Blood, according to Gil Anidjar, maps the singular history of Christianity. As a category for historical analysis, blood can be seen through its literal and metaphorical uses as determining, sometimes even defining Western Culture, politics, and social practice and their wide-ranging incarnations in nationalism, capitalism, and the law. Flowing across multiple boundaries, infusing them with violent precepts that we must address, blood undoes the presumed oppositions between religion and politics, economy and theology, and kinship and race.

Dr. Anidjar is professor of Religion, Comparative Literature, and Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His books include The Jew, The Arab: A History of the Enemy and Semites: Race, Religion, Literature.

UC Santa Cruz’s Center for Emerging Worlds and the Center for Cultural Studies present this new series, Book Talks, which invites authors to read from their books and engage in discussion. Please visit the Center for Emerging Worlds’ website for more information on their work.