Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual?

Stanley Kubrick is generally acknowledged as one of the world’s great directors. Yet few critics or scholars have considered how he emerged from a unique and vibrant cultural milieu: the New York Jewish intelligentsia. In this talk, Nathan Abrams re-examines the director’s work in context of his ethnic and cultural origins. Focusing on several of Kubrick’s key themes – including masculinity, ethical responsibility, and the nature of evil – it demonstrates how his films were in conversation with contemporary New York Jewish intellectuals who grappled with the same concerns. At the same time, it explores Kubrick’s fraught relationship with his Jewish identity and his reluctance to be pegged as an ethnic director, manifest in his removal of Jewish references and characters from stories he adapted.

Nathan Abrams is Professor in Film and Director of Impact and Engagement for the College of Arts, Humanities and Business at Bangor University. He co-convenes the British Jewish Contemporary Cultures network. He lectures, writes and broadcasts on UK and American popular culture, history film and intellectual culture. He co-founded Jewish Film and New Media and recent books are Eyes Wide Shut: Stanley Kubrick and the Making of His Final Film (with Robert Kolker, Oxford University Press, 2019), Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual (Rutgers University Press, 2018), Hidden in Plain Sight: Jews and Jewishness in British Film, Television, and Popular Culture (Northwestern University Press, 2016).