Redemption and Utopia

Redemption and Utopia PDF Author: Michael Lowy
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786630850
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Classic study of Jewish libertarian thought, from Walter Benjamin to Franz Kafka Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there appeared in Central Europe a generation of Jewish intellectuals whose work was to transform modern culture. Drawing at once on the traditions of German Romanticism and Jewish messianism, their thought was organized around the cabalistic idea of the “tikkoun”: redemption. Redemption and Utopia uses the concept of “elective affinity” to explain the surprising community of spirit that existed between redemptive messianic religious thought and the wide variety of radical secular utopian beliefs held by this important group of intellectuals. The author outlines the circumstances that produced this unusual combination of religious and non-religious thought and illuminates the common assumptions that united such seemingly disparate figures as Martin Buber, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukács.

Redemption and Utopia

Redemption and Utopia PDF Author: Michael Lowy
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1786630850
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book Here

Book Description
Classic study of Jewish libertarian thought, from Walter Benjamin to Franz Kafka Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there appeared in Central Europe a generation of Jewish intellectuals whose work was to transform modern culture. Drawing at once on the traditions of German Romanticism and Jewish messianism, their thought was organized around the cabalistic idea of the “tikkoun”: redemption. Redemption and Utopia uses the concept of “elective affinity” to explain the surprising community of spirit that existed between redemptive messianic religious thought and the wide variety of radical secular utopian beliefs held by this important group of intellectuals. The author outlines the circumstances that produced this unusual combination of religious and non-religious thought and illuminates the common assumptions that united such seemingly disparate figures as Martin Buber, Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukács.

Redemption and Utopia

Redemption and Utopia PDF Author: Michael Löwy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780804717762
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, there appeared in Central Europe a generation of Jewish intellectuals whose work was to mark modern culture. Drawing at once on the traditions of German Romanticism and Jewish Messianism, their thought was organized around the kabbalistic idea of Tikkoun: redemption. Redemption and Utopia uses the concept of "elective affinity" to explain the surprising community of spirit that existed between redemptive messianic religious thought and the wide variety of radical secular utopian beliefs held by this important group of intellectuals. The author outlines the circumstances that produced this unusual combination of religious and non-religious thought and illuminates the common assumptions that united such seemingly disparate figures as Martin Buber, Kafka, Walter Benjamin and Georg Lukacs.

Speaking to Our Condition

Speaking to Our Condition PDF Author: Anthony Winterbourne
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 9780838638477
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
"As well as offering new insights into the way in which Wagner's intellectual debts are reflected in the ethical superstructure of the Ring, the author suggests a provocative connection between the intervention of Siegfried into the action, and a neglected corner of late nineteenth-century post-Kantian romantic-messianic thought."--BOOK JACKET.

Jewish Thought, Utopia, and Revolution

Jewish Thought, Utopia, and Revolution PDF Author: Elena Namli
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9401210780
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 215

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Book Description
In response to the grim realities of the present world Jewish thought has not tended to retreat into eschatological fantasy, but rather to project utopian visions precisely on to the present moment, envisioning redemptions that are concrete, immanent, and necessarily political in nature. In difficult times and through shifting historical contexts, the messianic hope in the Jewish tradition has functioned as a political vision: the dream of a peaceful kingdom, of a country to return to, or of a leader who will administer justice among the nations. Against this background, it is unsurprising that Jewish messianism in modern times has been transposed, and lives on in secular political movements and ideologies. The purpose of this book is to contribute to the deeper understanding of the relationship between Jewish thought, utopia, and revolution, by taking a fresh look at its historical and religious roots. We approach the issue from several perspectives, with differences of opinion presented both in regard to what Jewish tradition is, and how to regard utopia and revolution. These notions are multifaceted, comprising aspects such as political messianism, religious renewal, Zionism, and different forms of Marxist and Anarchistic movements.

Utopia of Understanding

Utopia of Understanding PDF Author: Donatella Ester Di Cesare
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438442548
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
Speaking and understanding can both be thought of as forms of translation, and in this way every speaker is an exile in language—even in one's mother tongue. Drawing from the philosophical hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, the testimonies of the German Jews and their relation with the German language, Jacques Derrida's confrontation with Hannah Arendt, and the poetry of Paul Celan, Donatella Ester Di Cesare proclaims Auschwitz the Babel of the twentieth century. She argues that the globalized world is one in which there no longer remains any intimate place or stable dwelling. Understanding becomes a kind of shibboleth that grounds nothing, but opens messianically to a utopia yet to come.

Utopia

Utopia PDF Author: David Ayers
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110433001
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
Utopian hope and dystopian despair are characteristic features of modernism and the avant-garde. Readings of the avant-garde have frequently sought to identify utopian moments coded in its works and activities as optimistic signs of a possible future social life, or as the attempt to preserve hope against the closure of an emergent dystopian present. The fourth volume of the EAM series, European Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies, casts light on the history, theory and actuality of the utopian and dystopian strands which run through European modernism and the avant-garde from the late 19th to the 21st century. The book’s varied and carefully selected contributions, written by experts from around 20 countries, seek to answer such questions as: · how have modernism and the avant-garde responded to historical circumstance in mapping the form of possible futures for humanity? · how have avant-garde and modernist works presented ideals of living as alternatives to the present? · how have avant-gardists acted with or against the state to remodel human life or to resist the instrumental reduction of life by administration and industrialisation?

Erich Fromm’s Revolutionary Hope

Erich Fromm’s Revolutionary Hope PDF Author: Joan Braune
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9462098123
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
“Socialism ... is essentially prophetic Messianism ...” So Erich Fromm writes in his 1961 classic Marx’s Concept of Man. World-renowned Critical Theorist, activist, psychoanalyst, and public Marxist intellectual, Erich Fromm (1900-1980) played a pivotal role in the early Frankfurt Institute for Social Research and influenced emancipatory projects in multiple disciplines. While he remains popularly well known as author of such best-selling books as Escape from Freedom and The Art of Loving, Fromm’s contribution to Critical Theory is now being rediscovered. Fromm’s work on messianism in the 1950s-1970s responded to earlier debates among early twentieth century German Jewish thinkers and radicals, including Hermann Cohen, Rosa Luxemburg, Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem, and Georg Lukács. The return to Fromm, as well as growing interest in Jewish messianism’s influence on the Frankfurt School, makes this book timely. Fromm’s bold defense of radical hope and trenchant critique of political catastrophism are more relevant than ever. “Joan Braune’s work on Erich Fromm is indispensable for students of Frankfurt School critical theory ... Braune reveals the central role that Fromm played in the early development of Frankfurt School critical theory. She also discloses the role that Fromm played in shaping some of the most important debates in critical theory. One of the most interesting issues that informed the debates among early critical theorists was messianism and its political implications. There is no better book on this issue. Those of us who are interested in the development of Frankfurt School critical theory owe Dr. Braune a great deal of gratitude.” – Arnold L. Farr, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Kentucky, President, International Herbert Marcuse Society “Joan Braune's work on Fromm brings this important figure in critical theory back into the conversation at a needed time. It also appears at a time when we must recapture prophetic messianism – the hope in humanity for a better future.” Jeffery Nicholas, Providence College, author of Reason, Tradition, and the Good: MacIntyre’s Tradition-Constituted Reason and Frankfurt School Critical Theory

Nietzsche & Anarchism: An Elective Affinity and a Nietzschean reading of the December ’08 revolt in Athens

Nietzsche & Anarchism: An Elective Affinity and a Nietzschean reading of the December ’08 revolt in Athens PDF Author: Christos Iliopoulos
Publisher: Vernon Press
ISBN: 1622736036
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book aims to establish the bond between Friedrich Nietzsche and the anarchists, through the apparatus of “elective affinity”, and to challenge the boundaries of several anarchist trends – especially “classical” and “post” anarchism – and “ideologies” like anarchism and libertarian Marxism. Moreover, it highlights the importance of reading Nietzsche politically, in a radical way, to understand his utility for the contemporary anarchist movement. The review of the literature concerning the Nietzsche-anarchy relationship shows the previously limited bibliography and stresses the possibility of exploring this connection, with the methodological help of Michael Löwy’s concept of “elective affinity”. The significance of this finding is that the relevant affinity may contribute to an alternative, to the dominant, perception of anarchism as an ideology. It may also designate its special features together with its weaknesses, meaning the objections of Nietzsche to certain aspects of the anarchist practices and worldview (violence, resentment, bad conscience), thus opening a whole new road of self-criticism for the anarchists of the twenty first century. In addition, the location and analysis of the elective affinity serves the debunking of the Nietzschean concepts used by conservative and right-wing readings in order to appropriate Nietzsche, and of the accusations that the German philosopher had unleashed against anarchists, which reveals his misunderstanding of anarchist politics. The final part of this book applies the whole analysis above on a Nietzschean reading of the December ’08 revolt in Athens based on the “Of the Three Metamorphoses” discourse from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, offering an alternative view of the events that shook Greece and also had an important global impact.

Anarchism and utopianism

Anarchism and utopianism PDF Author: Laurence Davis
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526183706
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This collection of original essays examines the relationship between anarchism and utopianism, exploring the intersections and overlaps between these two fields of study and providing novel perspectives for the analysis of both. The book opens with an historical and philosophical survey of the subject matter and goes on to examine antecedents of the anarchist literary utopia; anti-capitalism and the anarchist utopian literary imagination; free love as an expression of anarchist politics and utopian desire; and revolutionary practice. Contributors explore the creative interchange of anarchism and utopianism in both theory and modern political practice; debunk some widely-held myths about the inherent utopianism of anarchy; uncover the anarchistic influences active in the history of utopian thought; and provide fresh perspectives on contemporary academic and activist debates about ecology, alternatives to capitalism, revolutionary theory and practice, and the politics of art, gender and sexuality. Scholars in both anarchist and utopian studies have for many years acknowledged a relationship between these two areas, but this is the first time that the historical and philosophical dimensions of the relationship have been investigated as a primary focus for research, and its political significance given full and detailed consideration.

Utopianism for a Dying Planet

Utopianism for a Dying Planet PDF Author: Gregory Claeys
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691236682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
How the utopian tradition offers answers to today’s environmental crises In the face of Earth’s environmental breakdown, it is clear that technological innovation alone won’t save our planet. A more radical approach is required, one that involves profound changes in individual and collective behavior. Utopianism for a Dying Planet examines the ways the expansive history of utopian thought, from its origins in ancient Sparta and ideas of the Golden Age through to today's thinkers, can offer moral and imaginative guidance in the face of catastrophe. The utopian tradition, which has been critical of conspicuous consumption and luxurious indulgence, might light a path to a society that emphasizes equality, sociability, and sustainability. Gregory Claeys unfolds his argument through a wide-ranging consideration of utopian literature, social theory, and intentional communities. He defends a realist definition of utopia, focusing on ideas of sociability and belonging as central to utopian narratives. He surveys the development of these themes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries before examining twentieth- and twenty-first-century debates about alternatives to consumerism. Claeys contends that the current global warming limit of 1.5C (2.7F) will result in cataclysm if there is no further reduction in the cap. In response, he offers a radical Green New Deal program, which combines ideas from the theory of sociability with proposals to withdraw from fossil fuels and cease reliance on unsustainable commodities. An urgent and comprehensive search for antidotes to our planet’s destruction, Utopianism for a Dying Planet asks for a revival of utopian ideas, not as an escape from reality, but as a powerful means of changing it.