Public Lecture by Joseph Cohen: The ‘Unthinkable’ in Heidegger’s History of Being: Judaism and the Black Notebooks

Last year Professor Cohen hosted a major international conference at the National Library in Paris on Martin Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, which appeared on its author’s instructions 50 years after his death.  Given its contents, this publication warrants a reconsideration of the role Judaism played in Heidegger’s philosophical views.  Professor Cohen is ideally suited to address the significance of Heidegger’s posthumous writings, and more broadly, to explore the philosophical implications of Heidegger’s views on Judaism.

Joseph Cohen is an authority on continental philosophy, and one of his areas of expertise is the place of Judaism in contemporary French and German thought. Cohen’s major publications include:  Le spectre juif de Hegel (Paris, Galilée, 2005), Le sacrifice de Hegel (Paris, Galilée, 2007), Alternances de la métaphysique. Essais sur E. Levinas (Paris, Galilée, 2009), The Husserl Dictionary and (with D. Moran, London, Continuum, 2012) and the edited volume Heidegger et « les juifs » (Paris, Grasset, 2015).