Susan Taubes (née Feldmann; 1928 – 6 November 1969) was a Hungarian-American writer and intellectual. Taubes was born in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, Hungary, into a Jewish family. Her grandfather Mózes Feldmann (1860–1927) was the head of the Conservative or "Status Quo" branch of the divided Hungarian rabbinate in Pest, and her father Sándor Feldmann (1889/90–1972) was a

psychoanalyst PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: + . is a set of Theory, theories and Therapy, therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a bo ...

Sándor Ferenczi Sándor Ferenczi (7 July 1873 – 22 May 1933) was a Hungarian psychoanalyst, a key theorist of the psychoanalytic school and a close associate of Sigmund Freud. Biography Born Sándor Fränkel to Baruch Fränkel and Rosa Eibenschütz, bo ...

's school, though the two colleagues had a falling out in 1923.

Biography

In 1939, Susan Feldmann emigrated to the United States with her father (but without her mother, Marion Batory). She studied at

Harvard 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 ...

, wrote her PhD thesis on ''The Absent God. A Study of

Simone Weil Simone Adolphine Weil ( , ; 3 February 1909 – 24 August 1943) was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. Over 2,500 scholarly works have been published about her, including close analyses and readings of her work, since 1995. ...

'',Lene Zade: ''Ja, ich bin tot''. In: Jüdische Zeitung 11/2009. supervised by

Paul Tillich Paul Johannes Tillich (August 20, 1886 – October 22, 1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher, religious socialist, and Lutheran Protestant theologian who is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologi ...

, and published on philosophy and religion. She was the first wife of the

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and Judaist scholar

Jacob Taubes Jacob Taubes (25 February 1923 – 21 March 1987) was a sociologist of religion, philosopher, and scholar of Judaism. Taubes was born into an old rabbinical family. He was married to the writer Susan Taubes. He obtained his doctorate in 1947 fo ...

. The couple both taught religion at

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 ...

1960–1969. They had two children: Ethan (b. 1953) and Tania (b. 1956). In the mid-1960s, she became also involved in literature and the stage: she was a member of

The Open Theatre The Open Theater was an experimental theatre group active from 1963 to 1973. Foundation The Open Theater was founded in New York City by a group of former students of acting teacher Nola Chilton, together with director Joseph Chaikin (formerly of T ...

and in a group of writers around

Susan Sontag Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...

. She compiled "African Myths and Tales," published in New York in 1963 under her maiden name, and published her first novel, ''Divorcing,'' in 1969. Taubes committed suicide shortly after publication by drowning herself off Long Island in East Hampton. Her body was identified by Susan Sontag. She left numerous literary texts, most of them unpublished, as well as years of correspondence with Jacob Taubes and other prominent figures of philosophy and religion. Most of this estate was discovered years after her death, transferred to Berlin in 2001, where Sigrid Weigel established the Susan Taubes Archiv e.V. at the Berlin-based ''Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung/ZfL'' (Center for Literature and Culture Research). and, together with Christina Pareigis, worked on an edition of Susan Taubes’ Schriften. In 2021 Pareigis published Susan Taubes’ intellectual biography.

Biography

References

Further reading