Joint Seminar in Philosophy and Theology: Simone Weil and Edith Stein

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course pairs two extraordinary Jewish women philosophers of the World War II period who died during the period of Nazi persecution—Stein (1891-1942) in Auschwitz, and Weil (1901-1943) in England. Both studied under (and with) noted male philosophers—Husserl, Heidegger, Scheler, Von Hildebrand, and Alain, among others—and they developed their original insights on empathy and education (Stein), decreation and affliction (Weil) partly in response to their teachers. Both women struggled with their Jewish identity—Weil exemplifying an unconventional Christian Platonism and mysticism, Stein becoming a Catholic nun and canonized saint. Both wrote autobiographies. Literary and artistic criticism, meditations on mystical writings and experiences, and creative expressions (poetry and plays), as well as important essays on politics, philosophy, and theology belong to their fertile writings. Their lives and letters have inspired, in turn, the creative expressions of others: novels, plays, and poetry. Their intellectual quests in the shadow of the Holocaust led them to take up theological questions, studying St. Thomas Aquinas, Dionysius the Areopagite, St. John of the Cross (Stein), St. Francis, Bernanos, Marx, Plato, and Pascal (Weil). The answers they gave to God and others testify to the heroism and brilliance of their spiritual searches for truth and help to explain their continuing influence within the Church.