New Emmy Noether Junior Research Group

17 January 2017

Dr. Patrick Benjamin Koch of the Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion has been accepted to the Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation (DFG). He has received over 1.1 million euros to establish a research group dealing with the topic “Jewish Moralistic Writings of the Early Modern Period: 1600–1800.” The group, which will begin its work in the summer of 2017, will consist of four junior researchers.

 The vast body of Jewish moralistic writings (known as musar in Hebrew) still enjoys great popularity in a traditional Jewish context. In the Early Modern period, it was one of the most popular genres of Jewish literature. There are, however, very few academic studies available that thoroughly investigate this literary corpus. The Emmy Noether Junior Research Group will fill this gap by compiling an inventory that systematically documents musar works that were composed between 1600 and 1800. The inventory, which will include works in Hebrew, Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, and Portuguese, will not only include classical bibliographical data, but will also present the structure and content of the works, their objectives as formulated by the authors, and their intended readership, as well as the works mentioned, quoted, or paraphrased in them.

 The group project will be supplemented by individual studies that will give the group’s members the opportunity to evaluate the data brought together in the inventory. With the help of various methodological approaches, they will, inter alia, be able to identify different schools, literary genres, and literary strategies, while also investigating the role musar literature played in the process of transferring theoretical discourses into practices of everyday life.

The Universities’ president, Prof. Dr. Dieter Lenzen, states: “I congratulate Dr. Patrick Benjamin Koch for the acquisition of the Emmy Noether group, which will the first one in its field in Germany, and I wish the project success and a good start.”

 The Emmy Noether Junior Research Group affiliated to the Institute of Jewish Philosophy and Religion is the first of its kind in Judaic and Jewish studies in Germany. This special programme funded by the German Research Foundation supports outstanding young researchers in order to prepare them for leading academic positions. Dr. Patrick Benjamin Koch studied Judaic studies and religious studies at the Freie Universität Berlin and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he graduated with an MA in Jewish Civilization in 2007. He earned his PhD at the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebrew University in 2012. After post-doc positions at the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Center for Jewish History in New York City, he has worked as a research associate at the University of Hamburg since 2014.

Job Opportunities: https://www.philosophie.uni-hamburg.de/jewish-philosophy

Contact:

Dr. Patrick Benjamin Koch

Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion

phone: +49 40 42838-4740

e-mail: patrick.benjamin.koch@uni-hamburg.de(patrick.benjamn.koch"AT"uni-hamburg.de)