Adena Tanenbaum – författare

Mezukak Shivatayim brings together the work of over a dozen students of Professor Bernard Septimus as a tribute to his superb and masterful scholarship. In his writing and teaching, Septimus exhibited an extraordinary breadth of interests, an exquisite ability to draw nuance and cultural resonance from Hebrew texts, and deep historical insights. These qualities are on display in the essays in this volume, which cover a wide range of philosophical, literary, and historical topics ranging from the tenth to the twentieth centuries. The themes include rabbinic culture, Jewish thought and literature, and Jewish communities in their Christian and Muslim contexts.

The only Hebrew picaresque maqama from Yemen, Sefer hamusar captivates its readers with trickster tales of wandering and adventure while offering moral guidance and a spiritual ascent via kabbalistic study. In Beguiling Guidance, Adena Tanenbaum explores these tensions, along with the literary, social-historical, philosophical, and kabbalistic aspects of Sefer hamusar, and situates the work in its broader 16th-century framework. Applying a fresh reading, she analyzes Aldahiri's maqama as a rich repository of intellectual history; treats his travel narratives as composites of fiction and fact; and uncovers the cultural assumptions and self-definitions underlying his representations of Muslims, which she shows to be far more variegated and nuanced than previously acknowledged. Beguiling Guidance should appeal to readers interested in transregional cultural exchange and the diffusion of texts; pre-modern fiction and travel writing; and Muslim-Jewish power relations in the late medieval/early modern Middle East. It also serves as an introduction to the vibrant culture of a Jewish community that traced its presence in South Arabia back to antiquity.

The only Hebrew picaresque maqāma from Yemen, Sefer hamusar captivates its readers with trickster tales of wandering and adventure while offering moral guidance and a spiritual ascent via kabbalistic study. In Beguiling Guidance, Adena Tanenbaum explores these tensions, along with the literary, social-historical, philosophical, and kabbalistic aspects of Sefer hamusar, and situates the work in its broader 16th-century framework. Applying a fresh reading, she analyzes Alḍāhirī’s maqāma as a rich repository of intellectual history; treats his travel narratives as composites of fiction and fact; and uncovers the cultural assumptions and self-definitions underlying his representations of Muslims, which she shows to be far more variegated and nuanced than previously acknowledged. Beguiling Guidance should appeal to readers interested in transregional cultural exchange and the diffusion of texts; pre-modern fiction and travel writing; and Muslim-Jewish power relations in the late medieval/early modern Middle East. It also serves as an introduction to the vibrant culture of a Jewish community that traced its presence in South Arabia back to antiquity.