Thursday, March 31
2 PM Welcome: Leora Batnitzky, Michael Jennings, Sarah Pourciau
2:30-5:00 PM Session One
Philosophical Theology
John H. Smith (German, UC Irvine), “The Infinitessimal as Theological Principle in Cohen, Rosenzweig, and Barth”
Elias Sacks (Religion, Princeton), “Reenacting the Philosophical Past: Rosenzweig, Hegel, and Neighbor Love
Ben Morgan (German, Oxford), “Heidegger with and Beyond Paul and Augustine”
5:30-7:00 PM Plenary Talk I
Hent de Vries (Philosophy and Humanities Center, Johns Hopkins), “Inverse versus Dialectical Theology (Adorno, Horkheimer, Barth)”
Friday, April 1
9:30 AM-12 PM Session Two
The Inexpressible in Modernity
Niklaus Largier (German, Berkeley), “Mysticism and Kulturkritik”
Lisa Cerami (New York), “Mysticism contra Religion”
Ilit Ferber (Philosophy, Tel Aviv), “A Language of the Border: Scholem’s Notion of Lament”
1:00-3:30 PM Session Three
Towards a Theological Politics
Nitzan Lebovic (History, Lehigh), "Destruction, Consolation, and Rebellion in Paul and Jeremiah" (Zweig, Werfel, Buber, Taubes)
Michael McGillen (German, Princeton), “Religion as Social Poliics in Hermann Cohen”
Daniel Weidner (German and Comparative Literature, Berlin and Basel) "Rhetoric, Religion, and Political Theology “As If” in Barth"
4:00-6:30 PM Section Four
Religion and the State
Paul Franks (Philosophy, Toronto), “State and Religion: Orthodox Judaism and Neo-Kantianism in Isaac Breuer”
Martina Urban (Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt), “Nation and Essentialism in Jewish Thought”
Udi Greenberg (History, Dartmouth), “Calvinism and Democratic Legitimacy in Carl J. Friedrich”
8:00 PM Plenary Talk II
Peter Gordon (History, Harvard), “Jürgen Habermas: German Religious Discourse in Retrospect”
Saturday, April 2
9:30 AM-12 PM Session Five
Religion and Aesthetics
Asher Biemann (Religious Studies and Jewish Studies, Virginia), “The Aesthetics of Religion in Cohen and Simmel”
Sabine Mueller (German, Oxford), “Religion and Filmic Narration”
Anthony Phelan (German, Oxford), “Martyrs and Monarchs in Benjamin’s Trauerspiel Book”
1:30-4:00 PM Session Six
The Uses of Rhetoric
Thomas Meyer (Judaic Studies, Zürich), "Leo Strauss and Religious Rhetoric"
Eugene Sheppard (Judaic Studies, Brandeis), “Presenting the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain in the Third Reich”
Christian Wiese (Jewish Thought, Frankfurt), "Ethical Monotheism: Politics, and Theology of a Protestant Concept in 20th Century German-Jewish Discourse"