{"id":9481,"date":"2022-02-08T14:02:42","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T18:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/?post_type=profile&p=9481"},"modified":"2024-08-27T12:42:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T16:42:22","slug":"diana-lobel","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/faculty\/diana-lobel\/","title":{"rendered":"Diana Lobel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Associate Professor\u00a0of Religion, Ph.D, Harvard University (1995); MTS, Harvard Divinity School (1982); BA, Oberlin College (1979). Previously held Anna Smith Fine Chair in Judaic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, Rice University (1997-99); Harry Starr Fellow in Judaica, Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University (1999-2000); Fellow at Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies, University of Maryland at College Park, Lecturer in University Honors Program (1996-97). Joined the Department of Religion in the fall of 2000.<\/p>\n

Professor Lobel teaches comparative religious thought. Her teaching emphasizes interactions between philosophy and religion, close textual reading, and religious experience. She is also fascinated by the way religious traditions continually renew themselves through the ongoing process of interpretation. Her classes thus feature interactive study, highlighting creative dialogue between varied modes of reading and interpreting texts.<\/p>\n

Professor Lobel\u2019s first two books explore the intertwined nexus of Jewish and Islamic thought in two medieval Judeo-Arabic classics\u2014Judah Halevi\u2019s philosophical dialogue\u00a0The Kuzari<\/em>\u00a0and Bahya Ibn Paquda\u2019s manual of Jewish pietism,\u00a0Duties of the Heart<\/em>\u2013\u2013and the impact of Sufi mysticism on Jewish philosophy. In several articles, she has also investigated the work of the medieval Judeo-Arabic thinker Moses Maimonides. \u201cSilence is Praise to You\u201d addresses the connection between silence, awe, and religious experience. \u201cBeing and the Good: Maimonides on Ontological Beauty\u201d explores Maimonides\u2019 aesthetic appreciation of Being as the absolute good and the source of all beauty and value.<\/p>\n

Her third book,\u00a0The Quest for God and the Good: World Philosophy as a Living Experience<\/em>\u00a0(Columbia University Press, 2011) explores concepts of divinity and goodness across philosophical and religious traditions, East and West. Her fourth book,\u00a0Philosophies of Happiness: A Comparative Introduction to the Flourishing Life\u00a0<\/em>(Columbia University Press, 2017) continues the theme of Eastern and Western conceptions of the flourishing life, in sources such as Aristotle, Maimonides, the Confucian\u00a0Analects<\/em>, the\u00a0Bhagavad G\u012bt\u0101,\u00a0<\/em>and the Sufi poem\u00a0Conference of the Birds,\u00a0<\/em>in dialogue with contemporary studies of mindfulness and happiness.<\/p>\n

Her\u00a0fifth book,\u00a0Moses and Abraham Maimonides: Encountering the Divine<\/em>\u00a0(Academic Studies Press, 2021), returns to the Judeo-Arabic tradition. The book demonstrates the way Abraham Maimonides\u2019 Torah commentary engages the philosophical interpretations of his father Moses Maimonides, Biblical exegetes such as Saadya, and Sufi-flavored illuminative mysticism. In addition, the book explores the intersecting approaches of Moses and Abraham Maimonides to the divine name\u00a0Ehyeh asher Ehyeh\u00a0<\/em>(I am that I am\/I will be who I will be) and its relationship to the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable four-letter name of God.<\/p>\n

Her most recent book, Faith and Trust: An Introduction to Judeo-Arabic Thought <\/em>(Academic Studies Press, 2024), explores a family of related Judeo-Arabic concepts\u2014faith (im\u0101n, emunah<\/em>), conviction (i\u2018tiqa\u0304d<\/em>), and trust\/reliance (tawakkul\/ittik\u0101l<\/em>)\u2014in Saadya, Ba\u1e25ya, Halevi, Maimonides, Abraham Maimonides, and the circle of Abraham he-\u1e24asid. The work points to a spectrum of conceptions of faith and trust\u2014from the purely cognitive to the experiential and affective. What emerges are themes of faithfulness, experiential certainty, trustworthiness, and devotion. The study illustrates the \u201cJewish-Arab symbiosis,\u201d highlighting the shared spiritual language and rich, intertwined worlds of Islamic and Jewish philosophy, theology, and mysticism.<\/p>\n

Lobel CV 2024<\/a><\/p>\n

Books<\/h2>\n

\"Phil
\nPhilosophies of Happiness: A Comparative Introduction to the Flourishing Life<\/em><\/a>
\nBy Diana Lobel
\nColumbia University Press
\nNovember 2017
\nBuy it now from Columbia University Press
\n<\/a>Supplementary Notes and Appendixes are available at: https:\/\/bu.academia.edu\/dianalobel<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Quest for God and the Good: World Philosophy as a Living Experience<\/a><\/em>
\nBy Diana Lobel
\nColumbia University Press
\nJuly 2011
\nBuy it now from Columbia University Press
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a>A Sufi-Jewish Dialogue: Philosophy and Mysticism in Bahya Ibn Paquda\u2019s Duties of the Heart.<\/em><\/a>
\nBy Diana Lobel
\nUniversity of Pennsylvania Press
\nNovember 1, 2006
\nBuy it now from Amazon.com!<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/a> Between Mysticism and Philosophy: Sufi Language of Religious Experience in Judah Ha-Levi\u2019s Kuzari<\/em><\/a>
\nBy Diana Lobel
\nState University of New York Press
\nJune 1, 2000
\nBuy it now from Amazon.com<\/a>!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Courses<\/h2>\n
    \n
  • CAS RN 206 Scriptures in World Religions<\/li>\n
  • CAS RN 245 Religious Thought: the Quest for God and the Good\/PH 245 Philosophy and Religion<\/li>\n
  • CAS RN 338\/638 Mysticism and Philosophy: Jewish and Islamic Perspectives<\/li>\n
  • CAS RN 323\/623 Classical Jewish Thought<\/li>\n
  • CAS RN 424\/724\u00a0 Core Texts and Motifs of World Religions-East<\/li>\n
  • CAS RN 452\/752 Topics in Religious Thought: Religious Thought, East and West<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"author":1630,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/9481"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1630"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/9481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11670,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/9481\/revisions\/11670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/religion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}