A New Volume of Hungarian Essays by Ignaz Goldziher

Though best known for his formative and decisive contributions to the field of Arab-Islamic studies, the Hungarian orientalist Ignaz Goldziher (1850–1921) also had a considerable impact on the field of Jewish studies. His first publication, at the age of twelve, already reveals his interests in the history of Judaism and its prospects in the modern world, 1 and his doctoral dissertation, prepared as a teenager working under the supervision of the great H. L. Fleischer (1801–1888) in Leipzig on the thirteenth-century Jewish philologist and exegete Tanḥūm ben Joseph Yerūshalmī, 2 already displays its author as “a very distinguished scholarly mind”. 3 His first extended monograph dealt with issues concerning the function and importance of mythology among the ancient Israelites, 4 and further, with the anti-Semitic and racist theories of European scholars and intellectuals like Ernest Renan (1823–1892). 5

Ancient history · Archaeology · Feminism · Judaism · Mythology · Oriental studies · Orientalism · Philology · Sociology · Classics · Gender Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Religious studies