Renewing the Past, Reconfiguring Jewish Culture

Ross Brann is M. R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies at Cornell University and is author of Power in the Portrayal: Representations of Jews and Muslims in Eleventh- and Twelfth-century Islamic Spain. Adam Sutcliffe teaches Jewish history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He is author of Judaism and Enlightenment.

• Foreword David B. RudermanIntroduction: Al-Andalus, Enlightenment, and the Renewal of the Jewish Past-Adam Sutcliffe and Ross BrannPART I. PHILOSOPHY, POETRY, AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE IN PREMODERN AL-ANDALUS AND ITALY1. Aesthetic Models in Conflict: Classicist versus Ornamental in Jewish Poetics-Joseph Yahalom2. The Uses of Exile in Poetic Discourse: Some Examples from Medieval Hebrew Literature-Esperanza Alfonso3. Their Rose in Our Garden: Romance: Elements in Hebrew Italian Poetry-Dvora Bregman4. The Crisis of Medieval Knowledge in the Work of the Fifteenth-Century Poet and Philosopher Moses da Rieti-Alessandro GuettaPART II. RENEWING TEXTS, CHANGING HORIZONS: THE JEWISH ENLIGHTENMENTS APPROPRIATION OF ANDALUSI IDEALS5. Judah Halevis Kuzari in the Haskalah: The Reinterpretation and Re-imagining of a Medieval Work-Adam Shear6. The Aesthetic Difference: Moses Mendelssohns Kohelet Musar and the Inception of the Berlin Haskalah-Jonathan Karp7. Varieties of Haskalah: Sabato Moraiss Program of Sephardi Rabbinic Humanism in Victorian America-Arthur KironPART III: REFASHIONINGS OF THE JEWISH PAST IN THE ERA OF HASKALAH8. Solomon Maimon and His Jewish Philosophical Predecessors: The Evidence of His Autobiography-Allan Arkush9. Quarreling over Spinoza: Moses: Mendelssohn and the Fashioning of Jewish Philosophical Heroism-Adam Sutcliffe10. Strategic Friendships: Jewish Intellectuals, the AbbÉ GrÉgoire, and the French Revolution-Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall11. Heine and Haggadah: History, Narration and Tradition in the Age of Wissenschaft des Judentums-Jonathan SkolnikList of ContributorsIndex

"An important contribution not only to Jewish studies but also to the larger study of historical memory." (American Historical Review)