Franz Rosenzweig Professorship goes to Rosenzweig researcher Ynon Wygoda

"With Dr. Ynon Wygoda (born 1977), the University of Kassel has deliberately invited a lecturer from the young Israeli generation of current Franz-Rosenzweig research," explained the chair of the search committee, Prof. Dr. Martina Sitt. He has established close contacts with Germany since his study semester at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology at the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg im Breisgau in 2006. In Rosenzweig research, Wygoda has been well connected through early publication activity since his teaching position at the Institut Paideia in Stockholm in 2008 and his work as a research assistant at Yale University in 2014. His dissertation at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with Prof. Moshe Halbertal in 2018 dealt with a comparison of the thought worlds of Vladimir Jankélévitch and Franz Rosenzweig.

Wygoda is a former fellow of the Martin Buber Society of Fellows and, since 2019, a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the International Rosenzweig Society. In 2018, a visiting lectureship took him to Rome to the Pontifical Gregorian University. Since 2021, he has been working at the Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History in Jerusalem, leading the research project "The Star and its Universe: Franz Rosenzweig between Past and Future" on Rosenzweig's book Star of Redemption.

The newly appointed Rosenzweig Visiting Professor will give a public lecture on May 9, 2023, at the University of Kassel's Gießhaus. The topic of the lecture will be "Does the Torah Still Speak German? Nechama Leibowitz, Martin Buber and the Meaning of the Bible in the Land of Israel." Prof. Dr. Sonja Buckel, Vice President of the University, will introduce the event with a greeting. The event is organized by Prof. Dr. Ingrid Baumgärtner and Prof. Dr. Martina Sitt. The exact time of the event is yet to be announced.

Wygoda will hold two seminars this April and May that are open to students from all departments. On Fridays, there will be a seminar on "Self-Definition after Forced Definition: Jewish Existence after WW2," and on Sundays he will offer the seminar "Viewing the 20th century through the lens of its Silences: Culture, Philosophy and Politics."

With the Franz Rosenzweig Visiting Professorship, which is unique in Germany, the University of Kassel commemorates the work and legacy of the Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, who was born in Kassel in 1886. The professorship serves to bring to mind the culture of European Jewry, which was destroyed by National Socialism, and to engage with the Jewish present. It has been awarded annually at the beginning of the summer semester since 1987 and has thus already brought numerous scholars from a wide range of disciplines from Israel, Europe and North America to Kassel.

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Martina Sitt
University of Kassel
Chair of Medieval and Modern Art History
Tel.: +49 561 804 5327
E-mail: sitt[at]uni-kassel[dot]de