Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi

@rjelevi.bsky.social

2.8K followers 1.5K following 4.3K posts

Ethicist, half-assed text nerd. Sexual ethics & Jewish text. Queer. AuDHD. She/her. Current project: The Neurodivergent Talmud Book: When We Collide: Sex, Social Risk, and Jewish Ethics (IUP 2023) RJELevi.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · Nov 8

Hey, new followers! Since I have your attention, I published a book last year!
As we face another Trump administration, it's increasingly important to make a forceful case for the moral worth of sexual divergence, and that's what I do in "When We Collide: Sex, Social Risk, and Jewish Ethics:"

When We Collide

When We Collide is a landmark reassessment of the significance of sex in contemporary Jewish ethics. Rebecca Epstein-Levi offers a fresh and vital exploratio...

iupress.org

4 9 36

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Poppy with cream cheese and lox (or better yet, gravlax) on the side.

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Inflatable Arvad costume when?

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

MY PRONUNCIATION IS VINDICATED

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d

Here’s a primer on ‘primer.’

It’s pronounced ‘PRIMM-er’ if you mean “a small book” or “a short informative piece of writing.”

It’s pronounced ‘PRY-mer’ if you mean “an initial coat of paint.”

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Weil’s only going to appear in any substantive way in chapter one.

But I do suspect the book will be, perhaps, haunted by them. 17/17

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

And anyway, I’m just not the kind of scholar who has People—I’m the kind of scholar who has Problems and tries to find the people who worry at those problems best. 16/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Anyway, this isn’t going to be a Weil book by any stretch of the imagination. As I’ve said, my knowledge of her, I’ll be first to admit, is quite superficial. 15/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

But I also think it’s unhelpful to pretend we DON’T read ourselves, our friends, our communities, our times and places onto the people from the past we engage with. I don’t know how to do it best, but I do know the first step is to acknowledge that we’re doing it. 14/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Or maybe (I’d go so far as to say likely) they might have rejected these political and social categories as irretrievably individualist and self-focused. Most likely, some of both. (And I haven’t even touched her relationship to Judaism and Jewishness; at the moment I just don’t feel equipped). 13/

1 3

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Would Weil’s account of attention or relationship to embodiment been different if he had had access to autistic, queer, ace, and trans communities and the rich traditions of thought and experience and discourse that in part knit them together? Maybe. 12/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

…to find the boundary between taking a person’s experience seriously as an indelible shaper of their thought and correcting the erasures of the regnant historical narrative on the one hand, and avoiding reducing someone’s whole messy life and work to a set of identity boxes on the other. 11/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

It’s sometimes—especially for someone who’s no longer there to correct the record, but at once is close enough to you in time that you feel as though you share at least some parts of a language—difficult... 10/

1 1

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Her experience of queerness (if we can say that) is very clearly not mine, either (she seems to have been acespec and—and I can’t imagine I’m the only one to wonder this—quite possibly trans, to the point where I feel more than a bit uncomfortable using she/her for him? Them?) 9/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

It’s not just about wanting to shape her in my image, either—her experience of autism (if we can say that) is clearly not the same as mine (for one thing, ADHD doesn’t seem present at all; indeed you could argue that her account of attention lines up VERY well with the classic monotropic model). 8/

1 3

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

And yet it is SO HARD, as a reader, not to see a fellow queer autistic in her life and her writing, and to want to interpret her work and her life through that lens. 7/

1 3

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

(Similar to how a friend, who I don’t remember whether she’s On Here, rightly, bemoaned how everyone wants to talk about Catherine of Siena’s extreme fasting at the expense of talking about her actual theological and political insight and power). 6/

1 4

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

I’m somewhat fascinated by Weil as a character, AND I recognize how hard it is to talk about that without being voyeuristic in a pathologizing and often frankly misogynist way. 5/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

But some of her writing on attention, desire, sexuality, and embodiment in “First and Last Notebooks” makes me want to scream—and also helps me understand where some of the deep moral neuroableism in her reception comes from. 4/

1 3

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

I still think her basic account of attention in “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies” is far more humane, expansive, and potentially neuroaffirming than some of its reception would indicate. 3/

1 2

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

(Caveat: I am FAR from a Weil scholar, and more than willing to take correction from those who are). 2/

1 1

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Coming out of today’s writing session (with a week and a day left to hand in whatever extremely rough mess of a manuscript I have for my workshop, FML), I am feeling MUCH more annoyed with Simone Weil than I have been on previous encounters. 1/

1 4

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Oof, THIS.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

I should also note that I fucking loathe writing and the idea of starting to write most of the time, until I actually get into the flow and then it’s extremely fun (a cycle I must somehow undergo every time) - this too, is, I think, a core part of my cognitive process

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d

I think the killer argument against relying upon AI to write is the massive amount of thinking and concept-welding that goes on for me (and I assume most everyone else) during the *process* of writing something - it’s a cognitive process and I know I’d actively get stupider if I skipped it

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Apropos of nothing, they are putting siding on the house next door, on the side of the house that is like TEN FEET FROM US.
Between the actual construction noise and the music (and yes, I recognize that construction workers get to listen to music too!) I am going to lose my freaking mind.

Reposted by Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi

Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 2d

There are people who think that people myself who have written about autism acceptance diminish their needs. That couldn't be further from the truth. Accepting autistic people means accepting ALL autistic people. Not just the convenient ones like myself. It means providing them the proper supports

2 17 110

Reposted by Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi

Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 2d

It's no worse than any other disabilities. But for years, it was billed as one of the most tragic outcomes possible for kids. It was seen as a symptom of schizophrenia or this condition that drove children into a catatonic state. The fact mothers were blamed for it made the stigma worse.

Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 3d

I don’t exactly how to phrase this, but like… is autism that bad???? Like, why is it such a source of fear??? Of course there are challenges but you can be autistic and have a rich, fulfilling life! Many people do! I don’t understand the preoccupation.

8 72 400

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

Said dissertation, by the way, argues that distraction is the antithesis of the basic conditions for any kind of ethical orientation.

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · 2d

We become embodied exhibits of moral rot. And the genuine moral depravity of the cruel systems we live in gets displaced onto our bodies and minds. As with, for example, this dissertation I'm working with for the first chapter of my book: 5/

Dr. Rebecca J. Epstein-Levi @rjelevi.bsky.social · Sep 5

Well, I have in my researches today found an ethics dissertation that straight out SAYS we're pathologizing distraction with diagnoses like ADHD when we should treat it as a moral failing, and, well, thank you for saying the quiet part out loud so I don't have to, but also kindly go fuck yourself.