What the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula can teach us about political power & minority status
Graduate Fellow Vivian Mills shows how all-too-familiar patterns of discrimination and exclusion affected Sephardic Jews in the Middle Ages.
Video: Jonathan Israel on Spinoza as a Revolutionary
Professor Jonathan Israel explores Spinoza's role as a revolutionary thinker and precursor to the modern human rights movement in the 2017 Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies.
Spinoza & Modern Jewish Philosophy 2017 Conference
This international conference, in combination with the 2017 Stroum Lectures, explored the myriad ways in which Spinoza has contributed to the development of modern Jewish philosophy.
Spinoza, Industrialization, and the Nineteenth-Century Ethos of Repose
Professor Tracy Matysik traces philosophers' early critiques of capitalism and its breakneck pace, and finds a surprising remedy in Spinoza's ideas about God.
The Greatest Thing: Spinoza, Loving God, and Being Loved in Return
Professor Benjamin Pollock brings together multiple philosophers' perspectives on love and the Divine to argue that our ideas about "true love" are deeply entwined with our sense of God and ourselves.
The Haskalah: Jewish Modernity & Shame
Professor Yitzhak Melamed argues that the German Jewish Enlightenment movement, the Haskalah, was motivated by a profound sense of shame.
How Did the Enlightenment Shape the Jews?
2017 Stroum Lecturer Jonathan Israel explores how Enlightenment thinkers both fueled anti-Semitism and created greater space for Jewish people in society.
Spinoza on the Divinity of Scripture
Does it matter if scripture is divine? Spinoza expert Steven Nadler weighs in on the philosopher's ideas about the Bible.