The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science »

In the third part of the nineteenth century, social scientific branches of learning such as sociology and anthropology gradually established themselves as academic disciplines. The transformation of the human sciences into the social sciences was closely linked to attempts to develop and implement methods for dealing with social tensions and the rationalization of society. This book discusses the sociological-philosophical paradigm of Georg Simmel and the anthropological paradigm of Franz Boas–both of whom played a crucial role in shaping the course of academic social science—and compares their respective general epistemological considerations and their notions of assimilation. Morris-Reich demonstrates that the different appreciations of the Jews' contemporary situation and the different prognoses of their future in general society are closely linked to internal disciplinary-paradigmatic considerations. This conceptual model gives a new key to pivotal issues in recent Jewish history and in the history of the social sciences.

Preface and Acknowledgments     xi
Introduction     1
Language, Culture, and the Representation of the Jews     17
Assimilation as Extinction: Race, Mixture, and Difference     34
From Assimilation to Difference     51
Objects, Definitions, and Assimilation     68
The Aesthetics of Jewish Assimilation: Form and Individuality     85
The "Jew": Object of Research and "Quilting Point"     105
Conclusion     123
Notes     133
Bibliography     169
Index     187