SUNY series in Contemporary Jewish Thought – serie
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30 produkter
30 produkter
Häftad, Engelska, 2010
472 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
An original and revolutionary interpretation of the Jews' destiny in modern politics.Is the Shoah a unique event or just one of the many genocides that have occurred (and continue to occur) in modern history? In The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah, Shmuel Trigano begins with the hypothesis that the Shoah must be understood in both universal and singular terms: insofar as it addresses the meaning and value of modernity, it is solely because the singular experience of the Jews is at its center. Drawing on history, political philosophy, hermeneutics, and psychoanalysis, Trigano argues that the attitude of democracy towards the Jews is key to understanding the very nature of democracy and the democratic ideal, and he postulates that the anti-Semitism that has haunted modern times is the same spectre that has haunted democracy throughout history in the form of nationalism, totalitarianism, and now multiculturalism. Can democratic theory rid itself of the dilemma between universality and particularity, between collectivity and individuality? This is the ultimate question addressed by this book.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2016
1 558 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Explores the fundamental confrontations between Spinoza and Levinas in ethics, politics, science, and religion.After the end of superstitious religion, what is the meaning of the world? Baruch Spinoza's answer is truth, Emmanuel Levinas's is goodness: science versus ethics. In Out of Control, Richard A. Cohen brings this debate to life, providing a nuanced exposition of Spinoza and Levinas and the confrontations between them in ethics, politics, science, and religion.Spinoza is the control, the inexorable defensive logic of administrative rationality, where freedom is equated to necessity-a seventeenth-century glimpse of Orwellian doublespeak and Big Brother. Levinas is the way out: transcendence not of God, being, and logic but of the other person experienced as moral obligation. To alleviate the suffering of others-nothing is more important! Spinoza wagers everything on mathematical truth, discarding the rest as ignorance and illusion; for Levinas, nothing surpasses the priorities of morality and justice, to create a world in which humans can be human and not numbers or consumers, drudges or robots.Situating these two thinkers in today's context, Out of Control responds to the fear of dehumanization in a world flattened by the alliance of positivism and plutocracy. It offers a nonideological ethical alternative, a way out and up, in the nobility of one human being helping another, and the solidarity that moves from morality to justice.
Häftad, Engelska, 2017
472 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Explores the fundamental confrontations between Spinoza and Levinas in ethics, politics, science, and religion.After the end of superstitious religion, what is the meaning of the world? Baruch Spinoza's answer is truth, Emmanuel Levinas's is goodness: science versus ethics. In Out of Control, Richard A. Cohen brings this debate to life, providing a nuanced exposition of Spinoza and Levinas and the confrontations between them in ethics, politics, science, and religion.Spinoza is the control, the inexorable defensive logic of administrative rationality, where freedom is equated to necessity-a seventeenth-century glimpse of Orwellian doublespeak and Big Brother. Levinas is the way out: transcendence not of God, being, and logic but of the other person experienced as moral obligation. To alleviate the suffering of others-nothing is more important! Spinoza wagers everything on mathematical truth, discarding the rest as ignorance and illusion; for Levinas, nothing surpasses the priorities of morality and justice, to create a world in which humans can be human and not numbers or consumers, drudges or robots.Situating these two thinkers in today's context, Out of Control responds to the fear of dehumanization in a world flattened by the alliance of positivism and plutocracy. It offers a nonideological ethical alternative, a way out and up, in the nobility of one human being helping another, and the solidarity that moves from morality to justice.
Häftad, Engelska, 2019
624 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Complete collection of Schwarzschild's essays on the neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen.Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was arguably the leading expositor of German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), undertaking a lifelong effort to reintroduce Cohen's thought into contemporary philosophical discourse. In The Tragedy of Optimism, George Y. Kohler brings together all of Schwarzschild's work on Cohen for the first time. Schwarzschild's readings of Cohen are unique and profound; he was conversant with both worlds that shaped Cohen's thought, neo-Kantian German idealism and Jewish theology. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, from ethics, socialism, the concept of human selfhood, and the mathematics of the infinite to more explicitly Jewish themes. This volume includes two of Schwarzschild's previously unpublished manuscripts and a scholarly introduction by Kohler. Schwarzschild shows that despite its seeming defeat by events of the twentieth century, Cohen's optimism about human progress is a rational, indeed necessary, path to peace.
Häftad, Engelska, 2019
718 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Argues that Holocaust representation has ethical implications fundamentally linked to questions of good and evil.Many books focus on issues of Holocaust representation, but few address why the Holocaust in particular poses such a representational problem. David Patterson draws from Emmanuel Levinas's contention that the Good cannot be represented. He argues that the assault on the Good is equally nonrepresentable and this nonrepresentable aspect of the Holocaust is its distinguishing feature. Utilizing Jewish religious thought, Patterson examines how the literary word expresses the ineffable and how the photographic image manifests the invisible. Where the Holocaust is concerned, representation is a matter not of imagination but of ethical implication, not of what it was like but of what must be done. Ultimately Patterson provides a deeper understanding of why the Holocaust itself is indefinable-not only as an evil but also as a fundamental assault on the very categories of good and evil affirmed over centuries of Jewish teaching and testimony.
Häftad, Engelska, 2020
488 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
A Levinasian commentary on the Torah.The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95) was one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. This book interprets the Hebrew Bible through the lens of Levinas's religious philosophy. Richard I. Sugarman examines the Pentateuch using a phenomenological approach, drawing on both Levinas's philosophical and Jewish writings. Sugarman puts Levinas in conversation with biblical commentators both classical and modern, including Rashi, Maimonides, Sforno, Hirsch, and Soloveitchik. He particularly highlights Levinas's work on the Talmud and the Holocaust. Levinas's reading is situated against the background of a renewed understanding of such phenomena as covenant, promise, different modalities of time, and justice. The volume is organized to reflect the fifty-four portions of the Torah read during the Jewish liturgical year. A preface provides an overview of Levinas's life, approach, and place in contemporary Jewish thought. The reader emerges with a deeper understanding of both the Torah and the philosophy of a key Jewish thinker.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2021
1 762 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Explores Elie Wiesel's portraits of the sages of Judaism and elaborates on the Hasidic legacy from his life and his teaching.Elie Wiesel identified himself as a Vizhnitzer Hasid, who was above all things a witness to the testimony and teaching of the Jewish tradition at the core of the Hasidic tradition. While he is well known for his testimony on the Holocaust and as a messenger to humanity, he is less well known for his engagement with the teachings of Jewish tradition and the Hasidic heritage that informs that engagement. Portraits illuminates Wiesel's Jewish teachings and the Hasidic legacy that he embraced by examining how he brought to life the sages of the Jewish tradition. David Patterson reveals that Wiesel's Hasidic engagement with the holy texts of the Jewish tradition does not fall into the usual categories of exegesis or hermeneutics and of commentary or textual analysis. Rather, he engages not the text but the person, the teacher, and the soul. This book is a summons to remember the testimony reduced to ashes and the voices that cry out from those ashes. Just as the teaching is embodied in the teachers, so is the tradition embodied in their portraits.
Häftad, Engelska, 2022
718 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
Explores Elie Wiesel's portraits of the sages of Judaism and elaborates on the Hasidic legacy from his life and his teaching.Elie Wiesel identified himself as a Vizhnitzer Hasid, who was above all things a witness to the testimony and teaching of the Jewish tradition at the core of the Hasidic tradition. While he is well known for his testimony on the Holocaust and as a messenger to humanity, he is less well known for his engagement with the teachings of Jewish tradition and the Hasidic heritage that informs that engagement. Portraits illuminates Wiesel's Jewish teachings and the Hasidic legacy that he embraced by examining how he brought to life the sages of the Jewish tradition. David Patterson reveals that Wiesel's Hasidic engagement with the holy texts of the Jewish tradition does not fall into the usual categories of exegesis or hermeneutics and of commentary or textual analysis. Rather, he engages not the text but the person, the teacher, and the soul. This book is a summons to remember the testimony reduced to ashes and the voices that cry out from those ashes. Just as the teaching is embodied in the teachers, so is the tradition embodied in their portraits.
Häftad, Engelska, 2022
472 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Reconsiders the legacy of an important Hasidic mystic, leader, and educator who confronted the dilemmas of modernity after World War I and whose writing constitutes a unique testimony to religious experience and its rupture in the Warsaw Ghetto.Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (1889–1943) was a remarkable Hasidic mystic, leader, and educator. He confronted the secularization and dislocation of Polish Jews after World War I, the failure of the traditional educational system, and the devastation of the Holocaust, in which he lost all his close family and eventually his own life. Thanks to a new critical edition of his Warsaw Ghetto sermons, scholars have begun to reassess the relationship between Shapira's literary and educational attainments, his prewar mysticism, and his Holocaust experience, and to reexamine the question of faith-or its collapse-in the Warsaw Ghetto. This interdisciplinary volume, the first such work devoted to a twentieth-century Hasidic leader, integrates social and intellectual history along with theological, literary, and anthropological analyses of Shapira's legacy. It raises theoretical and methodological questions related to the study of Jewish thought and mysticism, but also contributes to contemporary conversations about topics such as spiritual renewal and radical religious experience, the literature of suffering, and perhaps most pressingly, the question of faith and meaning-or their rupture-in the wake of genocide.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2021
1 246 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Reconsiders the legacy of an important Hasidic mystic, leader, and educator who confronted the dilemmas of modernity after World War I and whose writing constitutes a unique testimony to religious experience and its rupture in the Warsaw Ghetto.Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (1889–1943) was a remarkable Hasidic mystic, leader, and educator. He confronted the secularization and dislocation of Polish Jews after World War I, the failure of the traditional educational system, and the devastation of the Holocaust, in which he lost all his close family and eventually his own life. Thanks to a new critical edition of his Warsaw Ghetto sermons, scholars have begun to reassess the relationship between Shapira's literary and educational attainments, his prewar mysticism, and his Holocaust experience, and to reexamine the question of faith-or its collapse-in the Warsaw Ghetto. This interdisciplinary volume, the first such work devoted to a twentieth-century Hasidic leader, integrates social and intellectual history along with theological, literary, and anthropological analyses of Shapira's legacy. It raises theoretical and methodological questions related to the study of Jewish thought and mysticism, but also contributes to contemporary conversations about topics such as spiritual renewal and radical religious experience, the literature of suffering, and perhaps most pressingly, the question of faith and meaning-or their rupture-in the wake of genocide.
Häftad, Engelska, 2024
512 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Explores the diversity of Jewish approaches to character and virtue, from the Bible to the present day.What is good character? What are the traits of a good person? How should virtues be cultivated? How should vices be avoided? The history of Jewish literature is filled with reflection on questions of character and virtue such as these, reflecting a wide range of contexts and influences. Beginning with the Bible and culminating with twenty-first-century feminism and environmentalism, Jewish Virtue Ethics explores thirty-five influential Jewish approaches to character and virtue.Virtue ethics has been a burgeoning field of moral inquiry among academic philosophers in the postwar period. Although Jewish ethics has also flourished as an academic (and practical) field, attention to the role of virtue in Jewish thought has been underdeveloped. This volume seeks to illuminate its centrality not only for readers primarily interested in Jewish ethics but also for readers who take other approaches to virtue ethics, including within the Western virtue ethics tradition. The original essays written for this volume provide valuable sources for philosophical reflection.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 246 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Explores the diversity of Jewish approaches to character and virtue, from the Bible to the present day.What is good character? What are the traits of a good person? How should virtues be cultivated? How should vices be avoided? The history of Jewish literature is filled with reflection on questions of character and virtue such as these, reflecting a wide range of contexts and influences. Beginning with the Bible and culminating with twenty-first-century feminism and environmentalism, Jewish Virtue Ethics explores thirty-five influential Jewish approaches to character and virtue.Virtue ethics has been a burgeoning field of moral inquiry among academic philosophers in the postwar period. Although Jewish ethics has also flourished as an academic (and practical) field, attention to the role of virtue in Jewish thought has been underdeveloped. This volume seeks to illuminate its centrality not only for readers primarily interested in Jewish ethics but also for readers who take other approaches to virtue ethics, including within the Western virtue ethics tradition. The original essays written for this volume provide valuable sources for philosophical reflection.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2023
1 246 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Argues that the modern practice of critique emerged out of religious traditions and can in many ways be traced back to them.It seems hard to imagine a concept more significant to modern thought than critique. Critique involved distancing oneself from religious explanations and theological argumentation and came to represent the essence of secular consciousness's potential to deliver modernity's promise of human progress through rational inquiry and scientific development. Critiques of Theology debunks this common understanding. Based on a novel reading of previously less-discussed writings by Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Hannah Arendt, the book shows how the practice of critique emerged out of religious traditions and can, in many ways, be traced back to them. This study points to a persistent misreading of critique and demonstrates that it does not come from outside of religion to build a new world of ideas; on the contrary, it redeploys those already present within its theological constellations.
Häftad, Engelska, 2024
449 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
Argues that the modern practice of critique emerged out of religious traditions and can in many ways be traced back to them.It seems hard to imagine a concept more significant to modern thought than critique. Critique involved distancing oneself from religious explanations and theological argumentation and came to represent the essence of secular consciousness's potential to deliver modernity's promise of human progress through rational inquiry and scientific development. Critiques of Theology debunks this common understanding. Based on a novel reading of previously less-discussed writings by Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Hannah Arendt, the book shows how the practice of critique emerged out of religious traditions and can, in many ways, be traced back to them. This study points to a persistent misreading of critique and demonstrates that it does not come from outside of religion to build a new world of ideas; on the contrary, it redeploys those already present within its theological constellations.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2024
1 249 kr
Skickas inom 5-8 vardagar
An intellectual-political biography of Otto Heller, the most prominent and prolific communist theoretician of the Jewish question.This book explores the confrontation of radically assimilated Jews with the violent collapse of their envisioned integration into a cosmopolitan European society, which culminated during the Holocaust. This confrontation is examined through the biography of the German-speaking intellectual and prominent communist theoretician of the Jewish question Otto Heller (1897–1945), focusing on the tension between his Jewish origins and his universalistic political convictions. Radical Assimilation in the Face of the Holocaust traces the development of Hellerʼs position on the Jewish question in three phases: how he grew up to become a typical Central European "non-Jewish Jew" (1897–1931); how he became exceptional in that category by focusing his intellectual work on the Jewish question (1931–1939); and how he reacted to the persecution and murder of European Jewry as a member of the Resistance in occupied France and in Auschwitz (1939–1945). Breaking with the common portrayal of Heller as a self-hating Jew, Tom Navon argues instead that Heller came to lay the foundations for the groundbreaking recognition by communists of worldwide Jewish national solidarity.
Häftad, Engelska, 2024
634 kr
Skickas inom 3-6 vardagar
An intellectual-political biography of Otto Heller, the most prominent and prolific communist theoretician of the Jewish question.This book explores the confrontation of radically assimilated Jews with the violent collapse of their envisioned integration into a cosmopolitan European society, which culminated during the Holocaust. This confrontation is examined through the biography of the German-speaking intellectual and prominent communist theoretician of the Jewish question Otto Heller (1897–1945), focusing on the tension between his Jewish origins and his universalistic political convictions. Radical Assimilation in the Face of the Holocaust traces the development of Hellerʼs position on the Jewish question in three phases: how he grew up to become a typical Central European "non-Jewish Jew" (1897–1931); how he became exceptional in that category by focusing his intellectual work on the Jewish question (1931–1939); and how he reacted to the persecution and murder of European Jewry as a member of the Resistance in occupied France and in Auschwitz (1939–1945). Breaking with the common portrayal of Heller as a self-hating Jew, Tom Navon argues instead that Heller came to lay the foundations for the groundbreaking recognition by communists of worldwide Jewish national solidarity.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2025
1 277 kr
Skickas
Thinks with a range of extraordinary Jewish women about how to live vibrant lives and resist the settler colonialism at the heart of the modern project of freedom.This book provides a timely new transnational lineage of Jewish feminist revolutionary legacies. Using extensive research, deep thinking, and a bold methodology, Marla Brettschneider tousles with a host of anti-colonial, feminist, anti-racist, and queer troublemakers-Jamaica Kincaid, Golda Meir, Hannah Arendt, Frida Kahlo, Gertrude Stein, and Emma Goldman. Brettschneider brings together these feisty women's lives, work, politics, thinking, and art to wrestle with big questions: How can we make our lives, individually and collectively, in our diversity as Jews and in grounded solidarity with others? How do these women bring out otherwise unidentified, unnamed, and underexamined issues in Jewish studies, feminism, politics, and a range of critical theories? Revolutionary Legacies invites Jews, feminists, anti-racists, and all manner of justice seekers to think, and create common cause, with these rabblerousers.
Häftad, Engelska, 2000
389 kr
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Reviews the potentially complementary albeit sharp differences between two important contemporary Jewish philosophers.The Fence and the Neighbor traces the contours of two thinkers, Emmanuel Levinas and Yeshayahu Leibowitz, who crossed the divide between Talmud and philosophy "proper." Adam Zachary Newton shows how the question of nationalism that has so long haunted Western philosophy-the question of who belongs within its "fence," and who outside-has long been the concern of Jewish thought and its preoccupation with law, limits, and the place of Israel among the nations. To those unfamiliar with Talmudic thought Newton shows how deeply its language and concerns shape Levinas. He also offers an introduction to Leibowitz, a conservative religious thinker who was an outspoken gadfly and radically critical voice in the Israeli political scene. Together, their common origin in Jewish Eastern Europe, a common concern with national allegiance, and the common fence of religious Judaism that makes them intellectual neighbors are voiced in penetrating and original dialogue.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2008
1 076 kr
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Responses to Fackenheim's reflections on the centrality of the Holocaust to philosophy, Jewish thought, and contemporary experience.Emil Fackenheim (1916–2003), one of the most important Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century, called on the world at large not only to bear witness to the Holocaust as an unprecedented assault on Judaism and on humanity, but also to recognize that the question of what it means to philosophize-indeed, what it means to be human-must be raised anew in its wake. The Philosopher as Witness begins with two recent essays written by Fackenheim himself and includes responses to the questions that Fackenheim posed to philosophy, Judaism, and humanity after the Holocaust. The contributors to this book dare to extend that questioning through a critical examination of Fackenheim's own thought and through an exploration of some of the ramifications of his work for fields of study and realms of religious life that transcend his own.
Häftad, Engelska, 2009
389 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Responses to Fackenheim's reflections on the centrality of the Holocaust to philosophy, Jewish thought, and contemporary experience.Emil Fackenheim (1916–2003), one of the most important Jewish philosophers of the twentieth century, called on the world at large not only to bear witness to the Holocaust as an unprecedented assault on Judaism and on humanity, but also to recognize that the question of what it means to philosophize-indeed, what it means to be human-must be raised anew in its wake. The Philosopher as Witness begins with two recent essays written by Fackenheim himself and includes responses to the questions that Fackenheim posed to philosophy, Judaism, and humanity after the Holocaust. The contributors to this book dare to extend that questioning through a critical examination of Fackenheim's own thought and through an exploration of some of the ramifications of his work for fields of study and realms of religious life that transcend his own.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2009
1 079 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Reconciles the conflict between these two seemingly diverse traditions.Philosophy and Kabbalah offers an analysis of the life and work of Elijah Benamozegh (1823–1900), an Italian Kabbalist and philosopher of Moroccan origins. Although the relationship between Kabbalah and philosophy has always been problematic, Benamozegh considered Kabbalah to be the true dogmatic and rational tradition of Judaism. In his numerous books and articles in Hebrew, Italian, and French, he constantly integrated this Jewish esoteric tradition into the currents of Western European philosophy, particularly Hegelian idealism and positivism, as well as the philosophy of the unconscious that would later develop into psychoanalysis. Benamozegh's inspired reading of Spinoza, his grand project of a universal religion, his "feminization" of Jewish thought, and his ability to excel simultaneously as a rabbi, an Italian patriot, a citizen of the République des Lettres, and a proud representative of an ancient Sephardic culture make him one of the most outstanding and original figures of the nineteenth-century Jewish culture.
Häftad, Engelska, 2010
389 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Reconciles the conflict between these two seemingly diverse traditions.Philosophy and Kabbalah offers an analysis of the life and work of Elijah Benamozegh (1823–1900), an Italian Kabbalist and philosopher of Moroccan origins. Although the relationship between Kabbalah and philosophy has always been problematic, Benamozegh considered Kabbalah to be the true dogmatic and rational tradition of Judaism. In his numerous books and articles in Hebrew, Italian, and French, he constantly integrated this Jewish esoteric tradition into the currents of Western European philosophy, particularly Hegelian idealism and positivism, as well as the philosophy of the unconscious that would later develop into psychoanalysis. Benamozegh's inspired reading of Spinoza, his grand project of a universal religion, his "feminization" of Jewish thought, and his ability to excel simultaneously as a rabbi, an Italian patriot, a citizen of the République des Lettres, and a proud representative of an ancient Sephardic culture make him one of the most outstanding and original figures of the nineteenth-century Jewish culture.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2009
1 079 kr
Tillfälligt slut
An original and revolutionary interpretation of the Jews' destiny in modern politics.Is the Shoah a unique event or just one of the many genocides that have occurred (and continue to occur) in modern history? In The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah, Shmuel Trigano begins with the hypothesis that the Shoah must be understood in both universal and singular terms: insofar as it addresses the meaning and value of modernity, it is solely because the singular experience of the Jews is at its center. Drawing on history, political philosophy, hermeneutics, and psychoanalysis, Trigano argues that the attitude of democracy towards the Jews is key to understanding the very nature of democracy and the democratic ideal, and he postulates that the anti-Semitism that has haunted modern times is the same spectre that has haunted democracy throughout history in the form of nationalism, totalitarianism, and now multiculturalism. Can democratic theory rid itself of the dilemma between universality and particularity, between collectivity and individuality? This is the ultimate question addressed by this book.
Häftad, Engelska, 2011
389 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Looks at literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian tradition to test Levinas's notion of "the Other."In literary and cultural studies today, the term "the Other" appears to have largely lost its moorings in the primacy of the intersubjective encounter, focusing rather on the social construction of the Other. For Emmanuel Levinas, in contrast, the Other is precisely that which eludes construction and categorization. In a study that ranges from literature of ancient China, Greece, and Israel to modern Egypt, Italy, West Africa, and America, Steven Shankman tests Levinas's ideas by reading literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian orbit for figurations equivalent to Levinas's notion of the Other. He also places ethics at the center of intercultural-or, in his words, "transcultural"-comparative literature. In contemporary literary and cultural studies, it is often assumed that culture has the last word. However, as Levinas insists-and as Shankman argues throughout this book-it is ethics that is the "presupposition of all Culture," that is situated "before Culture."At the University of Oregon, Steven Shankman is UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Studies, Interreligious Dialogue, and Peace and Distinguished Professor of English and Classics. His books include Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking through Comparisons, also published by SUNY Press, and The Siren and the Sage: Knowledge and Wisdom in Ancient Greece and China.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2010
1 076 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Looks at literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian tradition to test Levinas's notion of "the Other."In literary and cultural studies today, the term "the Other" appears to have largely lost its moorings in the primacy of the intersubjective encounter, focusing rather on the social construction of the Other. For Emmanuel Levinas, in contrast, the Other is precisely that which eludes construction and categorization. In a study that ranges from literature of ancient China, Greece, and Israel to modern Egypt, Italy, West Africa, and America, Steven Shankman tests Levinas's ideas by reading literary works from outside the Judeo-Christian orbit for figurations equivalent to Levinas's notion of the Other. He also places ethics at the center of intercultural-or, in his words, "transcultural"-comparative literature. In contemporary literary and cultural studies, it is often assumed that culture has the last word. However, as Levinas insists-and as Shankman argues throughout this book-it is ethics that is the "presupposition of all Culture," that is situated "before Culture."At the University of Oregon, Steven Shankman is UNESCO Chair in Transcultural Studies, Interreligious Dialogue, and Peace and Distinguished Professor of English and Classics. His books include Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking through Comparisons, also published by SUNY Press, and The Siren and the Sage: Knowledge and Wisdom in Ancient Greece and China.
Häftad, Engelska, 2016
390 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Examines a fascinating and important figure in the history of modern Jewish ethics.Sharing the Burden analyzes the rich moral traditions of the nineteenth-century Musar movement, an Eastern European Jewish movement focused on the development of moral character. Geoffrey D. Claussen focuses on that movement's leading moral theorist, Rabbi Simḥah Zissel Ziv (1824–1898), the founder of the first Musar movement yeshiva and the first traditionalist institution in Eastern Europe that included general studies in its curriculum. Simḥah Zissel offered a unique and compelling voice within the Musar movement, joining traditionalism with a program for contemplative practice and an interest in non-Jewish philosophy. His thought was also distinguished by its demanding moral vision, oriented around an ideal of compassionately loving one's fellow as oneself and an acknowledgment of the difficulties of moral change. Drawing on Simḥah Zissel's writings and bringing his approach into dialogue with other models of ethics, Claussen explores Simḥah Zissel's Jewish virtue ethics and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. The result is a volume that will expose readers to a fascinating and important voice in the history of modern Jewish ethics and spirituality.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2015
1 076 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Examines a fascinating and important figure in the history of modern Jewish ethics.Sharing the Burden analyzes the rich moral traditions of the nineteenth-century Musar movement, an Eastern European Jewish movement focused on the development of moral character. Geoffrey D. Claussen focuses on that movement's leading moral theorist, Rabbi Simḥah Zissel Ziv (1824–1898), the founder of the first Musar movement yeshiva and the first traditionalist institution in Eastern Europe that included general studies in its curriculum. Simḥah Zissel offered a unique and compelling voice within the Musar movement, joining traditionalism with a program for contemplative practice and an interest in non-Jewish philosophy. His thought was also distinguished by its demanding moral vision, oriented around an ideal of compassionately loving one's fellow as oneself and an acknowledgment of the difficulties of moral change. Drawing on Simḥah Zissel's writings and bringing his approach into dialogue with other models of ethics, Claussen explores Simḥah Zissel's Jewish virtue ethics and evaluates its strengths and weaknesses. The result is a volume that will expose readers to a fascinating and important voice in the history of modern Jewish ethics and spirituality.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2018
1 076 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Complete collection of Schwarzschild's essays on the neo-Kantian Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen.Steven S. Schwarzschild (1924–1989) was arguably the leading expositor of German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen (1842–1918), undertaking a lifelong effort to reintroduce Cohen's thought into contemporary philosophical discourse. In The Tragedy of Optimism, George Y. Kohler brings together all of Schwarzschild's work on Cohen for the first time. Schwarzschild's readings of Cohen are unique and profound; he was conversant with both worlds that shaped Cohen's thought, neo-Kantian German idealism and Jewish theology. The collection covers a wide range of subjects, from ethics, socialism, the concept of human selfhood, and the mathematics of the infinite to more explicitly Jewish themes. This volume includes two of Schwarzschild's previously unpublished manuscripts and a scholarly introduction by Kohler. Schwarzschild shows that despite its seeming defeat by events of the twentieth century, Cohen's optimism about human progress is a rational, indeed necessary, path to peace.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2018
1 238 kr
Tillfälligt slut
Argues that Holocaust representation has ethical implications fundamentally linked to questions of good and evil.Many books focus on issues of Holocaust representation, but few address why the Holocaust in particular poses such a representational problem. David Patterson draws from Emmanuel Levinas's contention that the Good cannot be represented. He argues that the assault on the Good is equally nonrepresentable and this nonrepresentable aspect of the Holocaust is its distinguishing feature. Utilizing Jewish religious thought, Patterson examines how the literary word expresses the ineffable and how the photographic image manifests the invisible. Where the Holocaust is concerned, representation is a matter not of imagination but of ethical implication, not of what it was like but of what must be done. Ultimately Patterson provides a deeper understanding of why the Holocaust itself is indefinable-not only as an evil but also as a fundamental assault on the very categories of good and evil affirmed over centuries of Jewish teaching and testimony.
Inbunden, Engelska, 2019
1 076 kr
Tillfälligt slut
A Levinasian commentary on the Torah.The French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906–95) was one of the most original Jewish thinkers of the twentieth century. This book interprets the Hebrew Bible through the lens of Levinas's religious philosophy. Richard I. Sugarman examines the Pentateuch using a phenomenological approach, drawing on both Levinas's philosophical and Jewish writings. Sugarman puts Levinas in conversation with biblical commentators both classical and modern, including Rashi, Maimonides, Sforno, Hirsch, and Soloveitchik. He particularly highlights Levinas's work on the Talmud and the Holocaust. Levinas's reading is situated against the background of a renewed understanding of such phenomena as covenant, promise, different modalities of time, and justice. The volume is organized to reflect the fifty-four portions of the Torah read during the Jewish liturgical year. A preface provides an overview of Levinas's life, approach, and place in contemporary Jewish thought. The reader emerges with a deeper understanding of both the Torah and the philosophy of a key Jewish thinker.