Winter School: Modern Talmudic and Quranic Hermeneutics and Secular Thought

This winter school invites doctoral students and early-career postdoctoral researchers to a 3-day program taught by advanced and senior scholars on various questions arising from attempts to approach, from secular perspectives prevalent within academic research, modern forms of hermeneutics developed within the talmudic and qur’anic traditions. Through a mixed format of close text readings, keynote lectures and guided discussions, the program will address themes such as the interrelations between the development of modern hermeneutics within traditional text learning and socio-epistemological developments within scientific discourse in the 20th and 21st centuries; analogies and comparisons between the challenge of hermeneutics in modernity in rabbinic and in qur’anic traditions; methodological questions in the theoretical, philosophical and theological disciplinary research concerning traditions of hermeneutics.

Faculty includes Gil Anidjar, Yasmeen Daher, Behrang Pourhosseini, Nayla Abi Nader, Sergey Dolgopolski, Meryem Sebti, Asma Helali, Ivan Segré, Sophia Mouttalib, Ulrika Björk and Laila Seri.

Participants will be doctoral students and early-career postdoctoral researchers from the University of Lille, École normale supérieure, Goethe University Frankfurt, Södertörn University and other universities.

The winter school will consist of three parts: (1) discussion of research projects of the participants; (2) workshop on philosophical readings of the Qur’an; (3) keynote lectures on modern talmudic thought and continental philosophy.

In part one, several of the participants will present their research work, focusing on aspects that concern the workshop’s theme, that is, modern questions of hermeneutics. The presentations will be followed by responses by senior scholars and other participants.

Part two is a workshop dedicated to qur’anic hermeneutics, featuring a series of experts on philosophical, Islamic, Jewish and Christian traditions who will offer contemporary readings engaging with the Sura Āl ʿImrān, which positions Islamic political theology vis-à- vis Judaism and Christianity. The workshop will reflect on the exclusion of the Qur’an from contemporary philosophical reflection, preventing Western thought from entering into dialogue with the Islamic tradition of text-based thought.

Part three includes a series of keynote lectures on modern talmudic thought and continental philosophy. Contributions will reflect on how modern European philosophy shaped modern rabbinic thought—including through opposition, resistance and rejection— and, inversely, how rabbinic thought influenced European thought via Jewish thinkers seeking synthesis. Contributors will also consider how rabbinic thought was affirmed as different from European philosophy, akin to other non-hegemonic traditions of knowledge, such as feminine, African, Southern and in particular Islamic.

The organizers will cover meals throughout the winter school. Participants will make their own travel and accommodation arrangements and cover the related costs.

A few places are still available. Doctoral students and early-career postdoctoral researchers interested in participating are invited to apply by sending a short CV and a description of their research project (max. 300 words) to Elad Lapidot (elad.lapidot@univ-lille.fr) and Anoush Ganjipour (anoush.ganjipour@cnrs.fr) by October 15. Please indicate whether you would like to present your work in part one.