Faculty Snapshot: Clémence Boulouque

Tell us about your work.
I am interested in the intersection between religion and the arts, politics, and psychoanalysis. I have just published a monograph entitled Another Modernity that addresses the question of interreligious encounters, universalism, and mysticism in the 19th and 20th century. My new book project explores the pre-Freudian unconscious and its dialogue with the Jewish tradition. I teach Literature Humanities as well as lecture courses on religion and film. And I offered a survey of religion and epidemics this past fall. I also teach graduate seminars such as Religion and Public life, Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah, or Jewish Thought and the Unconscious.

Tell us about a book that you have read recently that you would recommend.
The Netanhyahus by Joshua Cohen. I will be sounding like a broken record in the foreseeable future but I am telling everybody that they must read this book. Joshua Cohen is a formidable writer and his latest novel is hilarious and brilliant. It is based on a true episode: a campus visit that went wrong for Benzion Netanyahu, the father of the current prime minster of Israel and whose right-wing (and fraught) vision of Jewish history was marginalized in academia, but has been ironically translated into politics by his son. And this may sound like an ideas-heavy campus novel, which can be pretty indigestible, but Cohen completely transcends the genre and the result is a laugh out loud page-turner.

What is a self-care practice that works for you?
Dance and yoga are my go-to anchors, but the best kind of self-care for me is gratitude. I almost hesitate to say it because it sounds corny, but every night, right before falling asleep, I always try to find at least one thing that happened or an emotion I felt during the course of the day for which I am grateful. Obviously it can be very, very, very challenging — yes, I am looking at you, 2020! But the practice is even more meaningful when your day was perfectly atrocious because it means that you don't let negativity have the final word. And it is both humbling and empowering.

If you would like to know more about Dr. Boulouque's research, please visit her faculty website or you can email her directly.