2024 Past Events
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Thursday, April 18, 2024
In Fall 2024, we will introduce a language class in Yiddish! But what is Yiddish?
Campus Center, Weis Cinema 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Yiddish has no clear boundaries of either space or time. Some speak of the beginning of Yiddish at the end of the 19th Century, with the novels of Mendele Mokher Sforim. Some go back a further century to the stories of Rabbi Nakhman of Braslev. And some go back to the 13th and 15th centuries. Some people say that it’s a dead language, and some people would be quite upset by such an assertion. Some contradictory images of Yiddish are that it is the language of poor ignorant people, but that Yiddish has reached impressive cultural feats in literature and criticism, poetry, the theater, and even in the cinema. Some people think that Yiddish is a sad language, and others think that it is actually funny.
Insight to Yiddish language, history, and culture (and the forthcoming Yiddish courses in 2024–25) will be provided in an information session on Thursday, April 18, at 2 pm, in Weis Cinema.
Download: What-is-Yiddish-Information-Session.pdf -
Sunday, April 7, 2024
Professor Yitzhak Melamed, Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University
Bard Graduate Center Lecture Hall, NYC 4:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Yitzhak Y. Melamed is the Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He works on Early Modern Philosophy, German Idealism, Medieval Philosophy, and some issues in contemporary metaphysics, and is the author of Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought (Oxford 2013), and Spinoza’s Labyrinths (Oxford, forthcoming). Currently, he is working on the completion of a book on Spinoza and German Idealism, and on an introduction to Spinoza’s philosophy. His research has been featured in BBC (The World Tonight), LeMond, Ha’aretz, Kan Tarbut (Israeli Cultural Radio).
This paper argues that the most significant Jewish contribution to modern Western philosophy - the notion of acosmism, according to which only God truly and fully exists - originated in early Hassidism. I will show that through the mediation of Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) this bold notion was adopted from the school of the Maggid of Mezhrich and introduced into the systems of German Idealism.
The Bard Graduate Center is located at 38 West 86 street, New York, NY, 10024.
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Thursday, April 4, 2024
Professor Yitzhak Melamed, Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University
Olin 102 5:30 pm EDT/GMT-4
Yitzhak Y. Melamed is the Charlotte Bloomberg Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. He works on Early Modern Philosophy, German Idealism, Medieval Philosophy, and some issues in contemporary metaphysics, and is the author of Spinoza’s Metaphysics: Substance and Thought (Oxford 2013), and Spinoza’s Labyrinths (Oxford, forthcoming). Currently, he is working on the completion of a book on Spinoza and German Idealism, and on an introduction to Spinoza’s philosophy. His research has been featured in BBC (The World Tonight), LeMond, Ha’aretz, Kan Tarbut (Israeli Cultural Radio).
This talk traces the influence of Spinoza’s early Rabbinic schooling on his writing from the period after he left the Jewish community. It argues that Spinoza is frequently unaware of the formative role of his early Rabbinic education, and that he commonly reads the Bible through Rabbinic eyes without the least being conscious of this fact. If this argument is cogent, it would seem that much more attention should be paid to Spinoza’s early education.
Acosmism: Hassidism’s Gift to the Jews… and the World
Sunday, April 7th, 2024 | 4:00 pm
Bard Graduate Center Lecture Hall, 38 West 86 street, New York, NY, 10024
This paper argues that the most significant Jewish contribution to modern Western philosophy - the notion of acosmism, according to which only God truly and fully exists - originated in early Hassidism. I will show that through the mediation of Salomon Maimon (1753-1800) this bold notion was adopted from the school of the Maggid of Mezhrich and introduced into the systems of German Idealism.
Free and open to the public.
Register for event here: https://forms.gle/P2qJ6vkciD74e8du6
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Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Arie M. Dubnov, George Washington University
Hegeman 106 4:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Three pivotal terms— "refugee," "return," and "repatriation" — played an exceptionally significant role in shaping international planning and discourse after World War II. Exploring the interconnections of international history and the history of political and religious concepts, the talk examines how these terms acquired distinct meanings within the framework of international policies and how they echo to this day in the context of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict.
Arie M. Dubnov is the Max Ticktin Chair of Israel Studies. Trained in Israel and the U.S., he is a historian of twentieth century Jewish and Israeli history, with emphasis on the history of political thought, the study of nationalism, decolonization and partition politics, and with a subsidiary interest in the history of Israeli popular culture. Prior to his arrival at GW, Dubnov taught at Stanford University and the University of Haifa. He was a G.L. Mosse Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a participant in the National History Center’s International Decolonization Seminar, and recipient of the Dorset Fellowship at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and a was Visiting Scholar at Wolfson College, Oxford.