Elliot R. Wolfson (born November 23, 1956) is a scholar of Jewish studies.
Wolfson earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in philosophy at Queens College of the
City University of New York
The City University of New York ( CUNY; , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven Upper divis ...
, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Near Eastern and Judaic studies from
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts"
, established =
, type = Private research university
, accreditation = NECHE
, president = Ronald D. Liebowitz
, pro ...
, where he trained under the supervision of
Alexander Altmann.
Wolfson is the Marsha and Jay Glazer Endowed Chair in Jewish Studies at the
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...
. He was previously the Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and
Judaic studies at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, the ...
(1987–2014).
His main area of scholarly research is the history of
Jewish mysticism
Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholem's ''Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism'' (1941), distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in 1 ...
but he has brought to bear on that field training in
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
,
literary criticism
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
,
feminist theory, postmodern
hermeneutics
Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...
,
Eastern mystical traditions, and the
phenomenology of religion. He is also considered to be "the leading scholarly interpreter" of the late Rabbi
Menachem Mendel Schneerson
Menachem Mendel Schneerson (Modern Hebrew: מנחם מענדל שניאורסון; old-fashioned spelling: מנחם מענדל שניאורסאהן; April 5, 1902 OS – June 12, 1994; AM 11 Nissan 5662 – 3 Tammuz 5754), known to man ...
, influential former leader of the Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty.
He has also published three volumes of poetry (drawn from the collection of poems he has amassed for decades called ''Preparations for Death'') and he has had a gallery show of his paintings. Wolfson has served as the editor of the ''Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy'' since its inception in 1992. He has also served on various editorial boards for book series and journals.
Wolfson's son,
Elijah Wolfson
Elijah Wolfson is an American writer and editor. He is currently an editorial director at ''Time'' primarily covering health and science. Previously, he was an editor at ''Quartz''. and before that served as senior editor at ''Newsweek'', where h ...
, was formerly a senior editor at ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
''. and is now a senior editor at ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''.
Honors and awards
Wolfson's publications have won prestigious awards such as the
American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholarly method, scholars in the List of academic disciplines, field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association,
serving as a profes ...
's Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Category of Historical Studies in 1995, the American Academy of Religion's Award for Excellence in Constructive and Reflective Studies in 2012.
Wolfson won two
National Jewish Book Awards in the Scholarship category, in 1995 for ''Through a Speculum That Shines'' and in 2005 for ''Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination''.
Additionally, Wolfson has been the recipient of several academic honors and awards:
* The Regenstein Visiting Professor in Jewish Studies in the Divinity School,
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
(1992);
* Visiting Professor in the Russian State University in the Humanities (1995);
* Fellow at the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
,
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of whi ...
(1996);
* Shoshana Shier Distinguished Visiting Professor,
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...
(1998);
* Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies,
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
(2000, 2008–2009);
*
Crown-Minnow Visiting Professor of Theology and Jewish Studies,
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...
(2002);
* Brownstone Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies,
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...
(2003);
* Visiting Professor in the Humanities Center,
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
(2005);
* Professor of Jewish Mysticism in
Shandong University
Shandong University (, abbreviated as Shanda, , English abbreviation SDU) is a public research comprehensive university in Jinan, Shandong with one campus in Weihai, Shandong and one campus in Qingdao, Shandong and is supported directly by the ...
, Jinan, China (2005);
* Lynette S. Autrey Visiting Professor, Humanities Research Center,
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University (Rice University) is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas. It is on a 300-acre campus near the Houston Museum District and adjacent to the Texas Medical Center. Rice is ranke ...
(2007);
* Fellow at the
Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
(2012);
* Weinstock Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
(2016).
* He has also taught at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
,
Queens College
Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...
,
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
,
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a Conservative Jewish education organization in New York City, New York. It is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studie ...
,
Reconstructionist Rabbinical College,
Hebrew Union College
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
,
Bard College, and
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
.
Wolfson is a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
, the American Academy of Jewish Research, and the American Society for the Study of Religion.
Bibliography
History
* ''The Book of the Pomegranate: Moses de Leon's Sefer ha-Rimmon'' (Scholars Press, 1988)
* ''Through the Speculum That Shines: Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism'' (Princeton University Press, 1994)
* ''Along the Path: Studies in Kabbalistic Hermeneutics, Myth, and Symbolism'' (State University of New York Press, 1995)
* ''Circle in the Square: Studies in the Use of Gender in Kabbalistic Symbolism'' (State University of New York Press, 1995)
* ''Abraham Abulafia—Kabbalist and Prophet: Hermeneutics, Theosophy, and Theurgy'' (Cherub Press, 2000)
* ''Language, Eros, and Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and the Poetic Imagination'' (Fordham University Press, 2005)
* ''Alef, Mem, Tau: Kabbalistic Musings on Time, Truth, and Death'' (University of California Press, 2006)
* ''Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic Mysticism'' (Oxford University Press, 2006)
* ''Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings From Zoharic Literature'' (Oneworld Publications, 2007)
* ''Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson'' (Columbia University Press, 2009)
*''A Dream Interpreted Within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of Imagination'' (Zone Books, 2011)
* ''Giving Beyond the Gift: Apophasis and Overcoming Theomania'' (Fordham University Press, 2014)
* ''Elliot Wolfson: Poetic Thinking'', edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes (Brill, 2015)
* ''The Duplicity of Philosophy's Shadow: Heidegger, Nazism, and the Jewish Other'' (Columbia University Press, 2018)
* ''Heidegger and Kabbalah: Hidden Gnosis and the Path of Poiesis'' (Indiana University Press, 2019)
* ''Suffering Time: Philosophical, Kabbalistic, and Ḥasidic Reflections on Temporality'' (Brill, 2021)
* ''The Philosophical Pathos of Susan Taubes: Between Nihilism and Hope'' (Stanford University Press, 2023)
Edited books
* ''Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism'', edited with Alfred Ivry and Alan Arkush (Harwood Academic Publishers, 1998)
* ''Rending the Veil: Concealment and Secrecy in the History of Religions'' (Seven Bridges Press, 1999)
* ''Suffering Religion'', edited with Robert Gibbs (Routledge, 2002)
* ''New Directions in Jewish Philosophy'', edited with Aaron Hughes (Indiana University Press, 2009)
* ''Studies in Medieval Jewish Intellectual and Social History: Festschrift in Honor of Robert Chazan'', edited with David Engel and Lawrence H. Schiffman (Brill, 2012)
* ''D. G. Leahy and the Thinking Now Occurring'', edited with Lissa McCullough (State University of New York Press, 2021)
Poetry
* ''Pathwings: Poetic-Philosophic Reflections on the Hermeneutics of Time and Language'' (Station Hill Press, 2004)
* ''Footdreams and Treetales: 92 Poems'' (Fordham University Press, 2007)
* ''Unveiling the Veil of Unveiling: Philosophical Aphorisms and Poems on Time, Language, Being, and Truth'' (Panui, 2021)
References
External links
Faculty page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolfson, Elliot R.
1956 births
Living people
21st-century American historians
21st-century American male writers
American male poets
Dartmouth College faculty
Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Johns Hopkins University faculty
Jewish historians
Judaic scholars
Jewish philosophers
New York University faculty
Princeton University faculty
Rice University faculty
Academic staff of Shandong University
University of Chicago faculty
University of Notre Dame faculty
University of Toronto faculty
Hermeneutists
American male non-fiction writers