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Upcoming Events
The Bosch
Foundation, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in German Literature and
Culture,
and
the Department of Germanic Studies present
Messianism and Prophecy:
Figures of Twentieth-Century Thought
May 4, 2012
University of Chicago, Quadrangle Club Library
Organized by
Eric Santner (University of Chicago) and Daniel Weidner (Center for Literary
Research Berlin)
Messianism has played a significant role in
twentieth-century conceptions of politics, revolution, and more generally the
human capacity to interrupt the course of historical “progress.” In recent
efforts to reanimate this tradition, thinkers such as Giorgio Agamben, Slavoj
Zizek, Alain Badiou, and Gianni Vattimo have largely drawn on the Letters of
Paul as the key resource in this undertaking. These readings have for the most
part ignored the broader context of Paul’s thought, most importantly, the link
between messianism and the prophetic tradition. That link was still central in
the thought of earlier twentieth-century “messianic” thinkers such as Hermann
Cohen, Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Gershom Scholem, among others. Other
thinkers of the period such as Gerhard von Rad, Martin Buber, and Abraham
Heschel, were at the same time developing new models of understanding biblical
prophecy, finding in the literature paradigms for the theory and practice of
religious and communal communication. The aim of the workshop is to explore
these earlier discourses in relation to the current debates on messianism, “messianicity,”
and messianic politics. The presentations and discussions will be based on a
series of short texts. For copies of the
reader, contact Daniel Weidner at weidner@uchicago.edu.
Program
9:30 Coffee
10:00-12:30
Opening Remarks
Yvonne Sherwood/Ward Blanton (Glasgow University):
Anxieties of Territory and Language:
Gershom Scholem and W.D. Davies
Daniel Weidner (Center for Literary Research
Berlin):
Righteousness, History, and Prophetic
Irony: Gershom Scholem on Jonah, 1919
1:30-2:30
Nitzan Lebovic (Lehigh University):
The Prophecy of Destruction: The
Principle of the Un-Sayable
3:00-5:00
Brian Britt (Virginia Tech):
The Suffering Servant in Judaism,
Christianity, Theory, and Scholarship
Martin Kavka (Florida State University):
Is The Prophetic Message Verifiable?
5:30-6:30
Roundtable Discussion
People
with disabilities who believe they may require assistance should please contact
Michelle Zimet at 773-702-8494.
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Eva Horn is professor of modern German literature at the University of Vienna. She has held positions at the universities of Konstanz, Frankfurt/Oder, and Basel. Her work focuses on the relation between modern literature and political theory. Her most recent book, entitled "The Secret War. Espionage, Treason and Modern Fiction" (published in German in 2007, forthcoming at Northwestern University Press in 2013), is a history of the relation between literature and political secrecy in the 20th century. Her current research project - working title: “The Future as Catastrophe. Fiction and the Politics of Prevention” - revolves around the "catastrophic imaginary" of the modern age and the political and epistemological implications of modernity's infatuation with apocalypse. |
The Department of Germanic Studies presents
Eva Horn
The Last Man
Apocalypse as Anthropological Test Site
May 14th, 2012
4:30 PM
Wieboldt 206
The vision of the "Last Man" has haunted the
modern age ever since Romanticism. The last man is the tragic hero of an
apocalypse that is deprived of any theological framework - no Last Judgment, no
New Jerusalem. He is a figure of an entirely secular, catastrophic futurity.
The talk will focus on the moment around 1800 when the "classic"
eschatological model of apocalypse is replaced by a secular conception of an
end of the world, namely in texts by Jean Paul and Lord Byron and the paintings
of John Martin. What is at stake in the imaginations of an end of mankind is a
reflection on the nature of man, which focuses on man's biological existence.
From here, the birth of modern biopolitics can be retraced to Romanticism's
apocalyptic imaginary.
People with disabilities who believe they may require assistance should please contact Michelle Zimet at 773-702-8494.
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Please see also Events at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and the Theater and Performance Studies Workshop.