JDS 650SEM - Modern Jewish Thought

Modern Jewish thought arises in response to the several fundamental world transformations which have produced modernity: the industrial revolution and rise of global finance capitalism, bourgeois culture and democratic politics, mathematical-quantitative science and positivism, the waning of superstition and authority. We will read selected writings from Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Benamozegh, Buber, Rosenzweig, Kook and Levinas, to see how and why Judaism engages and expresses its own distinctive humanism, mysticism, hermeneutics, aesthetics, ethics and politics. Credits: 3