| Description |
This course will use the works of Moses Maimonides (ca. 1136-1204) as a case study in the history of knowledge. After reading select passages in his Guide of the Perplexed and The Code of Law, we will trace the reception of Maimonides and his work from the 12th century to modern times. As we read him and his interpreters we will pay attention to questions of transmission, sociology of knowledge, and the reception of a text. We will also explore the Maimonidean controversies in the high Middle Ages, the printing and censorship of his Code in the early modern period, and his impact on the Jewish Enlightenment and modern Jewish thought. |