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At 01:43 PM 5/27/99 +0100, you wrote: >I am currently working in the area of sermon literature and the >stereotype of the Jews. I have a very technical question. Is there a >difference between the word "image" and the word "stereotype"? For >example, Trachtenberg in his work on the Jews as an image of the Devil >states that he "will discuss the subconcious image" of the Jew. And >James Parkes states that it "was the language of the popes and bishops >which made the imagining possible". Is it safe to merely assume that >these images are stereotypes? I am well aware of Langmuir and the >distinctions he makes, but these help define stereotypes alone, and not >necessarily "images". Are there any works, medieval or not, which >discuss this type of distinction? this seems analogous to the difference btwn a sign and a symbol. Stereotypes tend, like signs, to be undimensional, whereas images and symbols are multi-valent, and can this, take on a life of their own. Stereotypes, on the other hand, are one of the products of a mentalite, rather than an operative force in the workings of mentalite. in this case of antisemtism, by linking jews with the evil incarnate, a wide range of fears cd focus on them, some with no connection to them or the peculiar characteristics of their culture. i think the operative distinction for medievalists btwn anti judaism and anti semitism (Langmuir's. if i am not mistaken) is that the former is a set of stereotypes about the jews as people (stubborn, blind, hostile, oppressors thru money) and the latter a projection of one's fantasies onto them so that, no longer human, their culture became a major locus of diabolic activity in this world. rlandes rlandes Richard Landes Department of History Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University Boston University Boston University 226 Bay State Road 704 Commonwealth Ave. Suite 205 Boston MA 02215 Boston MA 02215 617-353-2558 (of) 617-358-0226 (tel) 617-353-2781 (fax) 617-358-0225 (fax) [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] http://www.mille.org %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%