Next month I’ll be giving a paper at the upcoming The Philosophy of Walter Benjamin conference at Goldsmiths, University of London. Here’s the abstract: In his 1917 essay “On the Program of the Coming Philosophy”, Benjamin wrote: “The great transformation and correction which must be performed upon the concept of experience, oriented so one-sidedly along [...]
Category Archives: hamann
Hamann and Benjamin on the Concept of Experience
Also posted in academia, benjamin, history, intellectualhistory, philosophers, philosophy, talks
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Hamann, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein on the Language of Philosophers
I’ve got a chapter on “Hamann, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein on the Language of Philosophers” in Hamann and the Tradition, which has just been published by Northwestern University Press. The book is based on a series of papers given at an international conference on Hamann in New York in March 2009. It is edited by Lisa [...]
Also posted in herder, history, humanities, intellectualhistory, nietzsche, philosophy, wittgenstein
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The Sea of Stories
Earlier this week the Guardian, Forbes and others covered the discovery of 500 fairy tales collected by 19th century folklorist Franz Xaver von Schönwerth. I sent a note about this to Professor Jack Zipes, who promptly replied urging caution about the discovery and pointing to many other (in his view more interesting) 19th century collections [...]
Also posted in bibliography, culture, fairytales, herder, history, humanities, intellectualhistory, literature
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The contingent cathedral: notes on Lewis White Beck’s Early German Philosophy
Lewis White Beck‘s 1969 Early German Philosophy is a long, rich and rambling chronicle of philosophical thinkers and philosophical ideas originating from what we now call Germany, roughly from the birth of St. Ambrose in 340 to the death of Kant in 1804.
Also posted in herder, history, humanities, intellectualhistory, philosophy
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The Magus in New York
Johann George Hamann, “the Magus of the North”, was a minor civil servant working in tax administration, a Lutheran pietist, prolific lettrist, and polyglot. He is best known for his short, rhapsodic, densely allusive and often pseudonymous dispatches – on everything from erotic love to the importance of the letter ‘h’ – and for his [...]
Also posted in events, nietzsche, philosophy, talks, wittgenstein
Tagged comparativeliterature, conferences, german, hamann, newyork, nietzsche, philosophy, talks, theology, wittgenstein
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