Professor Asa Kasher to Join Interdisciplinary Program in Philosophy and Jewish Thought at Shalem College
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 25, 2011
Contact: Director of Communications +972-50-205-2691
(JERUSALEM, ISRAEL) – The Shalem Center today announced that Israel Prize Winner Professor Asa Kasher has accepted a professorship in the Department of Philosophy, Political Theory, and Religion (PPR) at Shalem College, expected to open in Fall 2012.
“Professor Kasher is one of Israel’s leading philosophers, an internationally recognized scholar who combines first-rate research with a deep sense of responsibility to the State of Israel and the future of Judaism,” said Shalem Center Provost and Senior Fellow Yoram Hazony. “He is an outstanding example of the type of innovative civic leadership we hope to cultivate at Shalem College, and we are very excited to be working with him.”
Professor Kasher is the founder and editor of the journal Philosophia, and has written extensively on the pragmatics of language, philosophy of religion, political philosophy, Jewish philosophy, Jewish history, psychology, and computer science. Formerly the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Chair in Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice and Horidisch Chair in Philosophy of Language at Tel Aviv University, Kasher is also a foremost expert on professional ethics in the military, medicine, communications, and academia.
Beginning in Fall 2011, Kasher will also be a Templeton Fellow at the Shalem Center, working on an updated and expanded English-language version of his book, Judaism and Idolatry. Part of a three-year, $5.7 million project in philosophical theology that will also include two Christian institutions, the Templeton Foundation’s “Analytic Theology” project aims to advance the use of philosophical methods in the study of religious topics and texts. The Jewish component of the project, which is based at the Shalem Center’s Department of Philosophy, Political Theory and Religion (PPR), will focus on developing techniques for the philosophical investigation of the Hebrew Bible, Talmud and Midrash.
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The Shalem Center (www.shalemcenter.com) is a Jerusalem-based institute that engages in research, publishing, and education in the fields of philosophy, political theory, Jewish and Zionist history and thought, Bible and Talmud, Middle East Studies, and strategic studies. Shalem has submitted an application to the Israel Council for Higher Education to open Israel's first liberal arts college, which will offer the first Israeli B.A. modeled on the American liberal arts degree. The college is expected to open in the Fall of 2012.
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