Participants/Medverkande:

Christina von Braun, Germany

Stefan Johansson, Sweden

Joshua Sobol, Israel

Michael Stenberg, USA

Igor Toronyi-Lalic, Great Britain

Hilan Warshaw, USA

A number of intellectual figures behave been exposed as either proponents of or otherwise tainted by an association with antisemitism. 

This series is an effort to understand how the phenomenon of 'tainted greatness' is possible, whether the revelation of prejudice devalues the work of these regarded as cultural/intellectual heroes?

What it means to continue to revere cultural/intellectual greatness despite the presence of antisemitism? Is antisemitism an inextricable part of the figures' work as much as part of their lives? And finally, is it the concept of heroism or 'greatness' itself, which invites or even generates the notion of taintedness, that needs to be re-examined?' 

From Nancy A. Horrowitz book Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism & Cultural Heroes

Author note: Nancy A. Harrowitz, Assistant Professor of Italian Literature at Boston University, is the author of "Antisemitism, Misogyny, and the Logic of Cultural Difference: Cesare Lombroso and Matilde Serao" and co-editor (with Barbara Hyams) of "Jews and Gender: Responses to Otto Weininger" (Temple).