Judaism and Scepticism in the Scholarship of Richard H. Popkin

Date
9–11 May 2022

Abstract
Richard Popkin’s scholarly interest in Judaism appears relatively late in his academic career, following what he described as an “overpowering religious experience” that took place in 1956. His contributions to Jewish history are prevalently focused on the role of Marrano thinkers in early modern scepticism and in Christian messianism and millenarianism. Therefore, recent scholarship on Jewish scepticism has rightly stressed that Popkin’s multifarious oeuvre lacks any serious consideration of a specifically Jewish current within the sceptical tradition, which is independent from the converso encounter with classical philosophy and Christian theology.
However, in his correspondence and autobiographical writings, Popkin did acknowledge the importance of his Jewish identity in shaping his intellectual interests and directing his research on scepticism. In view of the forthcoming publication of Popkin’s correspondence with Judah Goldin edited by Giuseppe Veltri, Jeremy Popkin, and Asher Salah, this conference aims to further our understanding of how Popkin’s strong commitment to Judaism affected his perception of Jewish history and Jewish philosophy.

Poster
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Programme
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Publication
Popkin, Jeremy D., Asher Salah, and Giuseppe Veltri, eds. A Sceptical Jew. Richard H. Popkin’s Private Republic of Letters. Boston, Leiden: Brill, 2024. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004711129