New Books Network

About Moses Lapin

NBN Episodes hosted by Moses:

Jewish Studies September 18, 2018

Philo’s Heirs

Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas

Luis Cortest

Hosted by Moses Lapin
The tensions found between Reason and Revelation, between the traditions of the Bible and Greek thought, were central to pre-modern philosophy and in a sense remain so today. We live …
Jewish Studies July 18, 2018

Jewish Materialism

The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s

Eliyahu Stern

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s (Yale University Press, 2018) is a radical new book that uncovers a hitherto ignored intellectual movement in Jewish Eastern Europe, and finds …
Jewish Studies April 27, 2018

Pogrom

Kishinev and the Tilt of History

Steven J. Zipperstein

Hosted by Moses Lapin
In what has become perhaps the most infamous example of modern anti-Jewish violence prior to the Holocaust, the Kishinev pogrom should have been a small story lost to us along …
Jewish Studies April 13, 2018

Leo Strauss and the Recovery of Medieval Political Philosophy

Joshua Parens

Hosted by Moses Lapin
In today's episode, I am joined by Joshua Parens to discuss his innovative and engaging book Leo Strauss and the Recovery of Medieval Political Philosophy (University of Rochester Press, 2016) …
Jewish Studies March 20, 2018

Hasidic Studies

Essays in History and Gender

Ada Rapoport-Albert

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Hasidic Studies: Essays in History and Gender is a collection of essays that spans over 40 years and challenges many received notions about the history of Hasidism ---its origins, the …
Intellectual History March 19, 2018

Redefining the Muslim Community

Ethnicity, Religion, and Politics in the Thought of Alfarabi

Alexander Orwin

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Abu Nasr Al-Farabi (c. 872 - c. 950) a philosopher who wrote on politics, metaphysics, and logic as well as mathematics, psychology, and music, was known by Jews, Christians, and …
Jewish Studies March 12, 2018

The Many Deaths of Jew Suss

The Notorious Trial and Execution of an Eighteenth-Century Court Jew

Yair Mintzker

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Joseph Suss Oppenheimer became the "court Jew" of Carl Alexander, Duke of Wurttemberg in 1733. When Carl Alexander died, Oppenheimer was put on trial and condemned to death for his …
Jewish Studies March 2, 2018

The First Modern Jew

Spinoza and the History of an Image

Daniel Schwartz

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Benedito/Baruch/Benedict Spinoza (1623-1677) lived at the crossroads of Dutch, scholastic, and Jewish worlds. Excommunicated from the Jewish community of Amsterdam at 23, his works would later be put on the …
Jewish Studies February 22, 2018

Hasidism

A New History

David Biale, et al.

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Who, or what, are Hasidim? A movement that was once mysterious and inaccessible has recently risen to the forefront of popular consciousness. Whether it be in last years acclaimed film …
Jewish Studies February 13, 2018

Maimonides' 'Guide of the Perplexed'

A Philosophical Guide

Alfred Ivry

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Alfred Ivry's book, Maimonides' 'Guide of the Perplexed': A Philosophical Guide (University of Chicago, 2016) is the only modern commentary in English to explicate Maimonides' summa The Guide of the …
Jewish Studies February 6, 2018

Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392

Benjamin R. Gampel

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Benjamin R. Gampel's award winning volume Anti-Jewish Riots in the Crown of Aragon and the Royal Response, 1391-1392 (Cambridge University Press, 2016) is the first total history of a lesser …
Jewish Studies January 23, 2018

Gershom Scholem

From Berlin to Jerusalem and Back

Noam Zadoff

Hosted by Moses Lapin
Noam Zadoff begins his biography of Gershon Scholem, one of the 20th century's greatest scholars and an equally perplexing intellectual, at the point where Scholem ends his own autobiography From …