Thinking Critically in College: The Essential Handbook for Student Success
Nearly every first-year college student discovers that college courses are more academically challenging than they expected, and certainly harder than classes in high school. Professors expect students not just to absorb material, but to analyze and synthesize it, to consider multiple perspectives, to evaluate conflicting evidence, and then to apply what they’ve learned in new contexts.
Thinking Critically in College explains how to do all this and more.
Unlike most college prep books—which advise you to go to office hours, get enough sleep, take good notes, and learn how to get along with your roommate—this one actually shows you how to do the work your professors will assign and explains how to tackle common academic challenges. This accessible and comprehensive handbook covers metacognition (thinking about how you think); basic critical thinking skills; college-level reading, writing, and quantitative reasoning; how to think about academic disciplines; decoding actual assignments from college courses, and tackling research projects.
“Thinking Critically in College details and exemplifies the differences between high school and college. Students who read this book before coming to college will have an advantage over those who don’t. The book is an excellent candidate for colleges that assign “summer reads,” or for extended orientation programs that have semester-long seminars or programing about the transition to college. Faculty teaching in introductory courses or seminars designed for new students will also want to assign this book…Thinking Critically in College—a unique primer on the college experience—offers one-stop-shopping to faculty and students seeking practical advice about the transition to college.”
Lee Cuba
Professor of Sociology emeritus, Wellesley College
Author of Practice for Life: Making Decisions in College
Repentance: The Meaning & Practice of Teshuvah
Almost every day, in ways large and small, we hurt others, most often those closest to us, in ways that we regret. These inevitable shortcomings, if not addressed and redressed, bring guilt and shame in their wake, undermine our relationships, and can even erode our selfesteem. We want to undo what we have done, but how? We want to reclaim our integrity, but where do we begin?
Combining personal reflections with profound scholarship, Dr. Louis E. Newman examines the way our society deals with moral failings and illustrates how the Jewish principles of teshuvah--truthfulness, responsibility and humility--are the key to rehabilitation and reconciliation, both divine and human. Addressing our most profound questions about moral development, he explores:
How do we overcome our evil impulses?
What traits do we most need to cultivate in order to repent?
How can we repent to those we have wronged?
How can we repent to those who have died or who are no longer reachable?
How can teshuvah enable us to make peace with our transgressions while also helping us to develop a stronger sense of responsibility?
“This book is a gem. Not only will it have ‘legs,’ but it will be up there with the great mussar texts. Louis Newman’s Repentance is part prayer, part poetry, part ethical mentoring, part autobiography, part halakha, part consciousness raising, part theological wrestling, part psychological insights. How did he manage to do all this? One reason is that teshuva is a multifaceted, highly complex, actionable idea – much more so than even its unreflective practitioners ever imagined. Another is that Louis Newman possesses an intellectually rigorous mind, a generous heart, and a tender, tender soul. He is also honest to the core. I think that I will become a better person for having read, and reread, this book. “
Blu Greenberg
Founder, Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance
Past Imperatives: Studies in the History and Theory of Jewish Ethics
Past Imperatives explores the nature and development of Jewish ethics by analyzing three important sets of issues: the relationship between Jewish law and ethics, the relationship between Jewish ethics and theology, and the problems and prospects for constructing a contemporary Jewish ethic. The penetrating and provocative essays are drawn from a number of fields, including legal theory, literary theory, and theory of religion. These studies illuminate many previously uninvestigated aspects of Jewish biomedical ethics, covenant theology, and textual interpretation in Judaism.
By exploring these issues within the larger context of historical and theoretical work in religious studies, Past Imperatives moves beyond previous work in Jewish ethics, which has largely sought to offer moral guidance from a Jewish perspective. This volume boldly confronts the fact that Judaism encompasses many, sometimes contradictory, ethical perspectives and investigates their theological underpinnings, how they have developed, and how they differ from other moral and/or religious perspectives.
“Past Imperatives will quickly become the most important methodological study of Jewish ethics in English.”
David Novak
J. Richard and Dorothy Shiff Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto
An Introduction to Jewish Ethics
Introduction to Jewish Ethics offers a concise overview of the Jewish ethical tradition as it has evolved from biblical times to the present. The volume provides a broad conceptual overview of the central beliefs of classical Judaism and the ways in which these frame traditional Jewish approaches to issues in ethics, both theoretical and practical and it familiarizes readers with the distinctive ways in which contemporary Jewish ethics draw upon this rich tradition of religious-ethical reflection as they address key ethical issue of our day. The volume examines religion, ethics and religious ethics, Judaism and Jewish Ethics, sources of Jewish ethics, contours of Jewish moral life, foundations of moral obligation in Judaism and Jewish ethics in modern times. For those interested in religion and ethics.
“For too long scholars of religious ethics have lacked a basic text in Jewish ethics. Louis E. Newman has rewarded our patience with a volume that is learned, engaging, balanced and comprehensive. . .With clarity and grace, he covers a range of issues that inform Jewish tradition: revelation and reason, scripture and commentary, tradition and modernity, worldview and ethos. He also provides a sampling of Jewish thinking regarding sexuality, abortion, and war. Student of Judaism, religious ethics, and moral theory will find this book essential reading.”
Richard B. Miller
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor Emeritus of Religion, Politics, and Ethics
University of Chicago Divinity School
Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader
Over the past decade much significant new work has appeared in the field of Jewish ethics. While much of this work has been devoted to issues in applied ethics, a number of important essays have explored central themes within the tradition and clarified the theoretical foundations of Jewish ethics. This important text grew out of the need for a single work which accurately and conveniently reflects these developments within the field.
The first text of its kind in almost two decades, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality presents wide-ranging and carefully organized recent essays on Jewish ethical theory and practice. Serving as an introduction to Jewish ethics, it acquaints the student with the distinctive methodological issues involved and offers a sampling of Jewish positions on contemporary moral problems. The book features work from both traditionalist and liberal contributors, making this the only volume which encompasses the full range of contemporary Jewish ethical perspectives. Writers such as Harold Schulweis, Judith Plaskow, David Novak, David Hartman, and Blu Greenberg discuss law and ethics, natural law, humility, justice, sex and the family, euthanasia, and other vital issues relating to modern Judaism. Many of the readings appear here for the first time, making this important text the most timely sourcebook in its field. Uniquely qualified to reflect the high level and depth of contemporary work in this area of study, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality is an essential contribution to any course dealing with Jewish ethics.
Contemporary Jewish Theology: A Reader 1st Edition
This book provides the most comprehensive collection to date of twentieth-century Jewish writings. This carefully constructed anthology highlights the enormous range of theological viewpoints and methods that have characterized Jewish theological reflection in modern times. Including representative selections from both pre- and post-World War II thinkers, with emphasis on writings of the last four decades, the volume offers essays on God, creation, revelation, redemption, covenant/chosenness, law, the Holocaust and the modern State of Israel. This is an exceptional one-volume introduction to contemporary Jewish thought.
"What a rich compendium! A stimulating distillation of the best Jewish thought from a century marked by anguish and triumph. We see in these sections how strong the theological etnerprise is in modern Judaism, in every form from Reform to Neo-Orthodoxy. Ideal for serious readers."
Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Body
What is the Jewish position on tattoos, eating disorders and body piercings? According to this book on Judaism and the body, that's actually the wrong question: it's not about claiming the Jewish position on any issue, but finding a Jewish ethic that successfully addresses Torah, tradition and beliefs. This multiauthor book, part of JPS's new series on contemporary ethical dilemmas (future volumes will address money, war, sexual relations, and power, among other issues), presents multiple points of view and personal voices. Tattoos, for example, are weighed against biblical and Talmudic injunctions, historical allusions (are Jewish tattoos offensive to Holocaust victims?) and cultural standards. Some of the best essays are by doctors, including one who ruminates on whether he has an ethical responsibility to prescribe medication that might save his patients from short-term depression. As a book, this collection can feel disjointed; it begins abruptly with three quick case studies and numerous quotes from ancient and contemporary rabbis on various body issues, then segues into contributors' uneven essays on those topics. Though no single answer emerges, the book's general sensibility is, to paraphrase one essayist, to remember that God created our bodies, and we are only renting them.
Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Money
Is it O.K. to be wealthy? How do we know when we have too much? Enough? Is wealth relative--are those born into wealth entitled to accumulate more money than those born in poorer circumstances? What are we obligated to do with our money? How much are we supposed to give to charity? Can Jewish charitable institutions accept money that may be "tainted"? How big a role should income play in our identity, in our life plan, in our pursuit of happiness?
"The emphasis on questions, not answers, makes the Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series different from many other ethical works... an excellent resource for readers seeking to lead more ethical lives."
--The Reporter, August 8, 2008
Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Power
How do we use power once we've gained it? Is it completely for our individual benefit, or do we use it to help our neighborhoods, or society at-large? What kinds of decisions must CEOs and business owners make regarding suppliers and customers? How should bosses treat workers? Teachers treat students? Parents treat children? Government treats citizens?
Power dynamics affect people on a political level, a social level, and a deeply personal level as well. The newest volume in the Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series examines these dynamics and includes essays by such fine contributors as U.S. Representative Henry Waxman, NBC Universal Television-West Coast President Marc Graboff, and author and scholar James