Papers by Yaakov Mascetti
Experiencing God in Late Medieval and Early Modern England , 2023
Duke University Press, Aug 1, 2021
The third and final installment of this book-length contribution to the Common Knowledge symposiu... more The third and final installment of this book-length contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Contextualism—the Next Generation” treats two further writers in seventeenth-century England whose work is not representative of any stance or discourse that contextualist historians have recognized as available in that era. In Aemelia Lanyer's poetry, we find a resistance to established perspectives that is related to her sense that divine signification is always incomplete and that, therefore, the diffidence of female cognition is superior, when approaching religious texts, to the assertive mentality that she associates with men. Despite his sex, however, and his reputation for theological and political radicalism, Milton too explicitly contends that the interpretation of scripture should always be “non-committal” because its signification is always incomplete. The “very magnitude” of the “great mystery” of the Incarnation, Milton argues in De Doctrina Christiana, should encourage the reader's mind to stand on “guard from the outset” against the tendency to make “rash or hasty assertions.” The urge to tamper with, pry into, add to, or hasten to understand the signifiers of divine meaning is shown, in Paradise Lost, to be the original sin of the first human couple. As much as for Lanyer, then, sex is for Milton bound up with hermeneutics—and, for both poets, the individual's relationship with God is a consuming passion, about which one may report a phenomenology of affects but can offer no contentions or arguments.
If Milton's Satan clearly blooms out seventeenth-century arguments in favor of individualism,... more If Milton's Satan clearly blooms out seventeenth-century arguments in favor of individualism, freedom of thought and of religious belief that had characterized one side of the political debate before and after the Revolution, Milton's God leaves little space to the individual to express a self-fashioned particularity. And between these two fronts, the complexities of Milton's chaotic narrative tempt the reader to choose either one or the other front. This paper has, nevertheless, argued in favor of an alternative stance, one in which Milton endeavors to accommodate the two irreconcilable models in the hubbub of his Chaos. To view his Chaos as good, evil or neutral means, in an extended sense, to force it and Milton's narrative and social conception into a fixed mode, to take sides in the "endless warrs" between the Satanic and the Divine fronts. The narrative of Milton's Paradise Lost is a realm of indeterminacy which elicits from the reader a choice of...
Abstract:Against the background of the traditional scholarly portrayals of Aemilia Lanyer's S... more Abstract:Against the background of the traditional scholarly portrayals of Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum as the religious gesture of a woman writer in early 17th-century England, whether sincerely spiritual or socially motivated, this essay complicates the understanding of the poet's range of intentions and stock of concepts for the expression of her ideas. Lanyer's conceptions of sympathetic sight and communion-based vision are presented as a probable poetic interaction with contemporary male-centered discourses of objectivity. In the context of early 17th-century philosophical disputes over the nature of vision and optics—with the publication of Johannes Kepler's Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena in 1604 and of Galileo Galilei's Sidereus Nuncius in 1610—Lanyer's poetry presents sight in religious terms as the glorious means through which a woman could aspire to gain an essential understanding of things and acquire a clear perception of Christic truth....
Liber Annuus, 2017
“The Bible in the Renaissance,” the international conference held in Jerusalem on May 22-24 2017,... more “The Bible in the Renaissance,” the international conference held in Jerusalem on May 22-24 2017, was an important academic event on the Renaissance readings of the Bible, which provided a formal framework for historians, art historians and literary scholars to meet and discuss the subject in a collegial context. Under the aegis of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, the Israel Science Fund, Bar-Ilan University and Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII, this three-day event was structured along the lines of a methodological statement: in order to understand the possible range of intentions motivating the various artistic elaborations of biblical topics in the Renaissance, one first has to understand the religious context in which those particular works were produced. Beyond the well-planned structure of the event, and the methodological bases motivating it, there was also an underlying scope to the initiative, namely to show how dispute, variety and incoherent interpretations have always characterized modern engagements with Scriptural texts, and that in 2017, in Jerusalem, in a city that stands on five-thousand years of stratified stones, dirt, words and blood, scholars of different faiths and denominations can come together to discuss and interpret, question and embrace the Holy Scriptures.
Common Knowledge, 2018
In this contextualized re-reading of Pope Ratzinger's attack on the "dictatorshi... more In this contextualized re-reading of Pope Ratzinger's attack on the "dictatorship of relativism" and of Pope Francis' variegated ecclesiology, I wish to propose a more compelling understanding of the theological stakes in either approach.
Common Knowledge
In the second installment of this contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Contextualism—t... more In the second installment of this contribution to the Common Knowledge symposium “Contextualism—the Next Generation,” Donne's religious poetry is set in dialogue not only with the “Great Controversy” of the 1560s over the nature of the eucharistic sign but also with pre-Christian semiotic discourses. From the perspective of contextualist scholarship, which recognizes in any temporal context a limited number of discourses available, Donne's religious poems of the period from about 1607 to 1620 register many contradictory conceptions, but contradictory only in the sense that no contextualist map of religious identities allows for their miscibility or even collocation. Notoriously resistant to psychological and phenomenological interests, contextualism has no place for an early seventeenth-century Christian writer whose concern is less to join a school of thought on the Real Presence in the Eucharist than to dismiss the issue as vexingly trivial in comparison with the question ...
Common Knowledge
In this interview Vattimo discusses with Zabala the possibility of a nihilist philosophy of law a... more In this interview Vattimo discusses with Zabala the possibility of a nihilist philosophy of law as an alternative to the idea of justice and the violence that predictably results from it. To make this substitution would involve the redirection of humanity away from its self-understanding as progressively approaching a metaphysical truth that is eternal and toward the acceptance of an already existing “polytheism of values,” where truth is a contingent and changing product of discursiveness. A society that structures its legal system on what Vattimo terms “optimistic nihilism” would dismiss any urge for the unity and strength supposedly characteristic of monoculturalism and univocal values. Such cohesion as is possible must come from flexibility, responsiveness to contingency, and an openness to multivocal values. “To apply justice to human affairs,” Vattimo argues, is no more than “to adjust things” as conditions change.
Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas
The Scriblerian and the Kit-Cats
This paper delineates the early-modern re-conception of gender categories in the work of Margaret... more This paper delineates the early-modern re-conception of gender categories in the work of Margaret Cavendish, and her opposition of imagination and wit to the disenchanted reality produced by male thinkers of her time. Conceptions of "knowledge" and "truth" changed significantly during the first six decades of the seventeenth century, fashioning contemporary notions of masculinity and femininity. Against the background of
The proposed research group intends to provide an interdisciplinary framework for a scholarly deb... more The proposed research group intends to provide an interdisciplinary framework for a scholarly debate and a further understanding of the relationship between the sensory sphere and conceptions of epistemology and of devotion in the early-modern and enlightenment periods. Our primary goal will be to present ideas of touch, sight, hearing and tasting against the background of the philosophical, scientific, religious and literary discourses from the 15th to 18th centuries. Such representations of the senses contributed to relocating the idea of truth from the objective to the subjective sphere, though the figures in our study often show the fundamental insufficiency of that dichotomy, challenging and at times proposing alternative models.
Motivated by the significantly growing scholarly interest in the cultural history of the senses, and by new trends in the history of science and philosophy, this group will address, problematize and challenge our understanding of the ways in which emergent philosophical and scientific conceptions of visual and aural perceptions played a role in changing devotional practices such as sacramental ceremonies, methods and forms of meditational attention, while they also fashioned exegetical practices and currents in the literary and visual arts of the 16th and 17th centuries. Despite the steady growth in interdisciplinary studies of the early-modern, circles of the kind we propose are rare, and which we believe can make a difference in the complication of our idea of what a field of research is. Our main contribution will thus be methodological, to historians, literary scholars and specialists in other disciplines, as we will show, from a number of perspectives, that a cultural matrix is composed of a variety of interacting idioms, modes of speech which provide specific utterances with a spectrum of diverse intentions. Thus we will present conceptions of taste as the relation between the physical sense of taste, and taste as a metaphorical term used to denote various forms of knowledge and judgement (including, but not only, aesthetic taste).
Early modern taste played a key role in the cultivation of humanist erudition, in the so-called ‘scientific revolution,’ in theological debates about how best to access divine truth, and in the experience and articulation of intersubjective knowledge and sexual desire. Similarly, between the late middle ages and the Renaissance, touching truth came to play a central role in conceptions of truth, knowledge and the conveyance thereof in visual arts. The centrality of vision for the philosophical, theological, and artistic spheres has been widely discussed and continues to occupy a primary role in the cultural history of the senses. This research group intends to bring these scholarly strands together and create an interdisciplinary platform within which the entanglements of discourses may lead to a more exhaustive understanding of the senses and their role in the perception of truth.
Seicento e Settecento, 2021
In a Sicily that was both enlightened and conservative, ready to absorb philosophical and litera... more In a Sicily that was both enlightened and conservative, ready to absorb philosophical and literary influences from the continent while maintaining its own intellectual and religious traditions, Tommaso Campailla and Girolama Lorefice Grimaldi conducted a poetic exchange in Sicilian dialect, using the genre of ‘canzone’. An eclectic intellectual well known in the Sicilian and continental scene, Campailla presents a clearly traditional concept of femininity, while Grimaldi responds modestly to the high-sounding tones of Campailla’s praise, elaborating on the dichotomy between beauty and knowledge. This essay discusses the dialogue between two prominent intellectuals in 18th-century Sicily, within their cultural context.
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Papers by Yaakov Mascetti
Motivated by the significantly growing scholarly interest in the cultural history of the senses, and by new trends in the history of science and philosophy, this group will address, problematize and challenge our understanding of the ways in which emergent philosophical and scientific conceptions of visual and aural perceptions played a role in changing devotional practices such as sacramental ceremonies, methods and forms of meditational attention, while they also fashioned exegetical practices and currents in the literary and visual arts of the 16th and 17th centuries. Despite the steady growth in interdisciplinary studies of the early-modern, circles of the kind we propose are rare, and which we believe can make a difference in the complication of our idea of what a field of research is. Our main contribution will thus be methodological, to historians, literary scholars and specialists in other disciplines, as we will show, from a number of perspectives, that a cultural matrix is composed of a variety of interacting idioms, modes of speech which provide specific utterances with a spectrum of diverse intentions. Thus we will present conceptions of taste as the relation between the physical sense of taste, and taste as a metaphorical term used to denote various forms of knowledge and judgement (including, but not only, aesthetic taste).
Early modern taste played a key role in the cultivation of humanist erudition, in the so-called ‘scientific revolution,’ in theological debates about how best to access divine truth, and in the experience and articulation of intersubjective knowledge and sexual desire. Similarly, between the late middle ages and the Renaissance, touching truth came to play a central role in conceptions of truth, knowledge and the conveyance thereof in visual arts. The centrality of vision for the philosophical, theological, and artistic spheres has been widely discussed and continues to occupy a primary role in the cultural history of the senses. This research group intends to bring these scholarly strands together and create an interdisciplinary platform within which the entanglements of discourses may lead to a more exhaustive understanding of the senses and their role in the perception of truth.
Motivated by the significantly growing scholarly interest in the cultural history of the senses, and by new trends in the history of science and philosophy, this group will address, problematize and challenge our understanding of the ways in which emergent philosophical and scientific conceptions of visual and aural perceptions played a role in changing devotional practices such as sacramental ceremonies, methods and forms of meditational attention, while they also fashioned exegetical practices and currents in the literary and visual arts of the 16th and 17th centuries. Despite the steady growth in interdisciplinary studies of the early-modern, circles of the kind we propose are rare, and which we believe can make a difference in the complication of our idea of what a field of research is. Our main contribution will thus be methodological, to historians, literary scholars and specialists in other disciplines, as we will show, from a number of perspectives, that a cultural matrix is composed of a variety of interacting idioms, modes of speech which provide specific utterances with a spectrum of diverse intentions. Thus we will present conceptions of taste as the relation between the physical sense of taste, and taste as a metaphorical term used to denote various forms of knowledge and judgement (including, but not only, aesthetic taste).
Early modern taste played a key role in the cultivation of humanist erudition, in the so-called ‘scientific revolution,’ in theological debates about how best to access divine truth, and in the experience and articulation of intersubjective knowledge and sexual desire. Similarly, between the late middle ages and the Renaissance, touching truth came to play a central role in conceptions of truth, knowledge and the conveyance thereof in visual arts. The centrality of vision for the philosophical, theological, and artistic spheres has been widely discussed and continues to occupy a primary role in the cultural history of the senses. This research group intends to bring these scholarly strands together and create an interdisciplinary platform within which the entanglements of discourses may lead to a more exhaustive understanding of the senses and their role in the perception of truth.
http://www.as.huji.ac.il/renaissance-bible
A Call for Papers
Sabbateanism has recently been the subject of renewed interest among social and religious historians. Attention has been focused on the vicissitudes of Sabbatai Zevi himself as well as on the movement that gathered around him in 1665 and 1666, and that would continue to express itself through activist missionizing and subterranean conventicles in the decades and even centuries that followed. Both proponents and opponents of the movement have offered historians opportunities to investigate the social, religious, and cultural dynamics of the period. And of course, the general trends of apocalyptic and millenarianism as well as of conservatism and repression outside the Jewish community also have much to teach us about the contributing factors, the fate, and the long-term implications of this powerful messianic movement.
Our workshop will seek to investigate the context and particular impact of Sabbateanism in Italy. Several Italian cities were important centers of this messianic movement, among them Livorno, Mantua, Modena, Padua, Ancona, and Venice. Existing treatments have stressed that Italian cities served the movement both as spiritual centers and as nodes in Mediterranean networks of communication. Accordingly we will focus on Sabbateanism on the Peninsula itself, trying to explore its broader contexts among both Jews and non-Jews. We are eager to trace earlier examples of apocalyptic, millenarian, and messianic speculation, then offer case studies of the presence of specifically Sabbatean nuclei, and follow up by looking at pietists and activists in the 18th-century who continued Sabbatean themes. Throughout, we are searching for possible theoretical relationships between a variety of early modern millenarian and messianic enthusiasms, seeking thus to situate this Jewish cultural explosion in its broader context. We hope to take advantage of the treasury of resources and scholarship on early modern Italian religious thought and practice—stretching from Renaissance hermeticism through sometimes heretical utopianism, Quietism, popular beliefs in omens, prophecies and the importance of astrology and magical practice—in order to trace the movement’s entanglements with charismatic religious expressions, both Christian and Islamic, in contemporary Europe and the Middle East. Finally, we seek connections between the Jewish opponents of Sabbateanism and the parallel oppositions to apocalyptic and millenarian enthusiasts expressed by both secular and religious disciplinarians of the Catholic Reformation era. Can we discover parallels among these phenomena? Does the recent scholarly turn to “entangled history” help us in this direction?
The Sabbatean movement was also a major “media event” in the Mediterranean context, as both Jews and non-Jews used print and non-printed mechanisms to spread the news and interpret it from their own points of view. This was part of an ever-shifting narrative that sought to make sense of monumental political shifts, demographic sea-changes, religious revolutions, and economic transformations, all in terms of traditional conceptions of divine purpose. In this context, reports from Jesuits, both Catholic and Protestant diplomats, merchants, medical observers and Ottoman correspondents take their place alongside Jewish accounts to demonstrate not only how news traveled and was utilized in this era of facilitated communication but also how tales were shaped and transformed by their tellers.
The following list of suggested topics is meant to be suggestive rather than exclusive, and scholars are urged to propose papers related to their own specialties.
1. Social history of Sabbateanism in Italy; communal and rabbinic anti-Sabbatean decrees of excommunication
2. Literary expressions of both Sabbateanism and its opponents; Sabbatean printing in Italy (Nathan of Gaza's Tikkunei Teshuvah, Eshel Avraham, etc.)
3. The attitude of the papacy to Sabbateanism; the possibility of Christian influence
4. The activities and theology of both Isaac and Abraham Cardozo in Italy
5. The school surrounding Rabbi Avraham Rovigo and the writings of R. Mordechai Ashkenazi
6. Nehemia Hiyya Hayon's Italian imprints (Raza di-Yihuda), and the opposition to his teaching
7. Responses of Italian rabbis to the Emden-Eibeschuetz controversy
8. Rabbi Moses Hayyim Luzzatto and his circle and the accusations of Sabbateanism
9. Italy's ties to Sabbateans in the Ottoman Empire, especially to the Dönmeh
We expect the conference to take place in Rome on January 20-22, 2019. For best consideration, paper proposals of no more than 300 words accompanied by a brief cv should be submitted to Stefano Villani [email protected] by April 1, 2018. The organizers expect to respond by May 15, 2018.
This conference is intended as the first meeting of a research project on Jews in Italy during the long Renaissance. The project is promoted by the University of Maryland in College Park, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, the Italian Research Program of National Interest-PRIN 2015 The Long History of Anti-Semitism (University of Milan 'La Statale', University of Pisa, University of Genova, University of Rome, 'La Sapienza'), BA in Jewish Studies of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (Unione delle comunità ebraiche italiane), the Jewish Community of Rome, and the International Research Group in Early Modern Religious Dissents & Radicalism EMoDiR.
Scientific committee: Bernard Cooperman, Serena di Nepi, Pawel Maciejko, Germano Maifreda, Yaakov Mascetti, Stefano Villani
The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem
12.1-15.1.20
Our conference program is up! And so is out registration page: hurry up, limited places available!
Program - https://jewsitalylongrenaissance.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/jews-in-italy-jerusalem-program-final-final.pdf
Abstracts and CVs of our speakers are accessible here:
https://jewsitalylongrenaissance.wordpress.com/abstracts-and-cvs-jerusalem/
Registration form online: https://www.eventer.co.il/sdbv3