February 7, 2024
The Fluidity of Identity: Evidence from Medieval Philosophy & Kabbalah
Our postmodern era has long been attentive to the different streams of influence that combine to shape a person’s identity, with varying degrees of determinism and agency. More recent attention to gender identity and gender fluidity, biotechnology, as well as the ways in which social media personae have all served to intensify questions about the boundaries of personal human identity. In this course, we will look at medieval philosophical and Kabbalistic approaches to angelification, devequt (merging with God), and reincarnation as examples of premodern wrestling with these issues.
