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Faith in the Mode of Absence: Kierkegaard’s Jewish Readers in 1930s France (Rachel Bespaloff, Benjamin Fondane, Lev Shestov, and Jean Wahl)

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Published/Copyright: July 27, 2016
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Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
From the journal Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Volume 2016 Issue 1

Abstract

In the 1930s, Jean Wahl, Lev Shestov, Benjamin Fondane, and Rachel Bespaloff were among the first to seriously introduce philosophical readings of Kierkegaard’s works in France. As Jewish intellectuals within a particularly troubled period in history, their readings of Kierkegaard were informed both by the problems of self-identification imposed upon them by the political context, and by a particular ontological understanding of human nature. This article argues that these considerations are essential for understanding how these early existential thinkers read the Dane and appealed to him in ways quite distinct from the Christian or atheist trends in existential philosophy.

Published Online: 2016-7-27
Published in Print: 2016-7-25

© 2016 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Preface
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
  5. Kierkegaard on the Power of Love and Despair
  6. Geglaubte Verzweiflung: Wider eine atheistische Lesart Kierkegaards und ihre Ursächlichkeits-Rhetorik
  7. A Figurative Necessity in Dealing with Selfhood in Kierkegaard’s Thinking
  8. Kierkegaard as an Antimodern Moralist: Re-Thinking “Socio-Political” Categories in Recent Kierkegaard Scholarship
  9. Fertile Contradictions: A Reconsideration of “The Seducer’s Diary”
  10. On Separation as the Condition for All Existential Ethics
  11. Reue als Schlüssel zur existentiellen Selbstwerdung. Überlegungen im Anschluss an Kierkegaards Beichtrede von 1847
  12. Section 2: Source-Work Studies
  13. Schleiermacher in the Kierkegaardian Project: Between Socratic Ignorance and Second Immediacy
  14. The Monumental Task of Kierkegaard’s Attack upon Christendom
  15. Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
  16. Faith in the Mode of Absence: Kierkegaard’s Jewish Readers in 1930s France (Rachel Bespaloff, Benjamin Fondane, Lev Shestov, and Jean Wahl)
  17. Gesellschaft und Kritische Philosophie. Kierkegaards und Jaspers’ Analyse der geistigen Situation Europas im Vergleich
  18. Kierkegaard und das ‚jüdische Denken‘: Die Rezeption Sören Kierkegaards in der jüdischen Moderne im Kontext des Orientalismus
  19. La puissance du don. Le don comme centre de la relation de l’homme avec Dieu, dans les discours édifiants de Kierkegaard, à la lumière de l’herméneutique du don de Jean Paul II
  20. Martin Heidegger Reads Søren Kierkegaard – or What Did He Actually Read?
  21. Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
  22. Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Philosophical Fragments
  23. Abbreviations
  24. List of Contributors
https://doi.org/10.1515/kierke-2016-0112

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Titelei
  2. Preface
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
  5. Kierkegaard on the Power of Love and Despair
  6. Geglaubte Verzweiflung: Wider eine atheistische Lesart Kierkegaards und ihre Ursächlichkeits-Rhetorik
  7. A Figurative Necessity in Dealing with Selfhood in Kierkegaard’s Thinking
  8. Kierkegaard as an Antimodern Moralist: Re-Thinking “Socio-Political” Categories in Recent Kierkegaard Scholarship
  9. Fertile Contradictions: A Reconsideration of “The Seducer’s Diary”
  10. On Separation as the Condition for All Existential Ethics
  11. Reue als Schlüssel zur existentiellen Selbstwerdung. Überlegungen im Anschluss an Kierkegaards Beichtrede von 1847
  12. Section 2: Source-Work Studies
  13. Schleiermacher in the Kierkegaardian Project: Between Socratic Ignorance and Second Immediacy
  14. The Monumental Task of Kierkegaard’s Attack upon Christendom
  15. Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
  16. Faith in the Mode of Absence: Kierkegaard’s Jewish Readers in 1930s France (Rachel Bespaloff, Benjamin Fondane, Lev Shestov, and Jean Wahl)
  17. Gesellschaft und Kritische Philosophie. Kierkegaards und Jaspers’ Analyse der geistigen Situation Europas im Vergleich
  18. Kierkegaard und das ‚jüdische Denken‘: Die Rezeption Sören Kierkegaards in der jüdischen Moderne im Kontext des Orientalismus
  19. La puissance du don. Le don comme centre de la relation de l’homme avec Dieu, dans les discours édifiants de Kierkegaard, à la lumière de l’herméneutique du don de Jean Paul II
  20. Martin Heidegger Reads Søren Kierkegaard – or What Did He Actually Read?
  21. Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
  22. Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Philosophical Fragments
  23. Abbreviations
  24. List of Contributors
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