New Distributed Titles Fall 2009 - Oxbow Books

jewish studies
Leibniz und das Judentum
edited by Daniel J Cook, Hartmut Randolph
and Christoph Schulte
Leibniz was interested
in Jews and Judaism not
only within the framework
of his philosophy,
but also within his studies
as a lawyer, librarian,
ecumenical theologian,
and on a personal basis
as resident of Hannover.
However, research has so
far neglected his attitude
towards Judaism and its
expression in Jewish religion, the Kabbala, the Hebrew Bible,
the Rabbinic tradition, and even his Jewish contemporaries,
their works and their legal status. This volume closes the
gap by presenting the results of an international conference
in Potsdam, where notable Leibniz scholars discussed his attitudes
towards Jews and Judaism and studied them from a
variety of perspectives.
283p, 6 col & 1 b/w illus, paperback, 9783515092517, $63.00(s),
Franz Steiner Verlag, December 2008,
Sonderhefte Studia Leibnitiana 34.
94
Imagining Jewish Art
Encounters with the Masters in Chagall,
Guston, and Kitaj
by Aaron Rosen
What does Jewish art look like? Where many scholars, critics,
and curators have gone searching for the essence of Jewish art
in Biblical illustrations and portraits of Rabbis, Rosen sets out to
discover Jewishness in unlikely places. How, he asks, have modern
Jewish painters explored their Jewish identity using an artistic
past which is – by and large – non-Jewish? In this new book, we
encounter some of the great works of Western art history through
Jewish eyes. We see Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece re-imagined by Marc Chagall (1887–
1985), traces of Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca in Philip Guston (1913–1980), and images by
Diego Velázquez and Paul Cézanne studiously reworked by R.B. Kitaj (1932–2007). This study draws on
theological, philosophical and literary sources from Franz Rosenzweig to Franz Kafka and Philip Roth.
200p, hardback, 9781906540548, $89.50, Maney Publishing, July 2009,
Legenda Studies in Comparative Literature 16.
Autochthonous Texts in the Arabic Dialect of the Jews of Tiberias
by Aharon Geva-Kleinberger
The soul of this book is not just linguistic. The author creates an innovative approach, combining language
with anthropology and history, which will serve a medley of researchers in interdisciplinary fields.
The texts introduce the long and rich inheritance of the Arabic-speaking Jews of Tiberias. They have lived
there for centuries with only brief interruptions, and have spoken Arabic as their mother tongue. The author
continues here his research on other communities in Galilee where Arabic has been spoken by Jews,
such as Haifa, Safed and Pqi’in. This book pays homage to these people, their heritage and language,
before all sink into the limbo of forgotten things. These are the last vanishing voices, which speak out,
tell tales and still breathe. Hopefully they will still serve as evidence in the future of a once glorious but
dying culture, whose existence, paradoxically, may come to be doubted in future times.
236p, hardback, 9783447059343, $93.00(s), Harrassowitz Verlag, September 2009, Semitica Viva 47.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Philosophy, Theology and Interreligious Dialogue
edited by Stanislaw Krajewski and Adam Lipszyc
This volume is devoted to the thought of one of the 20th century’s most interesting philosophers of
religion. Heschel, a traditional Polish Jew who became a modern thinker, was also an impressive
prophet of interreligious dialogue. The book is the fruit of a scholarly conference held in 2007 at the
University of Warsaw, in Heschel’s native city, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Given the depth and scope of his thinking, the papers gathered in the volume will be of interest not
only to philosophers, theologians, and scholars of Heschel, but also to those who know little about
Heschel but are interested in the fundamental problems that appear at the borders between philosophy
and theology, religion and modernity, Judaism and Christianity, and, more broadly, problems of
interfaith relations and their future.
228p, hardback, 9783447059206, $87.00(s), Harrassowitz Verlag, October 2009, Jüdische Kultur 21.
The David Brown Book Company – Fall 2009