Joydeep Bagchee, PhD
Professor, philosopher, and scholar
Professor Bagchee holds a PhD in Philosophy from New School for Social Research, New York. His areas of expertise are twentieth-century Continental philosophy, German Romanticism, Nietzsche, philology, and the Western reception of Indian thought.
Latest Publication
Duns Scotus’s Doctrine of Categories and Meaning is a key text for the origins of Martin Heidegger’s concept of “facticity.” Originally submitted as a postdoctoral thesis in 1915, it focuses on the 13th-century philosopher-theologian John Duns Scotus.
Heidegger first analyzes Scotus’s doctrine of categories, then offers a meticulous explanation of the Grammatica Speculativa, a work of medieval grammar now known to be authored by the Modist grammarian Thomas of Erfurt. Taken together, these investigations represent an early foray into Heidegger's lifelong philosophical concerns, “the question of being in the guise of the problem of categories and the question of language in the guise of the doctrine of meaning.”
This new and unique translation of one of Heidegger’s earliest works offers an important look at his early thinking before the question of being became his central concern and will appeal to readers exploring Heidegger’s philosophical development, medieval philosophy, phenomenological interpretations of the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of language.
Professor Bagchee is a graduate of the New School for Social Research. After receiving his MA from the New School in 2003, he spent time as an exchange fellow at Humboldt Universität Berlin and as a DAAD fellows at Albert Ludwigs Universität Freiburg. After completing a dissertation on Heidegger’s early writings, Dr. Bagchee worked as a research assistant to Prof. Arbogast Schmitt in Marburg. He has taught courses at Technische Universität Dresden (in German) and Ludwig Maximilians Universität, Munich (in English). Prof. Bagchee was a fellow of the Zukunftsphilologie: Revisiting the Canons of Textual Scholarship program at Freie Universität Berlin. He currently teaches as a core doctoral faculty member at the Hindu University of America.
New Publication
For centuries Jews in Germany were denied full rights and excluded from gentile society. At the same time, Jewish law restricted scholarship to exegesis of the Talmud. But from the late seventeenth century onward, as German universities progressively opened their doors to them, many Jews turned toward university studies. This process accelerated around 1800 once education (Bildung) assumed a central role for social ascent among the so-called Bildungsbürgertum (cultural bourgeoisie). Many Jews sought to benefit from the professional and social opportunities that university attendance enabled, but they soon discovered that while the state encouraged education as a means of the “moral improvement” of the Jews, it was unwilling to concede them the right to professional careers. Alienated from their ancestral religion and unwilling or unable to return to trading occupations, academized Jews often found themselves leading precarious existences. Many joined the struggle for emancipation or took up the reform of Judaism.
Now available in English translation for the first time, Monika Richarz’s classic study addresses the far-reaching transformation of German Jewry under the impact of university education. It traces the secularization of Jewish education, the significance of academic education for social assimilation, and the loss of Jewish solidarity with increasing acculturation and emancipation.
Upcoming Events and Lectures
German Jews and the University, 1678–1848, book launch event at The Center for Jewish History, Wed, Nov 30, 2022, 2:00 PM EST — tickets and information
Joydeep Bagchee, “Jewish Contributions to the Hindu-Christian Dialogue,” panel on The Missing Third in Hindu-Christian Studies, Society for Hindu-Christian Studies, Sun, Nov 20, 9:00 AM MST — registration and information
Earlier Books
The Nay Science offers a new perspective on the problem of scientific method in the human sciences. Taking German Indological scholarship on the Mahābhārata and the Bhagavadgītā as their example, Adluri and Bagchee develop a critique of the modern valorization of method over truth in the humanities.
The first book to present a comprehensive review of the Mahābhārata Critical Edition, with overviews of stemmata (textual trees), how the logic of the stemmata determined editorial choices, and an in-depth analysis of the edition’s strengths and drawbacks. An invaluable asset to any scholar working contemplating serious work on the Mahābhārata.
Argument and Design features fifteen essays by leading scholars of the Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyaṇa, discussing the Mahābhārata’s upākhyānas, subtales that branch off from the central storyline and provide vantage points for reflecting on it.
Often spoken of as the “Fifth Veda,” i.e., as a text in continuity with the four Vedas and outweighing them all in size and import, the Mahābhārata presents a complex mythological and narrative landscape, incorporating fundamental ethical, social, philosophic, and pedagogic issues.
Explicitly acknowledging its status as a strī-śūdra-veda (a Veda for women and the downtrodden), the Mahābhārata articulates a promise to bring knowledge of right conduct, fundamental ethical, philosophical, and soteriological teachings, and its own grand narrative to all classes of people and all beings.