Language, Eros, Being

A prodigy of scholarship. From the book's core, the construction of sexuality in religious consciousness and practice, three voices radiate: Continental philosophy and psychoanalysis; mysticism in Hellenistic, Christian;Islamic, and Buddhist traditions; and the esoteric dimension within Judaism known as Kabbalah. . . Making the opposites of diverse discourses coincide, Wolfson has rendered Kabbalah intelligible and useful to theworld of critical learning. -Kalman P. Bland, Duke...
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A prodigy of scholarship. From the book's core, the construction of sexuality in religious consciousness and practice, three voices radiate: Continental philosophy and psychoanalysis; mysticism in Hellenistic, Christian;Islamic, and Buddhist traditions; and the esoteric dimension within Judaism known as Kabbalah. . . Making the opposites of diverse discourses coincide, Wolfson has rendered Kabbalah intelligible and useful to theworld of critical learning. -Kalman P. Bland, Duke UniversityReaders will be especially interested in his formulation of a poetics of Jewish mystical language, and in the new and strong articulation of his insights into the topics of gender and the dialectics of absence and presence in the sources. This is a major work that will certainly stimulate much discussion and interest. -Michael Fishbane, Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies The University of Chicago One is tempted to say that Wolfson's Language, Eros, Being is alchemical: Amazingly, it transforms the base metals of hermetically sealed Jewish studies into the gold of exoteric humanities. In Wolfson's work each tradition and each field of thought retains its specificity and yet they all come together on the page to talk with each other. Wolfson subjects the sexual elements to an unprecedented, and radical examination. This book is sure to be controversial and generate much discussion.