A Conversation with Moshe Idel about His New Book: Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth Century Thought

Thirteenth Annual Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Lecture

For the Public
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
5:00 PM

Class of 1955 Conference Room
Van Pelt Library
3420 Walnut Street 
Philadelphia, PA 19104

The Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies hosted a panel discussion prompted by and celebrating the publication of Moshe Idel’s new book, Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth Century Thought. The book, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in association with the Katz Center, is part of the series Jewish Culture and Contexts. Idel turns his gaze on figures as diverse as Walter Benjamin and Jacques Derrida, Franz Kafka and Franz Rosenzweig, Arnaldo Momigliano and Paul Celan, Abraham Heschel and George Steiner, to reflect on their relationship to Kabbalah in a cosmopolitan, mostly European context. The panelists are participants in the 2009–2010 Fellowship Program at the Katz Center titled Secularism and Its Discontents.

Featuring

Moshe Idel

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Moshe Idel is Max Cooper Professor of Jewish Thought Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Senior Researcher at the Shalom Hartman Institute, and a member of the Israeli Academy for Sciences and Humanities. He is a world renowned scholar of Jewish mystical and philosophical traditions.

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Vivian Liska

University of Antwerp

Vivian Liska is Professor of German Literature and Director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her research focuses on modern German literature and literary theory.

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David Myers

University of California, L.A.

David N. Myers is the Sady and Ludwig Kahn Professor of Jewish History at the University of California, Los Angeles and Director of the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. His fields of expertise are modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history.

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Galili Shahar

University of Florida

Galili Shahar is Associate Professor of German Studies at the University of Florida. His fields of research are German cultural history, philosophy and theatre, and German-Jewish and Israeli literature.

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Cosponsors

Kutchin Seminar Series of Jewish Studies, Department of History, Department of Religious Studies, Centro Primo Levi