University of Toronto
German Department
3-4 May 2015
For information contact Willi Goetschel
Organized by Willi Goetschel
Derrida, Jewish Difference, and Philosophy
Sapienza, Università di Roma
Dipartimento di Filosofia, Villa Miarafiori, via Carlo Fea 2
Aula XI
17-18 June 2014
Organized by Orietta Ombrosi and Willi Goetschel
This workshop addresses the question of the role and project of Jewish philosophy after Derrida. In the wake of the discussion of Derrida’s complex relationship to Judaism, Jewish tradition, and Jewish thought and philosophy, the workshop will provide a forum to explore the particular challenge, “solicitation”, but also the new perspectives that Derrida might open for rethinking the project of Jewish philosophy critically.
For more information contact the organizers.
Critical Theory and Jewish Thought
Workshop at the Department of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Nottingham, May 30-31, 2013
The Messianic: Jewish Tradition and Philosophy
Workshop at the University of Bologna, July 3-4, 2011
The working group Bamidbar holds an annual workshop on themes and issues in current critical theory and philosophy. Founded by the editors of the journal Bamidbar: Journal for Jewish Thought and Philosophy, the workshop is designed as open forum for critical learning and discussion of themes and issues at the interface of Jewish tradition and current philosophy.
This year’s subject is the question of the many meanings of the Messianic, their diverse forms of articulations and appropriations and their role for philosophy and philosophy’s role in rethinking the Messianic.
Professor Moshe Idel (Hebrew University) will lead the workshop. We will discuss the challenge of defining what Jewish Tradition has refrained of defining: the meaning of the Messianic. We will take some of the instantiations of the articulation of the Messianic as textual basis for our discussions.
For the purpose of preparation for the workshop the participants will read Moshe Idel’s new study Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: U Pennsylvania Press, 2010).
The workshop takes place July 3-4, 2011 in co-operation with the University of Bologna.
Contact: Willi Goetschel (w.goetschel@utoronto.ca) and Orietta Ombrosi (oriettaombrosi@libero.it)
“Jewish Nominalism” in Benjamin, Scholem, and Rosenzweig. Paris, 6 July, 2010, 2-6pm.
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)/Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (MSH)
54 Boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris
A one day workshop exploring the critical impulse in the language thinking and linguistic theories of Benjamin, Scholem, and Rosenzweig.
The workshop will give us the opportunity to explore common grounds and differences in Benjamin’s, Scholem’s, and Rosenzweig’s views of language. What is Benjamin’s point in making “the name” the center of his discussion that will so profoundly inform Scholem’s views? How does Rosenzweig’s Sprachdenken situate itself in relation to this project?
There is a Benjamin industry, a Scholem philology, and much work on Rosenzweig but the workshop intends to focus on the interface of these kinds of approaches.
This is just the first of a series of possible future workshops and in order to facilitate genuine discussion we will begin with the following format: every participant can (but does not have to) begin with a three minute statement addressing the issues, problems, and questions they would like to discuss. The rest of the time is then open to explore the questions, articulate new ones etc. In order to make this a real discussion we will not have any papers and even the initial statements need really to limit themselves to posing questions. The idea is to establish a sense of the scope of the problematic and how to address it.