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After launching his career with the 1947 publication of his
dissertation, "Occidental Eschatology," Jacob Taubes spent the
early years of his career as a fellow and then professor at various
American institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia.
During his American years, he also gathered together a number of
prominent thinkers at his weekly seminars on Jewish intellectual
history. In the mid-60s, Taubes joined the faculty of the Free
University in West Berlin, initially as the city's first Jewish
Studies professor of the postwar period. But his work and interest
expanded beyond the boundaries of the field of Jewish Studies to
broader philosophical questions, particularly in the philosophy of
religion. A charismatic speaker and a great polemicist, Taubes had
a phenomenal ability to create interdisciplinary conversations in
the humanities, engaging scholars from philosophy, literature,
theology, and intellectual history. The essays presented here
represent the fruit of conversations, conferences, and workshops
that he organized over the course of his career.
Perhaps more than any other aspect of rabbinic literature, the laws
about and discussions of menstruation have polarized current
discussions of gender relations in Jewish culture. Is the
designated impurity of menstruation sexist? Or does ritual absence
from sex during menstruation encourage a rhythmic reaffirmation of
conjugal intimacy? This book offers a new perspective on the
extensive rabbinic discussions of menstrual impurity, female
physiology, and anatomy, and on the social and religious
institutions those discussions engendered. It analyzes the
functions of these discussions within the larger textual world of
rabbinic literature and in the context of Jewish and Christian
culture in late antiquity. How did gender work-how was it made to
work-in rabbinic literature? How did that literature dictate the
place of women in Jewish culture? In search of answers to these
questions, the author analyzes the architectural metaphors deployed
to describe female anatomy, arguing that this discursive
construction operated culturally to associate women with the home
and exclude them from rabbinic study halls. The author shows that
rabbinic discourse is not completely controlled by rabbinic
ideology, however. She analyzes talmudic discussions that allow
alternative gender perspectives to emerge, indicating that women
and their bodies were not completely objectified. This suggests
that the Babylonian Talmud does not present a completely
homogeneous gender structure, but contains a number of different,
sometimes contradictory, possibilities. The book concludes with a
study of early Christian texts that relate to the same biblical
laws on menstrual impurity as rabbinic texts, focusing in
particular on a Jewish-Christian text in which the anonymous author
polemicizes against Jewish women converts who remain attached to
the biblical laws. This text allows us to reconstruct women's
perspectives on the inscription of religious meaning onto their
bodies and physiological processes.
Perhaps more than any other aspect of rabbinic literature, the laws
about and discussions of menstruation have polarized current
discussions of gender relations in Jewish culture. Is the
designated impurity of menstruation sexist? Or does ritual absence
from sex during menstruation encourage a rhythmic reaffirmation of
conjugal intimacy?
This book offers a new perspective on the extensive rabbinic
discussions of menstrual impurity, female physiology, and anatomy,
and on the social and religious institutions those discussions
engendered. It analyzes the functions of these discussions within
the larger textual world of rabbinic literature and in the context
of Jewish and Christian culture in late antiquity.
How did gender work--how was it made to work--in rabbinic
literature? How did that literature dictate the place of women in
Jewish culture? In search of answers to these questions, the author
analyzes the architectural metaphors deployed to describe female
anatomy, arguing that this discursive construction operated
culturally to associate women with the home and exclude them from
rabbinic study halls.
The author shows that rabbinic discourse is not completely
controlled by rabbinic ideology, however. She analyzes talmudic
discussions that allow alternative gender perspectives to emerge,
indicating that women and their bodies were not completely
objectified. This suggests that the Babylonian Talmud does not
present a completely homogeneous gender structure, but contains a
number of different, sometimes contradictory, possibilities.
The book concludes with a study of early Christian texts that
relate to the same biblical laws on menstrual impurity as rabbinic
texts, focusing in particular on a Jewish-Christian text in which
the anonymous author polemicizes against Jewish women converts who
remain attached to the biblical laws. This text allows us to
reconstruct women's perspectives on the inscription of religious
meaning onto their bodies and physiological processes.
After launching his career with the 1947 publication of his
dissertation, "Occidental Eschatology," Jacob Taubes spent the
early years of his career as a fellow and then professor at various
American institutions, including Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia.
During his American years, he also gathered together a number of
prominent thinkers at his weekly seminars on Jewish intellectual
history. In the mid-60s, Taubes joined the faculty of the Free
University in West Berlin, initially as the city's first Jewish
Studies professor of the postwar period. But his work and interest
expanded beyond the boundaries of the field of Jewish Studies to
broader philosophical questions, particularly in the philosophy of
religion. A charismatic speaker and a great polemicist, Taubes had
a phenomenal ability to create interdisciplinary conversations in
the humanities, engaging scholars from philosophy, literature,
theology, and intellectual history. The essays presented here
represent the fruit of conversations, conferences, and workshops
that he organized over the course of his career.
This volume guides beginning students of rabbinic literature to the
range of historical-interpretive and culture-critical issues that
contemporary scholars use when studying the rabbinic texts of late
antiquity. The editors, themselves well-known interpreters of
rabbinic literature, have gathered an international collection of
scholars to support students' initial steps in confronting the
enormous and complex rabbinic corpus. Unlike other introductions to
rabbinic writings, the present volume includes approaches shaped by
anthropology, gender studies, oral-traditional studies, classics,
and folklore studies.
This volume guides beginning students of rabbinic literature to the
range of historical-interpretive and culture-critical issues that
contemporary scholars use when studying the rabbinic texts of late
antiquity. The editors, themselves well-known interpreters of
rabbinic literature, have gathered an international collection of
scholars to support students' initial steps in confronting the
enormous and complex rabbinic corpus. Unlike other introductions to
rabbinic writings, the present volume includes approaches shaped by
anthropology, gender studies, oral-traditional studies, classics,
and folklore studies.
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