The Erasmus of Rotterdam Research Centre (ERRC) regularly organizes the so-called Erasmus Seminars, where we bring together academics who have an interest in Erasmus from their research. The content of the seminars is diverse, from discussions on recent publications to extensive lectures. On behalf of the ERRC, we cordially invite you to the upcoming seminar on Thursday, November 10, 2022. During this meeting, Nathan Ron and Han van Ruler will give presentations on Erasmus’ relation to Jews and Judaism.
What? Erasmus Seminar with presentations by Nathan Ron and Han van Ruler
When? Thursday, November 10, 2022, 15:00-17:00 hrs.
Where? Campus Woudestein (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Polak Building 2-16, Rotterdam For more information: Visit our website!
Programme
- Nathan Ron, ‘Erasmus and the Jews: A Critical Revisit’
In this talk, Ron will present his revisionist research which subverts the traditional conception of Erasmus’ tolerance and a-Semitism enrooted by Shimon Markish’s influential Erasmus and the Jews. In doing so, Ron will argue against Han van Ruler’s review of Ron’s book Erasmus and the “Other.”
- Han van Ruler, ‘Erasmus, anti-Semitism and the Course of History’
In this talk, Van Ruler will discuss some of Ron’s arguments, relate them to earlier debates in which Erasmus was linked to anti-Semitism and try to reassess the nature of Erasmus’ cultural preconceptions as well as the impact of his thought on later cultural history.
Dr. Nathan Ron is Research Fellow at the School of History, The University of Haifa, Israel. He translated various Renaissance classics from Latin into Hebrew and is the author of many publications on the conception of Alterity in Erasmus, amongst which are the following four books: Erasmus and the “Other”: On Turks, Jews, and Indigenous Peoples (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019); Erasmus: Intellectual of the 16th Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021); Erasmus, The Turks And Islam (Resling, 2022, in Hebrew); Erasmus and the Jews: Humanism and Antisemitism in Early Modern Europe (Pardes, forthcoming in Hebrew 2023).
Han van Ruler is Professor of Intellectual History at ESPhil. He specializes in seventeenth-century Western philosophy and science as well as in Renaissance moral thought. He has published a variety of articles and a popular book on Erasmus. Since 2020, he directs the Erasmus of Rotterdam Research Centre at ESPhil.