Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture

Kierkegaard, Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Crisis of Culture
Author: George Pattison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2002-07-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521010429

Kierkegaard is often viewed in the history of ideas solely within the academic traditions of philosophy and theology. The secondary literature generally ignores the fact that he also took an active role in the public debate about the significance of the modern age that was taking shape in the flourishing feuilleton literature during the period of his authorship. Through a series of sharply focussed studies, George Pattison contextualises Kierkegaard's religious thought in relation to the debates about religion, culture and society carried on in the newspapers and journals read by the whole educated stratum of Danish society. Pattison brings Kierkegaard into relation to not only high art and literature but also to the ephemera of his contemporary culture. This has important implications for our understanding of Kierkegaard's view of the nature of religious communication in modern society.

Kierkegaard and the Theology of the Nineteenth Century

Kierkegaard and the Theology of the Nineteenth Century
Author: George Pattison
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2012-11-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107018617

This book situates Kierkegaard in the nineteenth-century debates which influenced him and discusses his relevance to contemporary Christian theology.

The Kierkegaardian Author

The Kierkegaardian Author
Author: Joseph Westfall
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2009-02-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 311020097X

This study engages in a detailed examination of Kierkegaard’s works of literary and dramatic criticism, including those works directed at interpreting Kierkegaard’s own authorship, with a specific concern for both what Kierkegaard and Kierkegaard’s anonyms and pseudonyms write about the nature and practice of authorship, as well as how the Kierkegaardian authors practice authorship themselves. Moving through five chapters, each devoted to one or more works of Kierkegaard’s criticism, the study develops a new approach to reading Kierkegaard – a new Kierkegaardian hermeneutic – that begins always with the character of the author. This new approach avoids the challenges of critics of biographical criticism, such as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida, by positing the author always as a work of fiction him- or herself, the creation of an unknown and ever anonymous “author of the author”.

Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker

Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker
Author: David J. Gouwens
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1996-02-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521555517

Using Kierkegaard's later religious writings as well as his earlier philosophical works, David Gouwens explores this philosopher's religious and theological thought, focusing on human nature, Christ, and Christian discipleship. He helps the reader approach Kierkegaard as someone who both analysed religion and sought to evoke religious dispositions in his readers. Gouwens discusses Kierkegaard's main concerns as a religious and, specifically, Christian thinker, and his treatment of religion using the dialectic of 'becoming Christian', and counters the interpretation of his religious thought as privatistic and asocial. Gouwens appraises both the edifying discourses and the pseudonymous writings, including the particular problems posed by the latter. Between foundationalism and irrationalism, Kierkegaard's ideas are seen to anticipate the end of 'modernity', while standing at the centre of the Christian tradition.

Concepts of Power in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche

Concepts of Power in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche
Author: J. Keith Hyde
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 255
Release: 2016-09-17
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1317162420

The name Friedrich Nietzsche has become synonymous with studies in political power. The application of his theory that the vast array of human activities comprises manifestations of the will to power continues to influence fields as diverse as international relations, political studies, literary theory, the social sciences, and theology. To date, the introduction of Søren Kierkegaard into this discussion has been gradual at best. Long derided as the quintessential individualist, the social dimension of his fertile thought has been neglected until recent decades. This book situates Kierkegaard in direct dialogue with Nietzsche on the topic of power and authority. Significant contextual similarities warrant such a comparison: both severely criticized state Lutheranism, championed the self and its imaginative ways of knowing against the philosophical blitzkrieg of Hegelianism, and endured the turbulent emergence of the nation-state. However, the primary justification remains the depth-defying prescience with which Kierkegaard not only fully anticipates but rigorously critiques Nietzsche's power position thirty years in advance.

Kierkegaard as Phenomenologist

Kierkegaard as Phenomenologist
Author: Jeffrey Hanson
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2010-11-30
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0810126818

Jeffrey Hanson is an adjunct assistant professor of philosophy at Boston College. --Book Jacket.

Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology

Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology
Author: Christopher B. Barnett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2019-08-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1628926686

Over the last several decades, technology has emerged as an important area of interest for both philosophers and theologians. Yet, despite his status as one of modernity's seminal thinkers, Søren Kierkegaard is not often seen as one who contributed to the field. Kierkegaard and the Question Concerning Technology argues otherwise. Christopher B. Barnett shows that many of Kierkegaard's criticisms of "the present age" relate to the increasing dominance of technology in the West, and he puts Kierkegaard's thought in conversation with subsequent thinkers who grappled with technological issues, from Martin Heidegger to Thomas Merton. Barnett shows that Kierkegaard's writing, with its marked emphases on personal "upbuilding," stands as a place where deeper, non-technical modes of thinking are both commended and nurtured. In doing so, Barnett presents a Kierkegaard who remains relevant--perhaps all too relevant--in today's digital age.

19th Century Europe

19th Century Europe
Author: Hannu Salmi
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2013-04-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0745658598

Nineteenth-Century Europe offers a much-needed concise and fresh look at European culture between the Great Revolution in France and the First World War. It encompasses all major themes of the period, from the rising nationalism of the early nineteenth century to the pessimistic views of fin de siècle. It is a lucid, fluent presentation that appeals to both students of history and culture and the general audience interested in European cultural history. The book attempts to see the culture of the nineteenth century in broad terms, integrating everyday ways of life into the story as mental, material and social practices. It also highlights ways of thinking, mentalities and emotions in order to construct a picture of this period of another kind, that goes beyond a story of “isms” or intellectual and artistic movements. Although the nineteenth century has often been described as a century of rising factory pipes and grey industrial cities, as a cradle of modern culture, the era has many faces. This book pays special attention to the experiences of contemporaries, from the fear for steaming engines to the longing for the pre-industrial past, from the idle calmness of bourgeois life to the awakening consumerism of the department stores, from curious exoticism to increasing xenophobia, from optimistic visions of future to the expectations of an approaching end. The century that is only a few generations away from us is strange and familiar at the same time – a bygone world that has in many ways influenced our present day world.

Volume 7, Tome II: Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries - Theology

Volume 7, Tome II: Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries - Theology
Author: Jon Stewart
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351874365

The period of Kierkegaard's life corresponds to Denmark's "Golden Age," which is conventionally used to refer to the period covering roughly the first half of the nineteenth century, when Denmark's most important writers, philosophers, theologians, poets, actors and artists flourished. Kierkegaard was often in dialogue with his fellow Danes on key issues of the day. His authorship would be unthinkable without reference to the Danish State Church, the Royal Theater, the University of Copenhagen or the various Danish newspapers and journals, such as The Corsair, Fædrelandet, and Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post, which played an undeniable role in shaping his development. The present volume features articles that employ source-work research in order to explore the individual Danish sources of Kierkegaard's thought. The volume is divided into three tomes in order to cover the different fields of influence. Tome II is dedicated to the host of Danish theologians who played a greater or lesser role in shaping Kierkegaard's thought. In his day there were a number of competing theological trends both within the church and at the Faculty of Theology at the University of Copenhagen, and not least of all in the blossoming free church movements. These included rationalism, Grundtvigianism and Hegelianism. In this quite dynamic period in Danish ecclesial history, Kierkegaard was also exercised by a number of leading personalities in the church as they attempted to come to terms with key issues such as baptism, civil marriage, the revision of the traditional psalm book, and the relation of church and state.

Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness

Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness
Author: Christopher B. Barnett
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2016-04-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 131710918X

Søren Kierkegaard wrote that Pietism is 'the one and only consequence of Christianity'. Praise of this sort - particularly when coupled with Kierkegaard's significant personal connections to the movement in Christian spirituality known as Pietism - would seem to demand thorough investigation. And yet, Kierkegaard's relation to Pietism has been largely neglected in the secondary literature. Kierkegaard, Pietism and Holiness fills this scholarly gap and, in doing so, provides the first full-length study of Kierkegaard's relation to the Pietist movement. First accounting for Pietism's role in Kierkegaard's social, ecclesial, and intellectual background, Barnett goes on to demonstrate Pietism's impact on Kierkegaard's published authorship, principally regarding the relationship between Christian holiness and secular culture. This book not only establishes Pietism as a formative influence on Kierkegaard's life and thinking, but also sheds fresh light on crucial Kierkegaardian concepts, from the importance of 'upbuilding' to the imitation of Christ.