Description: This volume poses the question of when, how, and why modernity begins, both in general and with regard to Jewish identity. How do the conditions of emergent and developing modernity effect a wide range of Jewish thinkers and what they produce across different modes of writing? What defines them as "Jewish"? What are the criteria of inclusion that would place figures as disparate in experience and written output as Spinoza, Marx, Herzl, Buber, Heschel, Soloveichik, and Kaplan--together with figures like Heine, Kafka and Freud--under such a label? Do they have to be conscious of their place within it? Each of the three primary terms within the rubric demands exploration and raises questions of definition--an invigorating process that leads to further questions.
