. He possesses separate doctorates in sociology and ancient Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. Berlinerblau has written for, appeared on, or had his work discussed in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Salon, The Guardian, The New Republic, The Nation, NPR, Tablet, Commentary, The Forward, The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, Canadian Broadcast Network, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Al-Jazeera, Times Higher Education, The Daily Beast, New York Magazine, Compact, The Hill, PBS, MSNBC, CBS, CBC, USA Today, TF1, AFP, ARTE TV, and CNN. He has also authored nine academic books, two trade books, and more than thirty-five scholarly articles. Berlinerblau writes about literature, comedy, and aesthetics on the one hand, and religion and politics on the other. In recent years, he has spent most of his time researching secularism, defining secularism, and arguing about secularism with those on the Left and on the Right.