The Minor Constellations Podcast is the podcast of the Research Training Group Minor Cosmopolitanisms. Hosted by RTG doctoral fellows Yael Attia and Kathleen Samson, the podcast features conversations with thinkers whose work touches on the current moment and who are interested in the ways in which our theories and practices shed light on the relations between knowledge, politics, and power.
This episode was the first-ever live recording of the Minor Constellations podcast, as part of the Minor Cosmopolitan Assembly at Silent Green, Berlin.
In this episode, we talk to Ben Ratskoff about two of his texts. The first was published in The Funambulist, and is titled “Rethinking Jewish Diaspora: On Analogy, Translation, and Abjection,” where he wants to nuance the concept of Jewish radical diasporism beyond Jewish opposition to Zionism. The second, “Against Analogy,” appeared in Jewish Currents just weeks after the murder of George Floyd, where he suggests that progressive Jews in the US need to go beyond invoking Jewish suffering as a means to enable Jewish solidarity with other minorities. We talk about radical diasporism, Jewish identity, analogy, and diaspora politics.
In conversation with:
Ben Ratskoff (Louchheim School of Judaic Studies at Hebrew Union College and the University of Southern California)

Ben Ratskoff is visiting assistant professor in the Louchheim School of Judaic Studies at Hebrew Union College and the University of Southern California. He completed his dissertation, Waltzing with Hitler: Black Writers, the Third Reich, and Demonic Grounds of Comparison, 1936-1940 in June 2021. His writing has appeared in Studies in American Jewish Literature, Jewish Studies Quarterly, as well as the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Funambulist, and Jewish Currents.
References
- Ratskoff, Ben. “Rethinking Jewish Diaspora: On Analogy, Translation, and Abjection” in The Funambulist, August 2022.
- Ratskoff, Ben. “Against Analogy” in Jewish Currents, June 2020.
- Boyarin, Jonathan, and Daniel Boyarin. Powers of diaspora: Two essays on the relevance of Jewish culture. U of Minnesota Press, 2002.
- Goldberg, David Theo. “Racial comparisons, relational racisms: some thoughts on method.” Ethnic & Racial Studies 32.7 (2009): 1271-1282.
- Elkins, Stanley M. Slavery: A problem in American institutional and intellectual life. University of Chicago Press, 2013.
- Fukuyama, Francis. “The end of history?.” The national interest 16 (1989): 3-18.
- Hall, Stuart. ” Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory. Routledge, 2015. 392-403.
- Haslett, Tobi. “Magic Actions: Looking back on the George Floyd Rebellion” in n+1, 2021
- Iton, Richard. In search of the black fantastic: Politics and popular culture in the post-civil rights era. Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Hooks, Bell. “Sisterhood: Political solidarity between women.” Feminist Review 23.1 (1986): 125-138.
- Kaye/Kantrowitz, Melanie. The colors of Jews: racial politics and radical diasporism. Indiana University Press, 2007.
- Moynihan, Daniel Patrick. The Negro Family: The Case For National Action. Office of Policy Planning and Research, United States Department of Labor, 1965.
- Shepperson, George. “Review: Slavery. A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life by Stanley M. Elkins; Negro Slavery in Arkansas by Orville W. Taylor.” History 45. 155 (1960): 297-298.
- Shepperson, George. “The African Abroad or the African Diaspora.” Emerging Themes of African History: Proceedings of the International Congress of African Historians, Dar es Salaam, October 1965 (1968): 152-176.