Description
Book SynopsisReclaiming the Wicked Son takes the ideas of six well-known secular Jewish philosophers from Karl Marx and Ludwig Wittgenstein to Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler and views them through a wide range of Jewish lenses from the Talmudic tradition and prophetic Judaism to Kabbalist approaches, thereby understanding the twentieth-century secular thinkers as on-going elements of a living Jewish intellectual tradition.
Trade Review"Steven Gimbel and Stephen Stern have taken on one of the major challenges in Jewish Studies: how does one read the outliers, those thinkers who contentious approaches both challenged and restructured Jewish Studies as a transdisciplinary field? From Karl Marx to Ayn Rand, from Peter Singer to Judith Butler, the authors frame the debates and innovations of a range of major Western thinkers both in terms of their affiliation with and alienation from their own sense of Jewishness. An important and readable coming-to-terms with the uncomfortable edges of modern Jewish thought" — Sander L. Gilman, Author of I Know Who Caused COVID-19: Xenophobia and Pandemics.
"Gimbel and Stern have set themselves the admirable and illuminating scholarly task of discovering Jewish affinities implicit in the work of six disparate contemporary thinkers who for their part eschew such associations. Far from the reductions of identity politics, their suggestive re-contextualizations illuminate and augment our understanding of their thought". —Richard A. Cohen, Professor of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, University at Buffalo (SUNY), USA; author of Out of Control: Confrontations between Spinoza and Levinas (2016).
"In this scholarly and erudite, yet playful, book, Professors Stern and Gimbel explore the hidden connections between a fascinating range of secular Jewish thinkers and their Judaic tradition as well as the broader non-Jewish world in which their works can be located".— Professor Nathan Abrams, Bangor University, UK; Author of Stanley Kubrick: New York Jewish Intellectual
"As clever as it is insightful, Reclaiming the Wicked Son places Jewish thought where it belongs, integrated into the Western philosophical tradition.”— Dr. Cheyney Ryan, Director, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, UK.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Reclaiming the Wicked Son; 1. Karl Marx and Materialistic Messianism; 2. Ludwig Wittgenstein and Neo-Talmudic Thought, 3. Ayn Rand and the Hassidic Courts; 4. Peter Singer: The Amos of Animals; 5. Judith Butler and Orthopraxy; 6. Noam Chomsky, Kabbalist; Conclusion: Re-Membering the Tribe; Bibliography; Index
