Description
Book SynopsisJews and Science examines the complicated relationship between Jewish identities and the evolving meanings of science throughout the history of Western academic culture. Jews have been not only the agents for study of things Jewish, but also the subject of examination by "scientists" across a range of disciplines, from biology and bioethics to anthropology and genetics. Even the most recent iteration of Jewish studies as an academic discipline—Israel studies—stresses the global cultural, economic, and social impact of Israeli science and medicine.
The 2022 volume of the Casden Institute's Jewish Role in American Life series tackles a range of issues that have evolved with the rise of Jewish studies, throughout its evolution from interdisciplinary to transdisciplinary, and now finally as a discipline itself with its own degrees and departments in universities across the world. This book gathers contributions by scholars from various disciplines to discuss the complexity in defining "science" across multiple fields within Jewish studies. The scholars examine the role of the self-defined "Jewish" scholar, discerning if their identification with the object of study (whether that study be economics, criminology, medicine, or another field entirely) changes their perception or status as scientists. They interrogate whether the myriad ways to study Jews and their relationship to science—including the role of Jews in science and scientific training, the science of the Jews (however defined), and Jews as objects of scientific study—alter our understanding of science itself. The contributors of Jews and Science take on the challenge to confront these central problems.
Table of Contents
- FOREWORD
- EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
- DEFINING SCIENCE; DEFINING JEWS
- Science, Imperialism, and Heteromasculinity in the Wissenschaft des Judentums, by Susannah Heschel
- Philosophers of Catastrophe: Early Twentieth-Century Jewish Proponents and Opponents of Objectivity in Science, by Steven Gimbel and Stephen Stern
- Medical History: A Blank Spot in Jewish Studies?, by Robert Jütte
- Jewish Scientists and Scholars at the University of Vienna from the Late Habsburg Period until the Early Post-War Years, by Mitchell G. Ash
- HUMAN BIOLOGY: GENETICS IN THE NOW
- "Questions Remain": Racialism, Geneticism, and the Continuing Lure of Jewish Essentialism, by Mitchell B. Hart
- Science, Sovereignty, and Diaspora: Alternative Genealogies and DNA Research on Jewish Populations, by Yulia Egorova
- ISRAEL STUDIES AND SCIENCE
- The Fusion of Zionism and Science: The First Two Decades—and the Present Day?, by Amos Morris-Reich and Danny Trom
- Israel as a Laboratory in the Time of COVID-19, by Sander L. Gilman
- JEWS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
- Environmental History and Jewish Studies: Methodological Intersections and Opportunities, by Dean Phillip Bell
- Changing Climates: Zionist Medical Climatology in Palestine, 1897–1948, by Netta Cohen
- ISRAEL STUDIES AND SCIENCE
- Jews and Science: A Note, by David A. Hollinger
- Science and Judaism, by Roald Hoffmann
- ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
- ABOUT THE USC CASDEN INSTITUTE
