Religious Studies 778 (Fall 2004)
updated November 25, 2004
This syllabus is posted at http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/danahol/778 and is also accessible by way of my home page (see below). It will be updated periodically, and students in the class are asked to consult it regularly during the semester.
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Course Description / Course Readings / Course Requirements | SCHEDULE: September / October / November
An introduction to some major 20th-century figures and texts in modern Jewish thought, with an emphasis on German Judaism and its legacy. Readings by Moses Mendelssohn, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig, Emmanuel Levinas.
Special focus on modern Jewish conceptualizations of history and politics, and on the implications of the category of "Jewish philosophy."
There is usually more than one way you can obtain each reading - see details for each title on the syllabus.
Books for this course have been ordered with Titles
All the readings are also on reserve at Mills Library, either for this course, or for my undergraduate "Modern Jewish Thought" course, RS 3A03. Check on the status of a title via the MORRIS online catalogue, or look up the Mills Library reserve lists under "Hollander."
Also on reserve are the German- and French-language original editions of the works we will be studying; please ask me if you would like help in locating any of these.
In addition, master copies of shorter texts we are reading will be made available in the Religious Studies Department office (UH 104), to use for making personal copies.
Grades will be based on Participation/Presentation 50%, Written Work 50%.
Course participants with even rudimentary German or French skills are strongly encouraged to work with original-language texts in parallel with the translations, as well as to join in a weekly German reading session, which takes place on Wednesdays, 3:30-4:30 p.m. in UH B115, beginning September 29. (If you know of other students looking for practice with German philosophical texts, they would be welcome to join as well.)
Organizational Meeting, Introductory Remarks
General Readings on "Jewish Philosophy":
Ze'ev Levy, "The Nature of Modern Jewish Philosophy," in The History of Jewish Philosophy (1997/2003) [book on reserve]
Paul Mendes-Flohr, "Jewish Philosophy and Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, ed. Martin Goodman (2002) [master copy in UH 104]
General Readings on German-Jewish Intellectual/Cultural History:
Gershom Scholem, "Against the Myth of the German-Jewish Dialogue" (1964); "Once More: The German-Jewish Dialogue" (1965); "Jews and Germans" (1966) in On Jews and Judaism in Crisis [book on reserve]
Michael A. Meyer, "The German Jews: Some Perspectives on Their History" (1990) from Alan L. Berger (ed.), Judaism in the Modern World [book on reserve]
George L. Mosse, chap. 1 from German Jews Beyond Judaism (1985) [book on reserve]
Michael A. Meyer, chap. 2 from Response to Modernity. A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (1988) [book on reserve]
Michael A. Meyer/Michael Brenner (eds.), German-Jewish History in Modern Times, esp. vol. 3: Integration in Dispute, 1871-1918 and vol. 4: Renewal and Destruction, 1918-1945 [books on reserve]
General Readings on Judaism and Politics/History:
The Jewish Political Tradition, ed. Walzer, Lorberbaum et al. vol. 1: Authority (2000), vol. 2: Membership (2003) [books on reserve]
Ismar Schorsch, "On the History of the Political Judgment of the Jew" (1976) [master copy in UH 104]
Menachem Lorberbaum, "Introduction" to Politics and the Limits of Law. Secularizing the Political in Medieval Jewish Thought (2001) [book on reserve]
ASSIGNMENT: Secondary Literature Report
class cancelled due to conference travel; to be rescheduled
Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786)
Jerusalem, or On Religious Power and Judaism (1783), trans. Allan Arkush [purchase book], Section I
Concordance for editions of Jerusalem.
Introductory Readings on Mendelssohn:
Julius H. Schoeps, "1783. Moses Mendelssohn writes Jerusalem..." in Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture, 1096-1996, ed. Gilman/Zipes [book on reserve/master copy in UH 104]
Allan Arkush, "Mendelssohn, Moses" and Jay Harris, "Enlightenment, Jewish" in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998) [online/Mills Reference]
Daniel Dahlstrom, "Moses Mendelssohn" in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2002) [online]
Alexander Altmann, "Introduction" to Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, trans. Allan Arkush (1983) [purchase book/book on reserve]
Willi Goetschel, Spinoza's Modernity. Mendelssohn, Lessing, and Heine (2004), Part 2, esp. chap. 10 [book on reserve]
Mendelssohn, cont'd
Jerusalem, Section II
Presentation: J. Schumann
Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) 
Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism (1919): "Introduction," chaps. 4 and 5.
Hermann Cohen chronology [handout]
Introductory/Background Reading on Hermann Cohen:
Michael Zank, "Cohen, Hermann (1842-1918)," in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy [also in Mills Reference] and "Introduction" to The Idea of Atonement in the Philosophy of Hermann Cohen (2000) [book on reserve]Andrea Poma, The Critical Philosophy of Hermann Cohen (1988; translated 1997) [book on reserve]
Kenneth Seeskin, "How To Read Religion of Reason" in Cohen, Religion of Reason, 2nd ed. (Scholars Press, 1995) [purchase book or consult on reserve]Micha Brumlik, "1915: In Deutschtum und Judentum Hermann Cohen applies neo-Kantian philosophy to the German Jewish Question," The Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture, 1096-1996 [book on reserve]
Nathan Rotenstreich, "Religion of Reason" in Jews and German Philosophy. The Polemics of Emancipation (1984) [book on order for Mills reserve], pp. 60-70 [master copy to be placed in UH 104]
Presentation: J. Monier-Williams
NOVEMBER 1Mendelssohn, revisited A discussion of secondary literature on Mendelssohn, based on participants' Secondary Literature Reports. |
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conclude Mendelssohn secondary literature discussion.
Religion of Reason, Introduction, cont'd
Religion of Reason, chapter 13, pp. 236-68 and chapter 14, pp. 289-95; "The Neighbor" (1914) [handout] and chap. 8
NOVEMBER 15
Franz Rosenzweig (1889-1929)
"Atheistic Theology (1914) in Philosophical and Theological Writings [purchase book/book on reserve]
"The New Thinking" (1925) in Philosophical and Theological Writings
see also my list of Errata for this translation (to be continued)
see also alternative translation in Franz Rosenzweig's 'The New Thinking', ed. Udoff/Galli [book on reserve]
The Star of Redemption (1921) [book available for purchase/on reserve]: Introduction
Franz Rosenzweig chronology [handout]
Supplementary Material on Rosenzweig's Philosophy and Life:
Nahum Glatzer, "Introduction," Franz Rosenzweig. His Life and Thought (1953; new edition, 1998) [book on reserve]Arnold Betz, Franz Rosenzweig. His Life and Works. (Exhibit and Essay) [Website at the Divinity Library, Vanderbilt University]
Martin Jay, "1920: The Free Jewish School is founded in Frankfurt..." from The Yale Companion (1997) [book on reserve]
Paul Mendes-Flohr, "1914: Franz Rosenzweig writes the essay 'Atheistic Theology'..." from The Yale Companion (1997) [book on reserve]
Stéphane Mosès, System and Revelation. The Philosophy of Franz Rosenzweig (1982) [book on reserve]
Norbert Samuelson, A User's Guide to Franz Rosenzweig's 'Star of Redemption' (1999) [book on reserve]
Emmanuel Levinas, "Between Two Worlds" (1959) in Difficult Freedom [book on reserve]; and "Franz Rosenzweig: A Modern Jewish Thinker" (1965) in Outside the Subject [book on reserve]
Presentation: C. Mryglod
Rosenzweig, cont'd
"Atheistic Theology" and Introduction to Star, cont'd
Presentation: J. Bourdon
NOVEMBER 29Rosenzweig, cont'd
The Star of Redemption (1921), Part 2, Book 2: 156-64, 107-171, 173-88. 198-204; Part 3, Book 1, pp. 298-335
Removed from schedule: "Of Bildung There Is No End" (1920) in Textual
Reasonings. Jewish Philosophy and Text Study at the End of the Twentieth Century
(2002), ed. Peter Ochs [book on reserve - see Michael Zank, "Franz Rosenzweig, the 1920s and the <email> moment of textual
reasoning"]
Presentation: A. Pomazon
REMOVED FROM SCHEDULE
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Background image is from the cover of Franz Rosenzweig, Sechzig Hymnen und Gedichte des Jehuda Halevi (Konstanz: Oskar Wöhrle, n.d. [1924]), courtesy of Arnd Wedemeyer.
Copyright © 2004 Dana Hollander
(905) 525-9140, ext. 24759* 
