- Teacher: מרינה ניוברט
32142 Right and injustice. Walter Benjamin as a Jewish intellectual – part one. His text „On the Critique of Violence“ (1918) reread a century later.
The book "On the Critique of Violence" combines five texts that are in an inner context. They show the development of central reasons of the thinking of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). This volume will be introduced by an early study of the program of a future philosophy. The philosophical investigation deals with the question of violence, its significance for the individual and on the social level. In particular, their relationship to law and mythical power should be clarified here. In addition, the study of non-violent conflict resolution channels and the significance of divine violence are the subject of this work in order to gain a complete understanding.
In order to give a meaningful analysis of the phenomenon of violence, it is first necessary to consider political and social forms of violence, for these are the actual forms of violence and are the only ones that determine the life and consciousness of the individual. A detailed understanding of what violence is can not be afforded without the withdrawal of system-inherent ideological criteria. Immediate and therefore non-ideological violence, as well as non-violence, must be defined as a divine force that does not emerge from mental concepts. Benjamin's philosophy seeks to link historical and political science with spiritual and theological knowledge, that is, two areas that seem generally mutually exclusive. His analogy of human-revolutionary violence and divine power springs from this program and is constitutive for the realization of spiritual truth.
This seminar aims to improve knowledge in language and literature with the help of accurate text reading.
The book "On the Critique of Violence" combines five texts that are in an inner context. They show the development of central reasons of the thinking of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). This volume will be introduced by an early study of the program of a future philosophy. The philosophical investigation deals with the question of violence, its significance for the individual and on the social level. In particular, their relationship to law and mythical power should be clarified here. In addition, the study of non-violent conflict resolution channels and the significance of divine violence are the subject of this work in order to gain a complete understanding.
In order to give a meaningful analysis of the phenomenon of violence, it is first necessary to consider political and social forms of violence, for these are the actual forms of violence and are the only ones that determine the life and consciousness of the individual. A detailed understanding of what violence is can not be afforded without the withdrawal of system-inherent ideological criteria. Immediate and therefore non-ideological violence, as well as non-violence, must be defined as a divine force that does not emerge from mental concepts. Benjamin's philosophy seeks to link historical and political science with spiritual and theological knowledge, that is, two areas that seem generally mutually exclusive. His analogy of human-revolutionary violence and divine power springs from this program and is constitutive for the realization of spiritual truth.
This seminar aims to improve knowledge in language and literature with the help of accurate text reading.
- Teacher: מיכאל פיש
32864 Orient and canon. World literature between West and East. Two hundred years West-Eastern Divan from 1819 to 2019
The West-Eastern Divan will be two hundred years old in 2019, incorporating Johann Wolfgang Goethe's concept of world literature, as the series of poems stages a dialogue between the German poet and the Persian poet Hafez. The Divan therefore reflects on the difference between times and spaces, cultures and religions and tries to convey them. By adding notes and essays to his poetry, Goethe (1749-1832) at the same time ponders the relation in which poetry and scholarship are related. At the same time, he is multifaceted in contemporary philology, in which employment with the Orient is experiencing a boom. The West-Eastern Divan is Goethe's most extensive poetry collection. It was inspired by the works of the Persian poet Hafez (1325-1390). By recording the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar in the year 2001, Goethe's fair copy of this text is part of the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage.
The poem cycle West-Eastern Divan (1819) belongs to the late work of Goethe. From 1815 the poet immersed himself more and more in the foreign literatures, especially in the oriental works. Already in 1814 he had devoted himself to the ancient Persian poetry, especially the divan of the Hafez from the 14th century, which, however, Goethe knew only in translation. In addition, he read travelogues that represented the Middle and Far East. The new interest, which Goethe himself programmatically calls hegire - from Arabic higra, that means emigration - enriches his concept of a world literature, because national literature cannot say much anymore, world literature is about time, and everyone should from now on work on this epoch to accelerate it. In fact, west-east also means German-European-Oriental, Greek-Latin-Arabic and Jewish-Christian-Muslim.
The West-Eastern Divan will be two hundred years old in 2019, incorporating Johann Wolfgang Goethe's concept of world literature, as the series of poems stages a dialogue between the German poet and the Persian poet Hafez. The Divan therefore reflects on the difference between times and spaces, cultures and religions and tries to convey them. By adding notes and essays to his poetry, Goethe (1749-1832) at the same time ponders the relation in which poetry and scholarship are related. At the same time, he is multifaceted in contemporary philology, in which employment with the Orient is experiencing a boom. The West-Eastern Divan is Goethe's most extensive poetry collection. It was inspired by the works of the Persian poet Hafez (1325-1390). By recording the Goethe-Schiller Archive in Weimar in the year 2001, Goethe's fair copy of this text is part of the UNESCO World Documentary Heritage.
The poem cycle West-Eastern Divan (1819) belongs to the late work of Goethe. From 1815 the poet immersed himself more and more in the foreign literatures, especially in the oriental works. Already in 1814 he had devoted himself to the ancient Persian poetry, especially the divan of the Hafez from the 14th century, which, however, Goethe knew only in translation. In addition, he read travelogues that represented the Middle and Far East. The new interest, which Goethe himself programmatically calls hegire - from Arabic higra, that means emigration - enriches his concept of a world literature, because national literature cannot say much anymore, world literature is about time, and everyone should from now on work on this epoch to accelerate it. In fact, west-east also means German-European-Oriental, Greek-Latin-Arabic and Jewish-Christian-Muslim.
- Teacher: מיכאל פיש