Useful Inventors: Science, Technology, and the Fight Against Antisemitism, 1880–1945
This project queries the place of Jewish inventors in the fight against antisemitism in German-speaking Europe between 1880 and 1945. Central to antisemitism in this period was the claim that Jews could not innovate, only imitate. To refute that claim, Jewish activists took it upon themselves to publicize the achievements of Jewish inventors. This emphasis on inventive genius in turn shaped Jewish senses of self and then Jewish fantasies of a technocratic nation-state in Palestine—developments that had ramifications beyond Europe and down to the present day.
The study will answer three questions about the use of Jewish inventors in the fight against antisemitism: why it happened, how it reshaped Jewish subjectivities and how the emphasis on inventors accounts for Zionism’s technocratic tendencies. My interdisciplinary approach to sources—books, periodicals and archival materials—is grounded in cultural and intellectual history, Jewish Studies, postcolonial theory and Science and Technology Studies.
In three articles on the imperial, interwar and Nazi eras, respectively, my findings will show how Jewish inventors became crucial constituents of a form of achievement-based self-esteem that gave Jewishness new meaning and Zionism its cutting edge. The project will also attend to larger questions, relevant today, about the place of innovation in minority cultures and the use of minority inventors in fights against social exclusion.
The study will answer three questions about the use of Jewish inventors in the fight against antisemitism: why it happened, how it reshaped Jewish subjectivities and how the emphasis on inventors accounts for Zionism’s technocratic tendencies. My interdisciplinary approach to sources—books, periodicals and archival materials—is grounded in cultural and intellectual history, Jewish Studies, postcolonial theory and Science and Technology Studies.
In three articles on the imperial, interwar and Nazi eras, respectively, my findings will show how Jewish inventors became crucial constituents of a form of achievement-based self-esteem that gave Jewishness new meaning and Zionism its cutting edge. The project will also attend to larger questions, relevant today, about the place of innovation in minority cultures and the use of minority inventors in fights against social exclusion.