Empathy Passage: Toward a Presentational Genealogy of the Rhetorics of Antisemitism and Israel/Palestine

Abstract

This dissertation asserts that only through a slow and benevolent examination of the rhetorical energy of Antisemitism (including the immense period prior to its linguistic dissemination, which he has entitled the “Prenatal Period” of the term/concept) can the common paralysis which results from its introduction into dialogues regarding Israel/Palestine become fresh and productive. As one of the “terminal terminologies” surrounding such contentious discourses, we must, there, produce what this project refers to as a Presentational Genealogy of Rhetoric (or PGR) of the term, borrowing influence from composition and rhetorical theory (including the works of such figures as Wayne Booth, Susan Jarratt, and Jenny Edbauer), as well as genealogists such Foucault and their theoretical cousins, Deleuze and Guattari. The desired end result is Empathy Passage, through which rhetors otherwise too disparate in their understandings of Antisemitism and its relationship to Israel/Palestine might gain new perspective with the assistance of mentors, instructors, and others serving as “Complexity Bridges,” both inside the classroom and beyond.