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Podcast: New Books in Medieval History
Episode: Sarah Pessin, âIbn Gabirolâs Theology of Desire: Matter and Method in Jewish Medieval Neoplatonismâ (Cambridge UP, 2013)
Description: Neoplatonists, including the 11th century Jewish philosopher-poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol, are often saddled with a cosmology considered either as outdated science or a kind of âinvisible floating Kansasâ in which spatiotemporal talk isnât really about space or time. Sarah Pessin, Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Emil and Eva Hecht Chair in Judaic Studies at the University of Denver, is committed to upending these traditional readings. In Ibn Gabirolâs Theology of Desire: Matter and Method in Jewish Medieval Neoplatonism (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Pessin begins her reappraisal from the ground up, interpreting neoplatonist cosmo-ontology as a response to the Para...