Ben Wexler

I work on the intellectual and culture history of modern Europe, with a focus on France and Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. My research concerns questions of state formation, Jewish emancipation, nationalism and antisemitism, and the intersection of religious and economic thought. In recent work, I study the legal and symbolic association of Jews in France with colonial slavery, and the pertinence of this association to Jewish emancipation during the French Revolution.

I  received a BA in History from McGill University in my hometown of Montreal, Canada. I am also part of the 2024 cohort for the Dean’s Distinguished Graduate Fellowship at WashU.