The Problem That Won’t Go Away: Authenticity and Essentialism at the Intersection of Jewish Studies and Religious Studies

This roundtable panel will address where these assumptions linger in academic, institutional, and public-facing contexts related to religious studies and Jewish studies. The participants will address how they navigate these encounters and how these conversations and assumptions might shift. Finally, they will address whether and in what ways ideas of authenticity and legitimacy might be intellectually productive in religious studies and Jewish Studies.