Friday February 2, 2018
2:00 - 4:00 pm
Room 3308 Modern Languages Building
812 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor, 48109-1275

This presentation is part of the Winter Colloquium of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures.
A pre-circulated paper in English is available upon request.


Matthew Handelman will share new work on Gershom Scholem, preeminent scholar of Jewish mysticism with widespread impact on twentieth-century Zionism, culture, and thought. Handelman will highlight the importance of mathematical concepts for understanding Scholem's ideas of aesthetics and negativity and their relationship to critical theorists such as Franz Rosenzweig and Siegfried Kracauer.

Matthew Handelman is an Assistant Professor of German and a member of the Core Faculty in the Digital Humanities at Michigan State University. His research interests include German-Jewish literature and philosophy in the early twentieth century, the intersections of science, mathematics and culture in German-speaking countries, as well as the digital humanities and the history of technology. Matthew has published on these topics in international journals such as The Germanic Review, Scientia Poetica and The Leo Baeck Yearbook. He is currently finishing a manuscript called Negative Mathematics: German Jewish Intellectuals and the Origins of Critical Theory. It explores the underdeveloped possibilities of mathematics in critical theory, focusing on Gershom Scholem, Franz Rosenzweig, and Siegfried Kracauer. A second book project, which explores the relationship between necessity and narration in scientific and aesthetic thought after 1800, is also in the works.

If you are a person with a disability who requires an accommodation to participate in this event,
please contact Germanic Languages & Literatures at 734-764-8018 or germandept@umich.edu.