Jewish Thinkers in Modernity

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course explores some of the major minds and movements in Jewish thinking in the last 350 years while asking four questions: what is “modern”? what is “Jewish”? what is “thought”? and how might we understand all three terms combined as one rubric? Stated otherwise: in considering the historical development of diverse thought patterns and issues that emerged outside and inside Jewish life during this period – Secularism, Nationalism, Marxism/Socialism, Existentialism, Psychoanalysis, Reconstructionism, Modern Orthodoxy, the Holocaust—what do the reflections of individuals diverse in background and outward expression share (from Spinoza to Marx to Freud and Kafka to Hannah Arendt), by virtue of which we may group them together under such a rubric? The criss-cross of personalities and genres—philosophy and theology and work that is not typically included within either of these categories—should, in the end, begin to answer parts of our questions, while stimulating yet further questions (at least some of them ultimately unanswerable). Course also listed as INAF 227