Caring for the Soul in a Postmodern Age

Caring for the Soul in a Postmodern Age

Author: Edward F. Findlay

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 0791488063

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In 1977 the sixty-nine-year-old Czech philosopher Jan Patočka died from a brain hemorrhage following a series of interrogations by the Czechoslovak secret police. A student of Husserl and Heidegger, he had been arrested, along with young playwright Václav Havel, for publicly opposing the hypocrisy of the Czechoslovak Communist regime. Patočka had dedicated himself as a philosopher to laying the groundwork of what he termed a "life in truth." This book analyzes Patočka's philosophy and political thought and illuminates the synthesis in his work of Socratic philosophy and its injunction to "care for the soul." In bridging the gap, not only between Husserl and Heidegger, but also between postmodern and ancient philosophy, Patočka presents a model of democratic politics that is ethical without being metaphysical, and transcendental without being foundational.


Christianity, LGBTQ Suicide, and the Souls of Queer Folk

Christianity, LGBTQ Suicide, and the Souls of Queer Folk

Author: Cody J. Sanders

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2020-05-15

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1793606102

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While garnering the attention of professionals across disciplines, from medicine to public health to psychology, and frequently covered as a topic of public concern in the news media, the elevated occurrence of suicide attempts among LGBTQ persons has received little attention within the literature of theology and religious studies. This book fills that lacuna by addressing the role that religious, spiritual, and theological narratives play in shaping the souls of queer folk. Taking a narrative approach to qualitative interview material from LGBTQ individuals who survived their suicide attempts, Cody J. Sanders argues that theological narratives can operate violently upon the souls of LGBTQ people in ways that make life precarious and, at time, seem unlivable. The book critically addresses the violence of theological narratives upon queer souls, filling a crucial void in scholarship concerning the role of religion—specifically Christianity—in LGBTQ suicide. Ultimately, the author draws upon the interview material to move readers toward constructive methods of contributing to the resistance and resilience of queer souls in relation to soul violence, asking how we can intervene with practices of care in order to cultivate livability of life for queer people.


Thinking After Europe

Thinking After Europe

Author: Francesco Tava

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2016-08-16

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 1783486864

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Jan Patočka, perhaps more so than any other philosopher in the twentieth century, managed to combine intense philosophical insight with a farsighted analysis of the idea and challenges facing Europe as a historical, cultural and political signifier. As a political dissident in communist Czechoslovakia he also became a moral and political inspiration to a generation of Czechs, including Václav Havel. He accomplished this in a time of intense political repression when not even the hint of a unified Europe seemed visible by showing in exemplary fashion how concrete thought can be without renouncing in any way its depth. Europe as an idea and a political project is a central issue in contemporary political theory. Patočka’s political thought offers many original insights into questions surrounding the European project. Here, for the first time, a group of leading scholars from different disciplines gathers together to discuss the specific political impact of Patočka’s philosophy and its lasting significance.


Viva la Transición

Viva la Transición

Author: Christophe Solioz

Publisher: Nomos Verlag

Published: 2020-11-19

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 3748908032

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In einem Europa, das von Entdemokratisierung und Entsolidarisierung geprägt ist, zeigt der Autor Wege der Transition auf: hin zu einem starken und polymorphen Europa mit ausgeprägten und demokratisch organisierten Institutionen. Ausgangspunkt der Analyse sind der Zusammenbruch des Warschauer Paktes und die Transitionsprozesse in Mittel- und Osteuropa. In drei großen Teilen werden Begrifflichkeiten geklärt und das Verhältnis der mittel- und osteuropäischen untereinander analysiert sowie Bruch und Annäherung von Ost und West anschaulich dargestellt. Zunächst wird in Teil I die Phase nach dem Fall der Berliner Mauer bis zum Jahr 2008 mit all ihren Paradoxien und Annäherungsprozessen nachgezeichnet, bevor sich anschließend ab 2008/09 die Phase der großen Krisen (Teil II) andeutet. In Teil III wird ein kleiner Ausblick gewagt, der trotz Corona bedenkenswert ist.


Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology

Jan Patočka and the Heritage of Phenomenology

Author: Erika Abrams

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-09-29

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9048191246

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Whereas for the wider public Jan Patocka is known mainly as a defender of human rights and one of the first spokespersons of Charter 77, who died in Prague several days after long interrogations by secret police of the Communist regime, the international philosophical community sees in him an important and inspiring thinker, who in an original way elaborated the great impulses of European thought – mainly Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s philosophy of existence. Patocka also reflected on history and the future of humanity in a globalized world and laid the foundations of an original philosophy of history. His work is a subject of lively philosophical discussion especially in French and German-speaking countries, and recently also in Spanish-speaking, in U.S.A., and in the Far East. Scholars from around the world who are interested in the philosophy of Jan Patocka gathered in Prague to commemorate his centenary and the thirtieth anniversary of his death. The conference explored the significance of his work and its continuing influence on contemporary philosophy. The volume presents selected papers from the conference in English language.


Between Terror and Freedom

Between Terror and Freedom

Author: Simona Goi

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 9780739111840

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In this volume, Simona Goi and Frederick M. Dolan gather stimulating arguments for the indispensability of fiction--including poetry, drama, and film--as irreplaceable sites for wrestling with nature, meaning, shortcomings, and the future of modern politics. Between Terror and Freedom brings to the surface an understanding of modernity as a multifaceted and dynamic narrative as it relates to politics, philosophy, and fiction. Collecting essays across fields, Goi and Dolan challenge strict disciplinary boundaries. This is not meant to be read as another contribution to the debate of whether literature is, can, or should be political. Between Terror and Freedom instead reveals how literature illuminates and expands our understanding of philosophical and political questions. Political theorists, philosophers, cultural scholars, and rhetoricians offer a fresh perspective on the questions of our age and the paradoxes of modernity when they read literature.


Apocalyptic Patience

Apocalyptic Patience

Author: Andrew Shanks

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-07-11

Total Pages: 477

ISBN-13: 1350410632

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Andrew Shanks brings together a grand narrative of theology and continental philosophy to argue that the 'solidarity of the shaken' is the kingdom of God in secular dress. Shanks engages with the philosophy of Jan Patocka; specifically, his Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History, which culminate in the concept of the 'solidarity of the shaken'. Such solidarity is quite simply that which empowers the most radically thoughtful openness to others, embattled against even the most repressive closure; a solidarity without any other essential qualification. Split into three distinct parts, Shanks begins by discussing Patocka's philosophico-centric grand narrative, and drawing wider reference to the pre-philosophic origins of Abrahamic religious tradition. This is followed by an exploration of mystical theology, Christian and Islamic; of its decay into 'mysticism', and its influence on Christian and Jewish gnostic traditions. The final third presents a discussion on ethical phenomenology. Analysing the proponents of a 'pathos of shakenness' such as Kierkegaard, Levinas, Løgstrup, he juxtaposes 19th-century thinkers such as Arendt and Hegel with Heidegger and Strauss as he moves through the century, and eventually to the rise of secular public conscience movement.


1948 and 1968 – Dramatic Milestones in Czech and Slovak History

1948 and 1968 – Dramatic Milestones in Czech and Slovak History

Author: Laura Cashman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 1317999622

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This volume has been published to coincide with the anniversaries of two significant milestones in Czech and Slovak history – the establishment of communist rule in 1948 and the Prague Spring of 1968 – and in anticipation of the 20th anniversary of the 1989 ‘Velvet Revolution’. Given the ultimate failure of the communist system, these events and their legacy for Czech and Slovak society and politics merit continued study, particularly given the wealth of new data made available when state and Party archives were finally opened in the 1990s. The essays in this volume, by witnesses, historians and social scientists from the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the USA, UK and Australia offer a reappraisal of those turbulent events. They present new and original research, based on information from archives which were not opened until after 1990 and which is not yet available to audiences who do not speak Czech or Slovak. This volume will, therefore, be of interest to both specialists and general readers who are curious to learn more about these events. This book was published as a special issue of Europe-Asia Studies.


Ethics and Society in Nigeria

Ethics and Society in Nigeria

Author: Nimi Wariboko

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1580469434

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Offers a radical political interpretation of history that generates fresh insights into the emancipatory potential of ordinary Nigerians and their precolonial cultural institutions


The Government of Life

The Government of Life

Author: Vanessa Lemm

Publisher: Fordham Univ Press

Published: 2014-04-05

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0823255999

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Foucault’s late work on biopolitics and governmentality has established him as the fundamental thinker of contemporary continental political thought and as a privileged source for our current understanding of neoliberalism and its technologies of power. In this volume, an international and interdisciplinary group of Foucault scholars examines his ideas of biopower and biopolitics and their relation to his project of a history of governmentality and to a theory of the subject found in his last courses at the College de France. Many of the chapters engage critically with the Italian theoretical reception of Foucault. At the same time, the originality of this collection consists in the variety of perspectives and traditions of reception brought to bear upon the problematic connections between biopolitics and governmentality established by Foucault’s last works.