Reading for Gender in Jewish Philosophy: Maimonides

• In Event: Inner Dimensions of Medieval Jewish Philosophy

Abstract

This paper argues that in order to "read for gender" one must pay close attention not only to the logic of a philosophical text--in this case, the GUIDE OF THE PERPLEXED--but also to the use of other modes of discourse, particularly rhetoric and poetic, that is, to what has commonly been referred to as its "literary character." The connection between the "literary" and the role of gender in the GUIDE has yet to be properly explicated. In this paper I will draw this connection and demonstrate that rather than being a marginal concern, reading for gender in the GUIDE is central to its interpretation. Further, these tropes of gender are strikingly evident in later Maimonidean traditions as well. Indeed, I argue, a genealogical line stemming from Maimonides can be traced that employs a distinctive Jewish philosophical Imaginary shaped in part by images and tropes of gender. This paper, thus, will offer a close reading of selected gendered aspects of the GUIDE as well as an explication of the role of it's literary character and of the significance of the Jewish philosophical Imaginary it has engendered.

Author

• Susan Ellen Shapiro, University of Massachusetts-Amherst