Emma M. Brodeur is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies in the Department of Religion & Classics from 2022-2024. She earned her PhD in Religion in 2019 at Syracuse University. Her research and teaching are located at intersections of religion, philosophy, and psychoanalysis with a focus on modern Jewish thought and culture. In particular, she analyzes the bodily, sensory, and affective dimensions of Jewish identities and difference in modern Europe and the U.S. She is currently writing a book entitled Sigmund Freud’s Dreams of Jewishness: Moses, Hieroglyphs, and the Bible in which she argues that Freud’s theories of dream-work and interpretation offer important insights into his thought on Judaism and Jewishness.

Dr. Brodeur is also writing an article in which she compares Moses Mendelssohn’s philosophy of Judaism as a bodily sign language meant to be seen, not spoken, to the simultaneous development of deaf sign languages in 18^th century France and exposes the ways in which the rights of citizenship in the modern nation state are inseparable from the politics of signs.

Recent publications include an online article on Julia Kristeva’s thought and practice for the Political Theology Network: https://politicaltheology.com/julia-kristeva/

Research Overview

Modern Jewish Thought and Culture
Freudian and post-Freudian Psychoanalysis
Continental Philosophy
Methods and Theories in the Study of Religion

Teaching

Current

• RELC 103 - History of Judaism
• RELC 275 - Psychology, Religion, Ethics, Love
• RELC 283 - History of Science
• RELC 325 - Responding to the Holocaust
• RELC 328 - Jewish Bodies & Embodiment