Santiago Slabodsky
Associate Professor of Religion
Degrees
PHD, 2009, Univ Toronto; MA, 2003, Duke Univ; BA, 2000, Universidad De Buenos Aires
Bio
Santiago Slabodsky is a sociologist of global knowledge who holds the Florence and Robert Kaufman Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies and directs the JWST program in the Department of Religion. In addition, he is Associate Director of the Center for Race, Culture and Social Justice and serves in the faculty of three area studies programs: Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, and European Studies. Prior to his appointment at Hofstra he directed the graduate program of Religion, Ethics and Society and was an assistant professor of Global Ethics at Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University in Southern California.
Dr. Slabodsky writes about intercultural encounters between Jewish and Global South social theories and political movements. His book Decolonial Judaism: Triumphal Failures of Barbaric Thinking received the 2017 Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. His research interests include Jewish thought and culture, colonialism and decoloniality, sociology of knowledge, Latin American, North African, and Middle Eastern histories, religion and politics, inter-religious conversations, Jewish-Muslim dialogue, critical theories of religion and society, and race and globalization.
At the national level Dr. Slabodsky co-chairs the Liberation Theologies unit and is founding member of the Class, Religion, and Theology unit at the American Academy of Religion. At the international level, he is co-director of the trilingual journal Decolonial Horizons/Horizontes Decoloniales housed at the GEMRIP institute in Latin America and published by Pluto Press in the United Kingdom. Concurrently to his permanent posts in the US, he has served as visiting professor at institutions in the Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Costa Rica, Macedonia, and Argentina and has lectured throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa, South East Asia, and the Middle East.
Selected Bibliography
Decolonial Judaism: Triumphal Failures of Barbaric Thinking (New York: Plagrave Macmillian, 2015). Frantz Fanon Outstanding Book Award 2017 by the Caribbean Philosophical Association.
https://www.amazon.com/Decolonial-Judaism-Triumphal-Failures-Approaches/dp/1137520280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1489948518&sr=8-1&keywords=decolonial+judaism
“The Location of ‘Jewish Difference’” Re-Orient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies (2017) [forthcoming]
“It is the Theology, Stupid! Coloniality, Anti-Blackness, and the Bounds of Humanity” Anti-Black Racism Andrew Prevot and Vicent Loyyd eds. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2017) forthcoming.
“Jewish Resistances: Holocaustic Memories and the Paradoxes of New Whiteness.” in Faith and Resistance Miguel de la Torre ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 2017), forthcoming.
“In Network: The Case for Decolonial Jewish Thought” Politics and Religion Journal X.2 (2016): 151-172.
https://www.politicsandreligionjournal.com/index.php/prj/article/view/5/4
Marked Bodies: Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, Postcoloniality and Religion. Co-Edited with N. Panotto and H. Cordova-Quero. Decolonial Horizons Journal 1.2. (August, 2016) - “De Corporalidades que Desafian: Complejizando Las Lecturas Fenomenologicas en Clave Postcolonial” in Decolonial Horizons Journal 1.2. (May 2016), 1-22. [with Hugo Cordova-Quero y Nicolas Panotto].
http://horizontesdecoloniales.gemrip.org/numero-2/
“You Don’t Need a Rabbi! Ferguson & A Racial Interrogation to the Privilege of Theological Discourses” Journal of Asian North American Theological Educators 2.1. (2016): 122-129.
http://janate.org/index.php/janate/article/view/1327
Living Traditions and Universal Conviviality: Prospects and Challenges for Peace in Multirreligious Communities. Co-edited with R. Faber (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield: Lexington Books, 2016).
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498513357/Living-Traditions-and-Universal-Conviviality-Prospects-and-Challenges-for-Peace-in-Multireligious-Communities
Counter-arresting the Cartographies of Power: Postcolonial and Decolonial Religious Theories and Practices from the Americas.Co-edited with H. Cordova-Quero and N. Panotto. Decolonial Horizons Journal 1.1 (July, 2015). - “Religion en Clave Postcolonial” in Horizontes Decoloniales 1.1. (2015): 1-13. [with Hugo Cordova-Quero y Nicolas Panotto].
http://horizontesdecoloniales.gemrip.org/horizontes-decoloniales-1/
“Interacciones y problemas en el Trabajo Judaismo Liberacionista: Honrando el trabajo de Marc H. Ellis” in Marc H. Ellis ed., Hacia Una Teologia Judia de Liberacion (San Jose, Puerto Rico: Isla Negra Editores, 2015), 130-141.
“Justice Justice you Shall Pursue” Global Perspectives on the Bible. Marc Roncace and Joe Weaver eds. (Delaware: Prentice Hall, 2013), 88-92.
“It is the History Stupid!: A Dialectical Reading of the Utopian Limitations of the US ‘Occupy’ Movements” Journal of Peace Studies 10.1 (2012): 46-56
https://www.academia.edu/1365024/It_is_the_history_stupid_A_Dialectical_Reading_of_the_Utopian_Limitations_of_the_US_Occupy_Movements
“Espacio y Periferia: Hacia Una Filosofía Judía Latinoamericana” EIAL Journal of the Institute of Latin American Studies at UTV23.1 (2012): 61-75. [with Emmanuel Taub].
https://www.academia.edu/1365040/Space_and_Periphery_Toward_a_Latin-American_Jewish_Philosophy
“Talmudic Terrorism in Bethlehem” Biblical Texts, UR-Contexts and Contemporary Realities in Israel and Palestine. Mitri Raheb ed.(Bethlehem: Dyar Publisher, 2011), 181-198.
“De-Colonial Jewish Thought and the Americas” Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion. Purshumottama Bilimora and Andrew Irvine eds. (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2010), 215-272.
https://www.academia.edu/304017/_De-colonial_Jewish_Thought_and_the_Americas_
“Emmanuel Levinas’ Geopolitics: Overlooked Conversations between Rabbinical and Third World Decolonialisms” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 13.2 (2010): 147-165.
https://www.academia.edu/304016/_Emmanuel_Levinas_Geopolitics_Overlooked_Conversations_between_Rabbinical_and_Third_World_Decolonialisms_
“But There are No Longer Any Anti-Semites: Vicious Circles, Jewish Destinies and an Alternative Framework to Understand De-colonial Discourses” Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge 7.2 (2009): 35-52.
https://www.academia.edu/304018/_But_There_Are_No_Longer_any_anti-Semites_Vicious_Circles_Jewish_Destinies_and_an_Alternative_Framework_to_Understand_De-colonial_Discourses_
Selected Media Contributions
“Laughing with Charlie but Never About Charlie” Political Theology Today
http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/laughing-with-charlie-but-never-about-charlie-by-santiago-slabodsky/
“The Barbarian Strike Back” Manasseh Ben Israel Institute – Netherlands
http://www.mbii.nl/?id=31
“Liberation Theologies and Decolonialities in South Africa and Beyond” Finding me – South Africa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk1Ne5WScXI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0irLIC-j40Q&t=626s
“Saving the Jews: Occidentalism, AMIA and the Murder of a Prosecutor in Buenos Aires” Lechaim – Russia
http://lechaim.ru/events/d0-b2-d0-b5-d1-81-d1-82-d0-b5-d1-80-d0-bd-d0-b8-d0-b7-d0-b0-d1-86-d0-b8-d1-8f-d0-b0-d1-80-d0-b3-d0-b5-d0-bd-d1-82-d0-b8-d0-bd-d1-8b-d0-b8-d1-83-d0-b1-d0-b8-d0-b9-d1-81-d1-82-d0-b2-d0-be/
“Race and Religion” GEMRIP- Argentina
goo.gl/Jpv1he
“On Pope Francis” Postcolonial Networks
http://postcolonialnetworks.com/2013/03/14/argentinean-scholar-trained-jewish-liberationist-decolonial-philosophies/
Recent Courses Taught
| Course | Title | Level |
|---|---|---|
| JWST 049 | (HP) POST-HOLOCAUST JWSH THGHT | Undergraduate |
| JWST 050 | (CC,HP)ANTISEM, ISLAMPHB, RACM | Undergraduate |
| JWST 101I | SP TPC: (HP)LOST TRIBES MYSTRY | Undergraduate |
| JWST 101S | (HP)SOCL JUSTCE, ACTVSM & JEWS | Undergraduate |
| PPPS 100 | DEPRTMNTL HONORS CANDCY: ESSAY | Undergraduate |
| RELI 049 | (HP) POST-HOLOCAUST JWSH THGHT | Undergraduate |
| RELI 055 | (CC,HP)ANTISEM, ISLAMPHB, RACM | Undergraduate |
| RELI 141L | SP TPC: (HP)LOST TRIBES MYSTRY | Undergraduate |
| RELI 141S | (HP)SOCL JUSTCE, ACTVSM & JEWS | Undergraduate |
| RELI 193 | DEPT HONORS CANDIDACY: ESSAY | Undergraduate |
