NCJSS Welcomes Andrea Gondos

The North Carolina Jewish Studies Seminar welcomes Andrea Gondos, Stuart B. and Barbara Padnos Assistant Professor of Jewish Thought at University of Michigan.

Gondos' scholarship explores early modern and medieval kabbalah in conversation with Jewish cultural and intellectual history. She is particularly interested in how esoteric knowledge was preserved, transmitted, and reimagined in the premodern period. Her recently published co-edited book, Life of the Soul: Jewish Perspectives on Reincarnation from the Middle Ages to the Modern Period (SUNY, 2024), explores wide-ranging theories Jewish mystics and philosophers have offered on the concept of reincarnation. Earlier research analyzed the literary characteristics of the medieval mystical classic, the Sefer ha-Zohar (Book of Enlightenment), and its popularization among Jews and Christians in the age of print. Gondos' first monograph, Kabbalah in Print: The Study and Popularization of Jewish Mysticism in Early Modernity (SUNY, 2020), examined how the technology of print influenced the popularization of kabbalah in the early modern period paying special attention to the literary strategies and pedagogic objectives authors pursued. Her current book project centers on the gendered aspects of healthcare and wellbeing in early modern Jewish recipe books of magic and practical Kabbalah. In this monograph, she is particularly interested in uncovering the material aspects of Jewish magic by examining the types of healing strategies Jewish male miracle workers (Ba'alei Shem) deployed for the management and treatment of the female body and its reproductive functions.