Julie E. Cooper

Aufenthalt

Januar–Februar 2020

Forschungsthema

»Politics Without Sovereignty? Exile, State, and Territory in Jewish Thought«

Projektbeschreibung

Sovereignty remains one of the most contested political issues of our time. Global transformations – including unprecedented levels of migration, the rise of non-state actors, transnational capital flows, human rights regimes, European integration and, subsequently, Brexit – have led scholars to debate whether sovereignty’s salience has waned and, if so, whether it is necessary to envision alternative modes of political community. In this book project, I will join these controversies by recovering debates among modern Jewish nationalists (focusing primarily on the period from 1918-1937) about the respective merits of sovereign and non-sovereign modes of political community. These debates (among Zionists, Bundists, Autonomists, etc.) constitute one of the richest nodes of theoretical reflection on sovereignty in modern Jewish thought and, arguably, within modern political thought more generally. Combining methods from intellectual history, Jewish studies, and political theory, the book will offer a historically informed account of the possibilities and perils of politics without sovereignty. My ultimate goal is to develop a theoretical framework that can illuminate contemporary debates, both Jewish and non-Jewish, about the political regimes best suited to advance democratic self-government.

Wissenschaftliches Profil

Julie E. Cooper ist Senior Lecturer (US equivalent: Associate Professor) am Fachbereich Politische Wissenschaft der Universität Tel Aviv. 2003 hat sie im Fach Rhetorik an der University of California, Berkeley, promoviert. Anschließend war sie am Fachbereich Politikwissenschaft der Syracuse University (2005–2007) und der University of California (2007–2014) tätig.

Veröffentlichungen (Auswahl)

• Secular Powers: Humility in Modern Political Thought, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
• »Heretic or Traitor? Spinoza’s Excommunication and the Challenge that Judaism Poses to the Study of Religious Diversity«, In: Political Theology (im Erscheinen).
• »Statesmen vs. Philosophers: Experience and Method in Spinoza’s Political Treatise«, in: Hasana Sharp and Yitzhak Melamed (Hrsg.), Spinoza’s Political Treatise: A Critical Guide, Cambridge, 2018.
• »Can Jewish Ethics Speak to Sovereignty?«, In: Journal of Jewish Ethics (4:2), 2017, 109-135.
• »Reevaluating Spinoza’s Legacy for Jewish Political Thought«, In: Journal of Politics (79:2), 2017, 173-484.
• »The Turn to Tradition in the Study of Jewish Politics«, In: Annual Review of Political Science (19), 2016, 67-87.
• »A Diasporic Critique of Diasporism: The Question of Jewish Political Agency«, In: Political Theory (43:1), 2015, 80-110.
• »Vainglory, Modesty, and Political Agency in the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes«, In: Review of Politics (72:2), 2010, 241-269.
• »Thomas Hobbes on the Political Theorist’s Vocation«, In: The Historical Journal (50:3), 2010, 519-547.
• »Freedom of Speech and Philosophical Citizenship in Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise«, i In: Law, Culture, and the Humanities (2), 2007, 91-114.

Forschungskontext

Julie E. Cooper folgt einer Einladung von Dr. Martin Fritz und Prfoessor Uta Eva Eisen (Universität Gießen) und dem an der Goethe-Universität angesiedelten LOEWE-Schwerpunkt: »Religiöse Positionierung. Modalitäten und Konstellationen in jüdischen, christlichen und islamischen Kontexten«.