Arthur A. Cohen
| Arthur Allen Cohen | |
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 Arthur A. Cohen, c.1973
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| Born |
25 June 1928 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | 30 September 1986 (aged 58) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of Chicago |
| Notable work | The Natural and the Supernatural Jew (1962), In the Days of Simon Stern (1973), The Tremendum (1981) |
| Awards | Edward Lewis Wallant Award, National Jewish Book Award |
| Era | 1951–1986 |
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Main interests
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Judaism, Holocaust |
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Notable ideas
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tremendum |
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Influences
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Influenced
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Arthur Allen Cohen (June 25, 1928 – September 30, 1986) was an American Jewish scholar, art critic, theologian, publisher, and author.
Scholar David M. Stern has written of Cohen: "Though he was best known as a novelist and theologian, he also pursued successful careers as a highly regarded editor and publisher, as an expert collector and dealer in rare books and documents [of] twentieth-century art, and as a man of letters and cultural critic who wrote with equal authority on modern European literature, medieval Jewish mysticism, the history of Dada and surrealism, and modern typography and design."
Born in New York City in 1928, Arthur Allen Cohen was the son of Isidore Meyer and Bess Junger Cohen, both second-generation Americans. Though he would not publish his first novel until the age of 39, he told Thomas Lask in 1980, "I've actually been writing fiction since I was very young. [...] I always wrote stories." Cohen entered University of Chicago at the age of 16, where he received his B.A. in 1946. It was during his undergraduate years at Chicago that Cohen had an intellectual crisis, which he would later describe in the widely anthologized essay, "Why I Choose to be Jewish" (1959), and that marked the rest of his life. Confronted with the thoroughgoing Christianity of Western culture, and reading highly influential Christian literature, Cohen considered becoming a Christian. However, he was soon put in contact with Milton Steinberg, a leading Jewish thinker, who set him on a course of Jewish education which brought him to a deeper relationship with his heritage and ended his interest in converting.
In 1949 Cohen earned his M.A. in philosophy at University of Chicago with a thesis on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. He then briefly studied at both Hebrew University and Union Theological Seminary, before beginning doctoral work at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where he studied medieval Jewish philosophy. In 1951, however, Cohen, "who found it insulated and unexciting compared to Chicago," left the seminary without completing his PhD. Overall, during his university years Cohen was taught by many intellectual luminaries of the mid-century, including Joachim Wach, Paul Tillich, E. K. Brown, and Richard McKeon.
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