Nitzan Lebovic
Biographic Data
| ID | 279028 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nitzan Lebovic |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nitzan |
| FAMILY NAME | Lebovic |
| SIGNATURE | LEBOVIC N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lehigh University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7412-5370 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Practitioners of Empathy
Forms of Complicity
The Kastner Affair (1953-58) was a watershed moment. As historians and legal analysists explained, "The first time an Israeli court had to confront the Holocaust, it was a Jewish leader who was put on trial, not the Nazi perpetrators." The judge's private comments demonstrate growing confusion about the legal and historical status of complicit parties, who do not answer clear ideological alignments and cannot be judged on the basis of "criminal i…
The Zone of Complicity
Jonathan Glazer’s 2024 film Zone of Interest opens with a serene pastoral scene: amid birdsong, a German family relaxes and chats on a lush meadow by a lakeside before the men go down to the water
Capitalism and the New Political Unconscious
Taking seriously Jacques Lacan’s claim that “the unconscious is politics”, this volume proposes a new understanding of political power, as it interrogates the assumption that contemporary capitalism functions by tapping into people’s forms of unconscious enjoyment, rather than providing transcendental conditions for the articulation of political meanings and desires. Whether we’re aware of it or not, political communication today targets the audi…
Enzo Traverso, Left-Wing Melancholia
Daniel M. Herskowitz. Heidegger and His Jewish Reception . New York
The Myth of the Jew
The Myth of the Jew:Negating the Negation Nitzan Lebovic (bio) Keywords Myth, Jewish thought, Paul Hanebrink, Elad Lapidot, Ole Jakob Løland Paul Hanebrink, A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018. Elad Lapidot, Jews out of the Question: A Critique of Anti-Anti-Semitism. Albany: SUNY Press, 2020. Ole Jakob Løland, Pauline Ugliness: Jacob Taubes and the Turn to Paul. New York: Fordham Univ…
The Poverty of Ethics
A R esponse to F rançois H artog , “ C hronos , K airos , K risis
Homo Complexus
The moment in which we live proposes a staggering new challenge to past, present, and future understanding of our existence: climate change in general, and the Anthropocene in particular, requires a recalibration of all temporal relationships. In this article, I propose to identify the agent of change with current forms of complicity, or, as I call it in the title to this piece, the Homo complexus. A focus on complicity, I will argue, suggests th…
Biopolitics Among the Disciplines
A new wave of publications attempts to bring together theory and history in order to reconsider the past, present, and future in light of a looming catastrophe. Whether in political theory, sociology, anthropology, or intellectual history, scholars are attempting to reflect about the present beyond the old boundaries that separate left and right, inner and outer, civilian and solider, friend and enemy. Three recent publications, by Catherine Mill…
The History of Political Melancholy as an Alternative History of Zionism
Understanding political melancholy as central to the crisis of modernity and democracy implies a growing realization that melancholy teaches us something essential about different forms of political crisis and their affective modes. This essay contends that the relationship between political melancholy in Weimar Germany and its repurposing by German Jews for Zionist thought reveals how political melancholy was and remains at the heart of Zionism.…
The Last European
This review of Alexander Gelley's captivating book follows its attempt to respond to Benjamin's plea to “expound the nineteenth century” and liberate us “from the stupendous forces of history,” using aisthesis , “a weak messianic force,” and “dream visions.” Taking the cue from Gelley's reference to Benjamin's rebellion against “a secret agreement between past generations and the present one” (156), this review attempts to open up the context and…
The Post-Heideggerian Age
What is it in the drama of Heidegger's existential query that keeps us so busy, nearly a century since its introduction into the philosophical discourse? Is it its darkness? Or is it the absolute demand for a dangerous “opening to the world” while shutting down any possibility for self-disclosure? Or maybe, just maybe, it is Heidegger's critical self-reflection, a stance as remarkable as his refusal to take responsibility and practice self-restra…
Das Leben vom Tode her
Neutral Angles
This article focuses on the legal discourse of the first decade and a half of the Israeli state, from 1947 to 1961, through a close reading of texts written by the first generation of legal theorists in Israel. I show that conditions formed during that period still run our present possibilities and, more often than not, limit them. The article ties together a German Jewish discourse of emergency, on the one hand, and the politics of etatism (maml…
Biometrics, or The Power of the Radical Center
Catastrophes
Catastrophic scenarios dominate our contemporary mindset. Catastrophic events and predictions have spurred new interest in re-examining the history of earlier disasters and the social and conceptual resources they have mobilized. The essays gathered in this volume reconsider the history and theory of different catastrophes and their aftermath. The emphasis is on the need to distance this process of reconsideration from previous teleological repre…
The history of nihilism and the limits of political critique
Nihilism is commonly defined as ‘a philosophy of negation, rejection, or denial of some or all aspects of thought or life’ [Craig, Edward, ed. 1998. “Nihilism.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge]. It has been interpreted since its early days as a radical negation of all forms of authority – whether that authority be God, a human sovereign, or moral values. More specifically, the concept of nihilism has emphasized the conn…
The Philosophy of Life and Death
Some of the first figures the Nazis conscripted in their rise to power were rhetoricians devoted to popularizing the German vocabulary of Leben (life). This fascinating study reexamines this movement
Philosophy of Life and Death
The Biopolitical Film (A Nietzschean Paradigm)
Biopolitical cinema, exemplified by Michael Winterbottom, Roland Emmerich, and others, has questioned the ability of representative democracy to handle a catastrophic situation. Beyond that, biopolitical film has undermined the moral and political legitimacy of the democratic system as a whole. This article examines the formative moments of biopolitics: its affirmative use by German post-Nietzscheans of the 1920s and ‘30s, the French critique dur…
Near the End
In May 1967, at the bottom of a page in a book by Gershom Scholem, Celan jotted down three lines in Yiddish. This note, which alludes to a poem by Moyshe‐Leib Halpern, is the predecessor to “Nah, im Aortenbogen.” The poem, completed while Celan was intensely preoccupied with his meeting with Martin Heidegger, expressed his poetic reaction to Heidegger and Scholem, a sense that between the German and the German‐Jewish an ironic fissure might divid…
The Sovereignty of Modern Times
Given World and Time is a collection of essays that summarizes much of the recent work on the theory of time, including cultural, political, and social conceptualizations of temporality. The grounding narrative of this collection, roughly stated, leads from the German and German-Jewish ideas of a temporality of crisis developed in the 1920s, to the French poststructuralism of the 1960s and 1970s, and concludes with the American syntheses of the 1…
The Jerusalem School
This article addresses the strange reappearance of Carl Schmitt in the context of German Jewish thought after 1940. The focus is on the role political theology played in the work of Martin Buber, Hugo Bergman, and Jacob Taubes, three men who met in Jerusalem during the late 1940s and early 1950s. They interpreted their own contemporary reality through the discourse of political theology, using the Schmittian concepts of divine decision, the crisi…
The Jerusalem School
This article addresses the strange reappearance of Carl Schmitt in the context of German Jewish thought after 1940. The focus is on the role political theology played in the work of Martin Buber, Hugo Bergman, and Jacob Taubes, three men who met in Jerusalem during the late 1940s and early 1950s. They interpreted their own contemporary reality through the discourse of political theology, using the Schmittian concepts of divine decision, the crisi…
The Beauty and Terror of Lebensphilosophie
During the past two decades interest in Walter Benjamin and fascist aesthetics has extended well beyond the limits of any social and political focus. Strangely, a little investigation shows that this vogue has been fueled by the historical roots of Benjamin's theory as much as by the discourse he employed-- downplayed by current historians-- a mixture of aesthetic critical theory, ideas about temporality drawn from the philosophy of life [Lebensp…
Biometrics, or The Power of the Radical Center
The history of nihilism and the limits of political critique
Nihilism is commonly defined as ‘a philosophy of negation, rejection, or denial of some or all aspects of thought or life’ [Craig, Edward, ed. 1998. “Nihilism.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge]. It has been interpreted since its early days as a radical negation of all forms of authority – whether that authority be God, a human sovereign, or moral values. More specifically, the concept of nihilism has emphasized the conn…
The Sovereignty of Modern Times
Given World and Time is a collection of essays that summarizes much of the recent work on the theory of time, including cultural, political, and social conceptualizations of temporality. The grounding narrative of this collection, roughly stated, leads from the German and German-Jewish ideas of a temporality of crisis developed in the 1920s, to the French poststructuralism of the 1960s and 1970s, and concludes with the American syntheses of the 1…
The seduction of unreason, the intellectual romance with fascism
The Beauty and Terror of Lebensphilosophie
During the past two decades interest in Walter Benjamin and fascist aesthetics has extended well beyond the limits of any social and political focus. Strangely, a little investigation shows that this vogue has been fueled by the historical roots of Benjamin's theory as much as by the discourse he employed-- downplayed by current historians-- a mixture of aesthetic critical theory, ideas about temporality drawn from the philosophy of life [Lebensp…
The Jerusalem School
This article addresses the strange reappearance of Carl Schmitt in the context of German Jewish thought after 1940. The focus is on the role political theology played in the work of Martin Buber, Hugo Bergman, and Jacob Taubes, three men who met in Jerusalem during the late 1940s and early 1950s. They interpreted their own contemporary reality through the discourse of political theology, using the Schmittian concepts of divine decision, the crisi…
Near the End
In May 1967, at the bottom of a page in a book by Gershom Scholem, Celan jotted down three lines in Yiddish. This note, which alludes to a poem by Moyshe‐Leib Halpern, is the predecessor to “Nah, im Aortenbogen.” The poem, completed while Celan was intensely preoccupied with his meeting with Martin Heidegger, expressed his poetic reaction to Heidegger and Scholem, a sense that between the German and the German‐Jewish an ironic fissure might divid…
The Sovereignty of Modern Times
Given World and Time is a collection of essays that summarizes much of the recent work on the theory of time, including cultural, political, and social conceptualizations of temporality. The grounding narrative of this collection, roughly stated, leads from the German and German-Jewish ideas of a temporality of crisis developed in the 1920s, to the French poststructuralism of the 1960s and 1970s, and concludes with the American syntheses of the 1…
The Biopolitical Film (A Nietzschean Paradigm)
Biopolitical cinema, exemplified by Michael Winterbottom, Roland Emmerich, and others, has questioned the ability of representative democracy to handle a catastrophic situation. Beyond that, biopolitical film has undermined the moral and political legitimacy of the democratic system as a whole. This article examines the formative moments of biopolitics: its affirmative use by German post-Nietzscheans of the 1920s and ‘30s, the French critique dur…
The Philosophy of Life and Death
Some of the first figures the Nazis conscripted in their rise to power were rhetoricians devoted to popularizing the German vocabulary of Leben (life). This fascinating study reexamines this movement
Philosophy of Life and Death
Catastrophes
Catastrophic scenarios dominate our contemporary mindset. Catastrophic events and predictions have spurred new interest in re-examining the history of earlier disasters and the social and conceptual resources they have mobilized. The essays gathered in this volume reconsider the history and theory of different catastrophes and their aftermath. The emphasis is on the need to distance this process of reconsideration from previous teleological repre…
The history of nihilism and the limits of political critique
Nihilism is commonly defined as ‘a philosophy of negation, rejection, or denial of some or all aspects of thought or life’ [Craig, Edward, ed. 1998. “Nihilism.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge]. It has been interpreted since its early days as a radical negation of all forms of authority – whether that authority be God, a human sovereign, or moral values. More specifically, the concept of nihilism has emphasized the conn…
Das Leben vom Tode her
Neutral Angles
This article focuses on the legal discourse of the first decade and a half of the Israeli state, from 1947 to 1961, through a close reading of texts written by the first generation of legal theorists in Israel. I show that conditions formed during that period still run our present possibilities and, more often than not, limit them. The article ties together a German Jewish discourse of emergency, on the one hand, and the politics of etatism (maml…
Biometrics, or The Power of the Radical Center
The Last European
This review of Alexander Gelley's captivating book follows its attempt to respond to Benjamin's plea to “expound the nineteenth century” and liberate us “from the stupendous forces of history,” using aisthesis , “a weak messianic force,” and “dream visions.” Taking the cue from Gelley's reference to Benjamin's rebellion against “a secret agreement between past generations and the present one” (156), this review attempts to open up the context and…
The Post-Heideggerian Age
What is it in the drama of Heidegger's existential query that keeps us so busy, nearly a century since its introduction into the philosophical discourse? Is it its darkness? Or is it the absolute demand for a dangerous “opening to the world” while shutting down any possibility for self-disclosure? Or maybe, just maybe, it is Heidegger's critical self-reflection, a stance as remarkable as his refusal to take responsibility and practice self-restra…
The History of Political Melancholy as an Alternative History of Zionism
Understanding political melancholy as central to the crisis of modernity and democracy implies a growing realization that melancholy teaches us something essential about different forms of political crisis and their affective modes. This essay contends that the relationship between political melancholy in Weimar Germany and its repurposing by German Jews for Zionist thought reveals how political melancholy was and remains at the heart of Zionism.…
Biopolitics Among the Disciplines
A new wave of publications attempts to bring together theory and history in order to reconsider the past, present, and future in light of a looming catastrophe. Whether in political theory, sociology, anthropology, or intellectual history, scholars are attempting to reflect about the present beyond the old boundaries that separate left and right, inner and outer, civilian and solider, friend and enemy. Three recent publications, by Catherine Mill…
A R esponse to F rançois H artog , “ C hronos , K airos , K risis
Homo Complexus
The moment in which we live proposes a staggering new challenge to past, present, and future understanding of our existence: climate change in general, and the Anthropocene in particular, requires a recalibration of all temporal relationships. In this article, I propose to identify the agent of change with current forms of complicity, or, as I call it in the title to this piece, the Homo complexus. A focus on complicity, I will argue, suggests th…
Capitalism and the New Political Unconscious
Taking seriously Jacques Lacan’s claim that “the unconscious is politics”, this volume proposes a new understanding of political power, as it interrogates the assumption that contemporary capitalism functions by tapping into people’s forms of unconscious enjoyment, rather than providing transcendental conditions for the articulation of political meanings and desires. Whether we’re aware of it or not, political communication today targets the audi…
Enzo Traverso, Left-Wing Melancholia
Daniel M. Herskowitz. Heidegger and His Jewish Reception . New York
The Myth of the Jew
The Myth of the Jew:Negating the Negation Nitzan Lebovic (bio) Keywords Myth, Jewish thought, Paul Hanebrink, Elad Lapidot, Ole Jakob Løland Paul Hanebrink, A Specter Haunting Europe: The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2018. Elad Lapidot, Jews out of the Question: A Critique of Anti-Anti-Semitism. Albany: SUNY Press, 2020. Ole Jakob Løland, Pauline Ugliness: Jacob Taubes and the Turn to Paul. New York: Fordham Univ…
The Poverty of Ethics
The Zone of Complicity
Jonathan Glazer’s 2024 film Zone of Interest opens with a serene pastoral scene: amid birdsong, a German family relaxes and chats on a lush meadow by a lakeside before the men go down to the water
Philosophy (17 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · Epistemology (13 works) · Politics (11 works) · History (8 works) · Art (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · German (6 works)