On the 23rd of August 2008, Professor Andrei Pleşu has marked his sixtieth birthday. In view of his distinguished service to the public welfare and his manifold contributions to academic life, the editors of this volume have invited a number of Romanian and international scholars to celebrate this event with a Festschrift. Colleagues, friends, and former students of Andrei Pleşu joined together to offer a critical appreciation of his understanding of culture in today’s world. The participants in this volume explore the continuing debates around the place of philosophy, politics, aesthetics, ethics, and religion in shaping the identity of Western civilization. CONTENTS Acknowledgements Bibliography of Andrei Plesu THE PUBLIC SQUARE Mihail Neamtu, The Seasons of Life and the Practice of Wisdom free downloadVladimir Tismaneanu, Winners or Losers? Public Intellectuals and the Struggle for Moral Dignity THEMES IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS Moshe Idel, On Jerusalem as a Feminine and Sexual Hypostasis: From Late Antiquity Sources to Medieval KabbalahGábor Klaniczay, Angels and DevilsJad Hatem, « Je suis qui j’aime » en mystique. Majnûn Laylâ, Hallâj et la dialectique de la sentence d’identification Natale Spineto, L’histoire des religions en Italie. Modèles et méthodes MAPPING THE SACRED: IDEAS, BODIES, LANGUAGE Zoe Petre, Revenants et sauveurs. Le Ménexène de Platon et le théâtre attique Anca Vasiliu, Les trois amours platoniciens ou la philosophie à hauteur d’hommeMarius Lazurca, Corps commun. Ascèse et politique dans le stoïcisme impérial THEOLOGICAL CONVERSATIONS Mihail Neamtu, The Infinity of God and the Language of Perfection. A Reading of St. Gregory of Nyssa Cristian Gaspar, The Emperor Who Conversed with the Angels: The Making of a “Pagan” Saint in the Fourth Century PHILOSOPHICAL ENCOUNTERS Vlad Alexandrescu, Définition de la pensée et vie universelle chez le Prince Démètre Cantemir Diana Stanciu, Shibboleth: Liberty of Conscience and Toleration in Seventeenth-Century EnglandAna-Stanca Tabarasi, „…Zuchtmeister des unmittelbaren, gedankenlosen Lebens“. Ironie, Humor und ihr Verhältnis zum Religiösen in Kierkegaards entweder-oder Leo Stan, From imitatio Christi to imitatio angeli, and Back. Reading Kierkegaard with Andrei PlesuIoan Pânzaru, Un mythe compatibiliste MIRRORING FAITH AND REASON Russell R. Reno, The Virtue of Docility Virgil Ciomos, Religion, intervalle, philosophie analytiqueStefan Vianu, L’à-Dieu et le sens de l’être Rajesh Sampath, Reading Heidegger on Time and History Cristian Ciocan, Le phénomène de la vie entre la réflexion philosophique et l’expérience religieuse HISTORY OF AESTHETIC FORMS Dragos Mîrsanu, The Aesthetic “Shadow” of Gothic Arianism: Archaeology, Architecture and Art in the Age of HeresiesAnca Oroveanu, Paint Matter and Trace. Reflections on Horia Bernea’s ArtAugustin Ioan „Retrofuturismul“. Concept pentru o arhitectura viitoare HISTORY, LOCAL AND UNIVERSAL István Rév, Ethics and the Limits of History Writing Petre Gura, Des guerres idéologiques, des identités fragiles et de quelques autres dilemmes de la culture roumaine Florin Turcanu, Un moment roumain à Paris — 1949Bogdan Iancu, Dreptul public între tragedie si melodrama