UNDER CONSTRUCTION: PLEASE CHECK BACK AFTER APRIL 1 FOR INFORMATION ABOUT SUMMER 2025
Q&A
Why do scholars in religious studies need to convene online with 36learningmatters when they already have department events and field-level conferences? Collaborative inquiry advances the field, offers profound personal satisfaction, and, provides one of the strongest of rationales for having universities and research institutes at all, namely they put us in a position to learn collaboratively.
Isn’t Rosenzweig already well-covered in contemporary scholarship? Why might I want to collaborate to find my way to an understanding of him and his place in the religious studies field? In 1930, in a talk at the Hebrew University marking the passing of Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem remarked that Rosenzweig was “one of the most sublime manifestations of the greatness and religious genius of our people,” and [the world-renowned [Hermann] Cohen’s spiritual heir,” notions that have been repeated since then countless times.
Who among us can explain, much less defend or critique, Scholem’s conviction here? With very few exceptions, Rosenzweig’s thought is unknown to us at a detail level, whether professors, rabbis, or even specialists in Jewish thought. And how, until recently, could it have been otherwise? Until just last year, Rosenzweig’s book on Hegel remained unavailable in English translation, and even in Germany, throughout most of the 20th century, the original text had been unjustly ignored (Beiser 2009, Honneth, 2024). Furthermore, even some of his most important Jewish writings, e.g. “Bildung und kein Ende,” are still lacking in competent, unabridged translations, and the current translations of the Star of Redemption leave many readers cold and confused.
Finally, the intellectual traditions that inform Rosenzweig, e.g. the romanticism of Schelling, the idealism of Hegel and Cohen, and rabbinic Judaism are often obscure or inaccessible to many of us, more steeped as we are in Kant, the Anglo-American traditions of Hume and Locke, and the Protestant Bible.
And so: to bridge the gap between what we supposedly know and what we need and/or want to know, many of us want or need an opportunity to put other things aside and come and learn together.
Why now? Our moment holds a new promise, and it surely ought to motivate us. We now, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of a very few people, have more of the scholarly materials we need to assess the promise so often made that Rosenzweig and his corpus contain treasures: we now have competent translations of many, though not all of the key texts; and, despite some attrition, there are now, thanks to an influx of graduate programs and stipends in the 1980s, several generations of philosophically-engaged, rabbinically-literate scholars, a novum in the modern university, and their integration into the academy across the last 40 years means many allied colleagues to include and to draw on as well.
How do we get started? The first Rosenzweig Seminar will take place this summer, and ask the question, In political theory and practice, is Rosenzweig’s Hegel a critical idealist? This is not an idle question, as the young Rosenzweig, informed by this sort of Hegelianism, would have been well-positioned to write the Star of Redemption and do so in the “Marburg Spirit.” This, however, is not how we typically remember him!
Our texts will beHegel and the State, translated by Josiah and Jules Simon, 2024; Axel Honneth, “Afterward,” in Hegel and the State, ibid; Fred Beiser, “The Puzzling Hegel Renaissance,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, edited by Fred Beiser, 2009; and Robert, Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life, 2012, and Gershom Scholem, “Franz Rosenzweig and The Star of Redemption,” 1997 [1930] in On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in our Time, originally published in Hebrew as Devarim be-go, 1975, 407-425.
What will the experience be like and how will it manage to produce different results from what is typical in academic gatherings? The Rosenzweig seminars will follow backwards design principles; stated simply, we will 1.) develop the problem area, in this case, the claim made suggestively — not in detail and not thoroughly — by Beiser and Honneth that Rosenzweig’s interpretation of Hegel is carefully read out of the Hegel corpus as a “critical idealist,” a figure who mediates admirably between left and right Hegelian reception-traditions and can account for Hegel’s metaphysical-theological commitments; 2.) read curated sections of Hegel and the State, with recourse to the German-original where helpful, in a collaborative attempt to validate or dismiss Rosenzweig’s thesis; and 3.) in a final meeting, we will explore the implications of our conclusion for the project of approaching Rosenzweig as a Jewish thinker.
I should say, what we won’t do is as important as what we will do. We will not meet conference style, e.g. “hear” a paper and ask a few questions of the “speaker.” Collaborative learning, as we will practice aims to solve a problem or confront an issue of consequence in a field; it is facilitated with a gentle but firm hand by someone intimately familiar with the design and the stakes. Furthermore, the participants “buy-in” to this model as a condition of participating and play the crucial role of holding each other accountable; and finally, as Rosenzweig himself would have appreciated, there is time. We put in the time as it takes time, spent together, to cultivate the habits of collaborative learning and to reap its rewards.
When can I register, will I need to apply, and what will be the schedule? The current plan is to have a webinar on Sunday, April 20 from 7p to 8p ET; and to begin registration Monday, April 21. The seminar will run five sessions and meet on Zoom July 2, 9, 23, and August 6 and 20, from 6:30p to 8:30p ET. Inquiries can be made to 36learningmatters@gmail.com. Registration will include a brief questionnaire to identify whether it is a good match. Registrants should have a grounding in modern thought, and feel comfortable doing close readings of difficult texts. A background in rabbinics and/or literary fiction will be helpful as well. Financial aid is available.
Q&A
Why do scholars in religious studies need to convene online with 36learningmatters when they already have department events and field-level conferences? Collaborative inquiry advances the field, offers profound personal satisfaction, and, provides one of the strongest of rationales for having universities and research institutes at all, namely they put us in a position to learn collaboratively.
Isn’t Rosenzweig already well-covered in contemporary scholarship? Why might I want to collaborate to find my way to an understanding of him and his place in the religious studies field? In 1930, in a talk at the Hebrew University marking the passing of Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem remarked that Rosenzweig was “one of the most sublime manifestations of the greatness and religious genius of our people,” and [the world-renowned [Hermann] Cohen’s spiritual heir,” notions that have been repeated since then countless times.
Who among us can explain, much less defend or critique, Scholem’s conviction here? With very few exceptions, Rosenzweig’s thought is unknown to us at a detail level, whether professors, rabbis, or even specialists in Jewish thought. And how, until recently, could it have been otherwise? Until just last year, Rosenzweig’s book on Hegel remained unavailable in English translation, and even in Germany, throughout most of the 20th century, the original text had been unjustly ignored (Beiser 2009, Honneth, 2024). Furthermore, even some of his most important Jewish writings, e.g. “Bildung und kein Ende,” are still lacking in competent, unabridged translations, and the current translations of the Star of Redemption leave many readers cold and confused.
Finally, the intellectual traditions that inform Rosenzweig, e.g. the romanticism of Schelling, the idealism of Hegel and Cohen, and rabbinic Judaism are often obscure or inaccessible to many of us, more steeped as we are in Kant, the Anglo-American traditions of Hume and Locke, and the Protestant Bible.
And so: to bridge the gap between what we supposedly know and what we need and/or want to know, many of us want or need an opportunity to put other things aside and come and learn together.
Why now? Our moment holds a new promise, and it surely ought to motivate us. We now, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of a very few people, have more of the scholarly materials we need to assess the promise so often made that Rosenzweig and his corpus contain treasures: we now have competent translations of many, though not all of the key texts; and, despite some attrition, there are now, thanks to an influx of graduate programs and stipends in the 1980s, several generations of philosophically-engaged, rabbinically-literate scholars, a novum in the modern university, and their integration into the academy across the last 40 years means many allied colleagues to include and to draw on as well.
How do we get started? The first Rosenzweig Seminar will take place this summer, and ask the question, In political theory and practice, is Rosenzweig’s Hegel a critical idealist? This is not an idle question, as the young Rosenzweig, informed by this sort of Hegelianism, would have been well-positioned to write the Star of Redemption and do so in the “Marburg Spirit.” This, however, is not how we typically remember him!
Our texts will beHegel and the State, translated by Josiah and Jules Simon, 2024; Axel Honneth, “Afterward,” in Hegel and the State, ibid; Fred Beiser, “The Puzzling Hegel Renaissance,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, edited by Fred Beiser, 2009; and Robert, Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life, 2012, and Gershom Scholem, “Franz Rosenzweig and The Star of Redemption,” 1997 [1930] in On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in our Time, originally published in Hebrew as Devarim be-go, 1975, 407-425.
What will the experience be like and how will it manage to produce different results from what is typical in academic gatherings? The Rosenzweig seminars will follow backwards design principles; stated simply, we will 1.) develop the problem area, in this case, the claim made suggestively — not in detail and not thoroughly — by Beiser and Honneth that Rosenzweig’s interpretation of Hegel is carefully read out of the Hegel corpus as a “critical idealist,” a figure who mediates admirably between left and right Hegelian reception-traditions and can account for Hegel’s metaphysical-theological commitments; 2.) read curated sections of Hegel and the State, with recourse to the German-original where helpful, in a collaborative attempt to validate or dismiss Rosenzweig’s thesis; and 3.) in a final meeting, we will explore the implications of our conclusion for the project of approaching Rosenzweig as a Jewish thinker.
I should say, what we won’t do is as important as what we will do. We will not meet conference style, e.g. “hear” a paper and ask a few questions of the “speaker.” Collaborative learning, as we will practice aims to solve a problem or confront an issue of consequence in a field; it is facilitated with a gentle but firm hand by someone intimately familiar with the design and the stakes. Furthermore, the participants “buy-in” to this model as a condition of participating and play the crucial role of holding each other accountable; and finally, as Rosenzweig himself would have appreciated, there is time. We put in the time as it takes time, spent together, to cultivate the habits of collaborative learning and to reap its rewards.
When can I register, will I need to apply, and what will be the schedule? The current plan is to have a webinar on Sunday, April 20 from 7p to 8p ET; and to begin registration Monday, April 21. The seminar will run five sessions and meet on Zoom July 2, 9, 23, and August 6 and 20, from 6:30p to 8:30p ET. Inquiries can be made to 36learningmatters@gmail.com. Registration will include a brief questionnaire to identify whether it is a good match. Registrants should have a grounding in modern thought, and feel comfortable doing close readings of difficult texts. A background in rabbinics and/or literary fiction will be helpful as well. Financial aid is available.
Q&A
Why do scholars in religious studies need to convene online with 36learningmatters when they already have department events and field-level conferences? Collaborative inquiry advances the field, offers profound personal satisfaction, and, provides one of the strongest of rationales for having universities and research institutes at all, namely they put us in a position to learn collaboratively.
Isn’t Rosenzweig already well-covered in contemporary scholarship? Why might I want to collaborate to find my way to an understanding of him and his place in the religious studies field? In 1930, in a talk at the Hebrew University marking the passing of Franz Rosenzweig, Gershom Scholem remarked that Rosenzweig was “one of the most sublime manifestations of the greatness and religious genius of our people,” and [the world-renowned [Hermann] Cohen’s spiritual heir,” notions that have been repeated since then countless times.
Who among us can explain, much less defend or critique, Scholem’s conviction here? With very few exceptions, Rosenzweig’s thought is unknown to us at a detail level, whether professors, rabbis, or even specialists in Jewish thought. And how, until recently, could it have been otherwise? Until just last year, Rosenzweig’s book on Hegel remained unavailable in English translation, and even in Germany, throughout most of the 20th century, the original text had been unjustly ignored (Beiser 2009, Honneth, 2024). Furthermore, even some of his most important Jewish writings, e.g. “Bildung und kein Ende,” are still lacking in competent, unabridged translations, and the current translations of the Star of Redemption leave many readers cold and confused.
Finally, the intellectual traditions that inform Rosenzweig, e.g. the romanticism of Schelling, the idealism of Hegel and Cohen, and rabbinic Judaism are often obscure or inaccessible to many of us, more steeped as we are in Kant, the Anglo-American traditions of Hume and Locke, and the Protestant Bible.
And so: to bridge the gap between what we supposedly know and what we need and/or want to know, many of us want or need an opportunity to put other things aside and come and learn together.
Why now? Our moment holds a new promise, and it surely ought to motivate us. We now, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of a very few people, have more of the scholarly materials we need to assess the promise so often made that Rosenzweig and his corpus contain treasures: we now have competent translations of many, though not all of the key texts; and, despite some attrition, there are now, thanks to an influx of graduate programs and stipends in the 1980s, several generations of philosophically-engaged, rabbinically-literate scholars, a novum in the modern university, and their integration into the academy across the last 40 years means many allied colleagues to include and to draw on as well.
How do we get started? The first Rosenzweig Seminar will take place this summer, and ask the question, In political theory and practice, is Rosenzweig’s Hegel a critical idealist? This is not an idle question, as the young Rosenzweig, informed by this sort of Hegelianism, would have been well-positioned to write the Star of Redemption and do so in the “Marburg Spirit.” This, however, is not how we typically remember him!
Our texts will beHegel and the State, translated by Josiah and Jules Simon, 2024; Axel Honneth, “Afterward,” in Hegel and the State, ibid; Fred Beiser, “The Puzzling Hegel Renaissance,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, edited by Fred Beiser, 2009; and Robert, Pippin, Hegel’s Practical Philosophy: Rational Agency as Ethical Life, 2012, and Gershom Scholem, “Franz Rosenzweig and The Star of Redemption,” 1997 [1930] in On the Possibility of Jewish Mysticism in our Time, originally published in Hebrew as Devarim be-go, 1975, 407-425.
What will the experience be like and how will it manage to produce different results from what is typical in academic gatherings? The Rosenzweig seminars will follow backwards design principles; stated simply, we will 1.) develop the problem area, in this case, the claim made suggestively — not in detail and not thoroughly — by Beiser and Honneth that Rosenzweig’s interpretation of Hegel is carefully read out of the Hegel corpus as a “critical idealist,” a figure who mediates admirably between left and right Hegelian reception-traditions and can account for Hegel’s metaphysical-theological commitments; 2.) read curated sections of Hegel and the State, with recourse to the German-original where helpful, in a collaborative attempt to validate or dismiss Rosenzweig’s thesis; and 3.) in a final meeting, we will explore the implications of our conclusion for the project of approaching Rosenzweig as a Jewish thinker.
I should say, what we won’t do is as important as what we will do. We will not meet conference style, e.g. “hear” a paper and ask a few questions of the “speaker.” Collaborative learning, as we will practice aims to solve a problem or confront an issue of consequence in a field; it is facilitated with a gentle but firm hand by someone intimately familiar with the design and the stakes. Furthermore, the participants “buy-in” to this model as a condition of participating and play the crucial role of holding each other accountable; and finally, as Rosenzweig himself would have appreciated, there is time. We put in the time as it takes time, spent together, to cultivate the habits of collaborative learning and to reap its rewards.
When can I register, will I need to apply, and what will be the schedule? The current plan is to have a webinar on Sunday, April 20 from 7p to 8p ET; and to begin registration Monday, April 21. The seminar will run five sessions and meet on Zoom July 2, 9, 23, and August 6 and 20, from 6:30p to 8:30p ET. Inquiries can be made to 36learningmatters@gmail.com. Registration will include a brief questionnaire to identify whether it is a good match. Registrants should have a grounding in modern thought, and feel comfortable doing close readings of difficult texts. A background in rabbinics and/or literary fiction will be helpful as well. Financial aid is available.