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Modernity and the Construction of Sacred Space
This volume focuses on the connection between modern design and architectural practices and the construction of "sacred spaces." Not only language and ritual but space, place, and architecture play a significant role in constructing "special" or "religious" spaces. However, this concept of a constructed "sacred space" remains undertheorized in religious studies and the history of art and architecture in general. This volume therefore revisits the question of a "modern sacred space" from an interdisciplinary perspective, focusing on religion, space, and architecture during the emergence of the modern period and up until contemporary times. Revisiting the ways in which modern architects and artists have endeavored to create sacred spaces and buildings for the modern world will address the underlying questions of how religious ideas—especially those related to esotericism and to alternative religiosities—have transformed the way sacred spaces are conceptualized today.
Critical Theory: The Basics
Critical Theory: The Basics brings clarity to a topic that is confusingly bandied about with various meanings today in popular and academic culture. First defined by Max Horkheimer in the 1930s, “critical theory” now extends far beyond its original German context around the Frankfurt School and the emergence of Nazism. We now often speak of critical theories of race, gender, anti-colonialism, and so forth. This book introduces especially the core program of the first-generation of the Frankfurt School (including Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse), and shows how this program remains crucial to understanding the problems, ideologies, and systems of the modern ...
Critically Assessing the Reputation of Waldorf Education in Academia and the Public: Recent Developments the World Over, 1987–2004
The second of two volumes dedicated to this little-explored topic continues to gather international perspectives to critically assess how Waldorf education has been perceived and discussed in both public and academic arenas. Both books thereby challenge the historic concept of Waldorf education as an international movement championing “progressive education.” Spanning the period 1987–2004, this second volume focuses on more recent developments in Waldorf education in Japan, Israel, Spain, Poland, Kenya, France, Slovenia, and China. Throughout both books, over 25 leading scholars present 16 case studies spanning 14 countries to discuss the history and perception of Waldorf education in ...
Critically Assessing the Reputation of Waldorf Education in Academia and the Public: Early Endeavours of Expansion, 1919–1955
The first of two volumes dedicated to this little-explored topic, this volume gathers international perspectives to critically assess how Waldorf education has been perceived and discussed in both public and academic arenas. The book thereby challenges the historical concept of Waldorf education as an international movement championing “progressive education.” Spanning the period 1919–1955, this first volume looks at countries with a longstanding tradition of Waldorf schools: Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, and Finland. The second volume, which covers the period 1987–2004, focuses on more recent developments in Japan, Israel, Spain, Poland, Kenya, France, Slov...
Shmuel Hugo Bergmann
In recent years, the interest on life and work of the Jewish writer, philosopher, mystic and politician Shmuel Hugo Bergmann (1883–1975) has perceptibly increased. Well-known as a protagonist of the famous "Prague Circle", Bergmann headed for Palestine in 1920, became the driving force for building the Jewish National Library in Jerusalem and finally advanced as first Rector of the Hebrew University. All his life, close ties to the Czech Republic remained. In the State of Israel, Bergmann became a leading philosopher and highly admired cultural figure. He himself showed great interest in world religions, mysticism, and Western esotericism. Bergmann also emerged as an important point of ref...
“Jewish, Gay and Proud”
This publication examines the foundation and institutional integration of the first gay-lesbian synagogue Beth Chayim Chadashim, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1972. As early as June 1974, the synagogue was admitted to the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the umbrella organization of the Reform congregations in the United States. Previously, the potential acceptance of a congregation by and for homosexual Jews triggered an intense and broad debate within Reform Judaism. The work asks how it was possible to successfully establish a gay-lesbian synagogue at a time when homosexual acts were considered unnatural and contrary to tradition by almost the entire Jewish community. The sta...
Between Occultism and Nazism
The relationship between Nazism and occultism has been an object of fascination and speculation for decades. Peter Staudenmaier’s Between Occultism and Nazism provides a detailed historical examination centered on the anthroposophist movement founded by Rudolf Steiner. Its surprising findings reveal a remarkable level of Nazi support for Waldorf schools, biodynamic farming, and other anthroposophist initiatives, even as Nazi officials attempted to suppress occult tendencies. The book also includes an analysis of anthroposophist involvement in the racial policies of Fascist Italy. Based on extensive archival research, this study offers rich material on controversial questions about the nature of esoteric spirituality and alternative cultural ideals and their political resonance.
The Marrano Phenomenon
What we call here the ‘Marrano phenomenon’ is still a relatively unexplored fact of modern Western culture: the presence of the borderline Jewish identity which avoids clear-cut cultural and religious attribution, but nevertheless exerts significant influence on modern humanities. Our aim, however, is not a historical study of the Marranos (or conversos), i.e., the mostly Spanish and Portguese Jews of the 15th and 16th centuries, who were forced to convert to Christianity, but were suspected of retaining their Judaism ‘undercover’: such an approach already exists and has been developed within the field of historical research. We rather want to apply the ‘Marrano metaphor’ to explore the fruitful area of mixture and crossover which allowed modern thinkers, writers, and artists of the Jewish origin to enter the realm of universal communication—without, at the same time, making them relinquish their Jewishness, which they subsequently developed as a ‘hidden tradition’. What is of special interest to us is the modern development of the non-normative forms of religious thinking located on the borderline between Christianity and Judaism, from Spinoza to Derrida.
Suffering Time: Philosophical, Kabbalistic, and Ḥasidic Reflections on Temporality
No one theory of time is pursued in these essays, but a major theme that threads them together is Wolfson’s signature idea of the timeswerve as a linear circularity or a circular linearity, expressions that are meant to avoid the conventional split between the two temporal modalities of the line and the circle. The conception of time elicited by Wolfson from a host of philosophical and mystical sources—both Jewish and non-Jewish—buttresses the contention that it is precisely structural invariability that engenders interpretive variation. This hermeneutical axiom is justified, in turn, by the presumption regarding the cadence of time as the constant return of what has always been what is yet to be. The telling of time wells forth from the time of telling. One cannot speak of the being of time, consequently, except from the standpoint of the time of being, nor of the time of being except from the standpoint of the being of time.
Intercultural Education and the Transformation of the World Society
Under the heading of “Intercultural Education and the Transformation of the World Society”, the 2022 Franz Fischer Symposium opened the floor to fruitful discussions. Franz Fischer once stated: “In proflection, parents reach out to their children and create a childly world for them”. Many of our discussions revolved around this motto. We asked, how pedagogy may provide for a childly and future-oriented world? We explored the possibilities of creating æpedagogical intercultural spacesÆ and their potential role in mediating between the domains of philosophy, theology and politics. In accordance with Franz FischerÆs thoughts on the concept of conscience, we also asked how such a personal disposition can be mediated
