William Lee Frost Professor of Jewish History, Harvard University; Resident Faculty & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University; Director, The Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University
March 31, 2022
12:30pm - 1:45pm
Virtual/RSVP Required
This seminar centers around a 2017 city-branding campaign, “In Antwerp We Speak Diamond! Diamond Capital Since 1447.” Jointly engineered by PR representatives from Antwerp’s diamond industry (AWDC) and the city's government, this campaign sought to shore up Antwerp’s precarious position in the global diamond supply-chain.
Sam Shuman assesses why Antwerp’s reigning right-wing nationalist party, N-VA (the New Flemish Alliance), chose to associate its city with a luxury commodity traded by “foreign” merchant communities. What might be the relevance of the “port Jew” for Europe in the 21st century?