Many Americans are involved in a conversation on privilege, exclusion, and race. Against this backdrop, this Olio will analyze how privilege is constructed and maintained by looking at the example of the original "pariah people," European Jews. We shall undertake a close reading of Hannah Arendt's seminal paper "Privileged Jews" to understand how every privilege system provokes a twofold response. On the one hand, it creates the parvenus, who seek to join the privilege system at the price of self-denial and alienation from their community; on the other, it gives rise to the "conscious pariahs," i.e., those who understand the rules of the system, reject the very concept of privilege, and choose to live as outsiders—whether artists, poets, or critics. 

Join us as we gather for a close reading of select passages from Arendt's "Privileged Jews" and discuss how the text is more relevant than ever in our modern landscape.