There will be a virtual book launch for Jessica Dubow, In Exile: Philosophy, Geography and Judaic Thought (Bloomsbury, November 2020) on 17 March 2021, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm (UK time)

IAS Book Launch – In Exile: Geography, Philosophy and Judaic Thought – Jessica Dubow (Sheffield) with responses from Jacqueline Rose (Birkbeck) and Michael Steinberg (Brown), and chaired by Tamar Garb (UCL). Registration free, but required to get the link.

In In Exile, Jessica Dubow situates exile in a new context in which it holds both critical capacity and political potential. She not only outlines the origin of the relationship between geography and philosophy in the Judaic intellectual tradition; but also makes secular claims out of Judaism’s theological sources. 

Analysing key Jewish intellectual figures such as Walter Benjamin, Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt, Dubow presents exile as a form of thought and action and reconsiders attachments of identity, history, time, and territory. In her unique combination of geography, philosophy and some of the key themes in Judaic thought, she has constructed more than a study of interdisciplinary fluidity. She delivers a striking case for understanding the critical imagination in spatial terms and traces this back to a fundamental – if forgotten – exilic pull at the heart of Judaic thought.

The Introduction can be read open access here.