With the rise of anti-semitism in America – which I have experienced, personally; and see on social media, perpetually – I have been starting to think more about what it is and what we can do to – if possible – counter-act it. One era that I have studied in depth and written on in […]
Menachem Feuer – the author of Schlemiel Theory (www.schlemielintheory.com) – just published a new essay entitled: “Discovering the Truth of Sancho Panza: The Meaning of Comedy in Adorno and Benjamin’s Divergent Readings of Don Quixote.” It is a part of a volume for Routledge’s Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy entitled Benjamin, Adorno, and the Experience of […]
The majority of people don’t go around every day thinking about what art is. Few think about why the definition of art may change not only the way we think but also the way we act in the world. Today, I was surprised to hear, in a discussion between two very controversial voices in […]
When someone sees a great artwork or reads a compelling novel or poem, he or she usually wants to know why it has such an affect. Is it the choice of words? Is it the theme? Is it the critique it levels on society? Humanity? Religion? As a literary and cultural critic, I know very […]
When one thinks about philosophers, one doesn’t think about humor. Thinkers are usually represented as morose, austere,introspective, and serious. We also see the same thing in Western theology and religion. To be sure, folly is thought to be the opposite of wisdom and the laughter of folly is thought to be irreligious. Nonetheless, in the […]
Religion and philosophy are both interested in some form of ultimate good that results in happiness. Aristotle is often noted for saying that all human beings desire to be happy. Much of what we do is for the sake of happiness. For Aristotle, the desire for happiness is built into human nature and is achievable. […]
Anyone who reads Walter Benjamin can sense, from the very first sentences of any of his essays or books, that his writing is influenced by mysticism. But Benjamin was torn between mysticism and the political. While his friend Gershom Scholem encouraged him to pursue the mystical and the theological, other friends, like Bertolt Brecht and […]
As a third generation American – and as a person three times removed from the Holocaust – I was always curious about the meaning of the Holocaust. It happened, as the author David Grossman writes in his novel See: Under Love, “over there.” What I find so intriguing about Grossman’s novel, which begins with the […]
I recently published a piece with White Rose Magazine on what I call “trash culture” entitled, “TRASHED: GARBAGE, BARBARISM + SPECTACLE IN AMERICAN CULTURE.” It is a topic that deeply concerns me and should concern all of you. I enjoyed writing it and articulating what worries me about where America is going based on the […]
Shalom Auslander’s short story, “Somebody Up There Likes You” (in his Beware of God short story collection) opens up a comical side to negative theology and literally turns it inside out. This fictional foray into two realities, one of a schlemiel character (Bloom) who thinks he is saved by God, contrasted with the portrayal of […]
Schlemiel Theory 