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
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.
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.
David Myers
University of California, L.A.
David N. Myers is Distinguished Professor and holds 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.
David has been a coeditor of the Jewish Quarterly Review since 2004.
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.
Cosponsors
Kutchin Seminar Series of Jewish Studies, Department of History, Department of Religious Studies, Centro Primo Levi
