A new semester begins today. I am offering two courses: CASRN339 The Modern Jew, a course in the Other Within series; and CASRN797 Philosophical and Theological Approaches to Religion, a required core course for the Division of Religious and Theological Studies.
In other news, I am looking forward to taking on the directorship of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies in July, for a three-year term.
A few highlights from last year:
Dana Hollander and her colleagues hosted me as the Hooker Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of Religion, McMaster University, Hamilton/Ontario, October 22-25, 2012, where I lectured on the state of the field of philosophy of religion and gave a public talk on how Jerusalem obtained the status of an extraordinary holy city. The highlight was a guest lecture, in one of Dana’s seminars, on the Rosenzweig-Rosenstock correspondence of 1916, about which I had written my Examensarbeit in Heidelberg in 1986. (Thanks, Dana! It was fun.)
At the International Rosenzweig Society Congress, University of Toronto, Sept 3, 2012, I spoke on “Is Cohen the Enemy? Reflections Apropos Mark Lilla’s A Stillborn God.”
Last summer I had the pleasure of lecturing in Frankfurt and Halle, namely.
“Zwischen Religionswissenschaft und »Aufbau im Untergang« – Martin Buber vor und nach der unbefristeten Beurlaubung 1933” at International Conference on “Scholarship in Times of Political Radicalisation: Jews, Nationalists, and Others at the University of Frankfurt in the First Part of the 20th Century,” Goethe University Frankfurt, June 27, 2012.
“Wissenschaft als Widerstand: Martin Buber über Bildung und die Bibel” Seminar and guest lecture in series on Jüdisches Denken in Frankfurt: Das Freie Jüdische Lehrhaus 1920-1938, under the auspices of the Martin Buber Professorship for Jewish Philosophy of Religion at Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main (Germany), May 9, 2012. Also at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Seminar für Jüdische Studien, Halle (Germany), May 7, 2012.
Articles and book chapters that came out last year:
“Justice” in The Cambridge History of Jewish Philosophy: The Modern Era, edited by Martin Kavka, Zachary Braiterman, and David Novak (Cambridge, New York, etc.: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 704-738.
“Strauss, Schmitt, and Peterson: Comparative Contours of the ‘Theological Political Predicament’” in German-Jewish Thought Between Religion and Politics. FS Mendes Flohr, ed. Martina Urban and Christian Wiese (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012), pp. 317-333.
“Jasper’s Achsenzeit Hypothesis: A Critical Reappraisal” 30th-Anniversary Festschrift for the Karl Jaspers Society of North America, Philosophical Faith and the Future of Humanity, ed. Alan Olson, Greg Walters, and Helmut Wautischer (Amsterdam: Springer Verlag, 2012), pp. 189-202.
(With Thomas Meyer), “More Early Writings by Leo Strauss from the Jüdische Wochenzeitung für Cassel, Hessen und Waldeck (1925–1928)” in Interpretation 39/11, Spring-Summer 2012, pp. 109-137.
(With Hartwig Wiedebach), “The Kant-Maimonides Constellation” JJTP 20.2 (2012), 135-145.
“The Heteronomy of Modern Jewish Philosophy” in JJTP 20.1 (2012), 99-134.
