Emily J. Levine. Dreamland of Humanists

As an admirer of the German Jewish scholars discussed in Emily J. Levine's Dreamland of Humanists: Warburg, Cassirer, Panofsky, and the Hamburg School, I was enthusiastic about the prospect of reviewing her book. Its premise is one that I share. Levine argues that the efflorescence of German Jewish humanist scholarship in fields such as philosophy and art history, beginning in the Wilhelmine era, should not be understood as a process of deracination and assimilation, as a movement “‘beyond Judaism.’” Levine wisely eschews the wisdom of hindsight that treats liberal Jewish aspirations for social acceptance into German society as “a tale of delusion” (p. xii). Aligned with recent regional and subcultural studies of German Jewish history, Levine's story is one of diasporic adaptation and vernacular cosmopolitanism in which Jews “use[d] German and European culture to mediate their religious identity” and where “being a good Jew meant contributing to the general inquiry of ideas.” Recognizing that the coterie of Hamburg-based intellectuals Aby Warburg, Ernst Cassirer, and Erwin Panofsky were “astute scholars of symbolism” (p. xii), Levine's approach is contextual, sensitive to the ethos of her chosen subjects and its inflection by Hamburg's regional identity and political significance as a mercantile port city resistant to Prussian dominance.

Art history · Ethos · German · Humanism · Jewish identity · Judaism · Political science · Sociology · Theology · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies