Andrew W. Hass - Böcker

How do we talk meaningfully about the sacred in contexts where conventional religious expression has so often lost its power? Inspired by the influential work of David Jasper, this important volume builds on his thinking to identify sacrality in a world where the old religious and secular debates have exhausted themselves and theology struggles for a new language in their wake. Distinguished writers explore here the idea of the sacred as one that exists, paradoxically, in a space that is both possible and impossible: profoundly theological on the one hand, but also deeply this-worldly and irreligious on the other. This is a sacredness that is simultaneously 'present' and 'absent': one which encompasses – as Jasper himself characterises it – 'the impossible possibility of an absolute vision'. The book teaches us that the sacred assumes a renewed potency when fully engaged with the creativity that happens across religion, literature, philosophy and the arts.

Title first published in 2003. Poetics of Critique breaks new ground in its pursuit of a formal and critical language of interdisciplinarity. The "founding" disciplines within the humanities - theology, philosophy, and literature - are brought together here in a shared space, but one that reconstitutes the very nature of each and any discipline. Readings alternate between discursive analysis and imaginative revisioning; texts alternate between those of the critical thinker (Kant, Nietzsche, Gadamer) and those of the novelist, the poet, and the playwright (Bulgakov, Goethe, Kundera, Sophocles). In this movement between traditions, a fusion, at once organic and dynamic, takes place: theologian, philosopher and artist become one, and a pure interdisciplinarity begins to emerge into view. Andrew Hass draws us into a new critical-poetic sensibility, by which we may explore the ultimate questions of human existence and divine reality with new vigor and sustain, or indeed revitalize, our deep passion for the fundamental question of truth.

Title first published in 2003. Poetics of Critique breaks new ground in its pursuit of a formal and critical language of interdisciplinarity. The "founding" disciplines within the humanities - theology, philosophy, and literature - are brought together here in a shared space, but one that reconstitutes the very nature of each and any discipline. Readings alternate between discursive analysis and imaginative revisioning; texts alternate between those of the critical thinker (Kant, Nietzsche, Gadamer) and those of the novelist, the poet, and the playwright (Bulgakov, Goethe, Kundera, Sophocles). In this movement between traditions, a fusion, at once organic and dynamic, takes place: theologian, philosopher and artist become one, and a pure interdisciplinarity begins to emerge into view. Andrew Hass draws us into a new critical-poetic sensibility, by which we may explore the ultimate questions of human existence and divine reality with new vigor and sustain, or indeed revitalize, our deep passion for the fundamental question of truth.

How do we talk meaningfully about the sacred in contexts where conventional religious expression has so often lost its power? Inspired by the influential work of David Jasper, this important volume builds on his thinking to identify sacrality in a world where the old religious and secular debates have exhausted themselves and theology struggles for a new language in their wake. Distinguished writers explore here the idea of the sacred as one that exists, paradoxically, in a space that is both possible and impossible: profoundly theological on the one hand, but also deeply this-worldly and irreligious on the other. This is a sacredness that is simultaneously 'present' and 'absent': one which encompasses - as Jasper himself characterises it - 'the impossible possibility of an absolute vision'. The book teaches us that the sacred assumes a renewed potency when fully engaged with the creativity that happens across religion, literature, philosophy and the arts.

Explores the rise of the idea of nothing in Western modernity and how its figuration is transforming and offering new possibilities.Finalist for the 2014 American Academy of Religion Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, in the Constructive-Reflective category In this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary history of ideas, Andrew W. Hass explores the ascendency of the concept of nothing into late modernity. He argues that the rise of the reality of nothing in religion, philosophy, and literature has taken place only against the decline of the concept of One: a shift from a sovereign understanding of the One (unity, universality) toward the "figure of the O"-a cipher figure that, as nonentity, is nevertheless determinant of other realities. The figuring of this O culminates in a proliferation of literary expressions of nothingness, void, and absence from 1940 to 1960, but by century's end, this movement has shifted from linear progression to mutation, whereby religion, theology, philosophy, literature, and other critical modes of thought, such as feminism, merge into a shared, circular activity. The writer W. H. Auden lends his name to this O, his long poetic work The Sea and the Mirror an exemplary manifestation of its implications. Hass examines this work, along with that of a host of writers, philosophers, and theologians, to trace the revolutionary hermeneutics and creative space of the O, and to provide the reasoning of why nothing is now such a powerful force in the imagination of the twenty-first century, and of how it might move us through and beyond our turbulent times.

Explores the rise of the idea of nothing in Western modernity and how its figuration is transforming and offering new possibilities.Finalist for the 2014 American Academy of Religion Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, in the Constructive-Reflective category In this groundbreaking, interdisciplinary history of ideas, Andrew W. Hass explores the ascendency of the concept of nothing into late modernity. He argues that the rise of the reality of nothing in religion, philosophy, and literature has taken place only against the decline of the concept of One: a shift from a sovereign understanding of the One (unity, universality) toward the "figure of the O"-a cipher figure that, as nonentity, is nevertheless determinant of other realities. The figuring of this O culminates in a proliferation of literary expressions of nothingness, void, and absence from 1940 to 1960, but by century's end, this movement has shifted from linear progression to mutation, whereby religion, theology, philosophy, literature, and other critical modes of thought, such as feminism, merge into a shared, circular activity. The writer W. H. Auden lends his name to this O, his long poetic work The Sea and the Mirror an exemplary manifestation of its implications. Hass examines this work, along with that of a host of writers, philosophers, and theologians, to trace the revolutionary hermeneutics and creative space of the O, and to provide the reasoning of why nothing is now such a powerful force in the imagination of the twenty-first century, and of how it might move us through and beyond our turbulent times.

Why is the philosopher Hegel returning as a potent force in contemporary thinking? Why, after a long period when Hegel and his dialectics of history have seemed less compelling than they were for previous generations of philosophers, is study of Hegel again becoming important? Fashionable contemporary theorists like Francis Fukuyama and Slavoj Zizek, as well as radical theologians like Thomas Altizer, have all recently been influenced by Hegel, the philosopher whose philosophy now seems somehow perennial- or, to borrow an idea from Nietzsche-eternally returning. Exploring this revival via the notion of 'negation' in Hegelian thought, and relating such negativity to sophisticated ideas about art and artistic creation, Andrew W. Hass argues that the notion of Hegelian negation moves us into an expansive territory where art, religion and philosophy may all be radically conceived and broken open into new forms of philosophical expression. The implications of such a revived Hegelian philosophy are, the author argues, vast and current.Hegel thereby becomes the philosopher par excellence who can address vital issues in politics, economics, war and violence, leading to a new form of globalised ethics. Hass makes a bold and original contribution to religion, philosophy, art and the history of ideas.

Why is the philosopher Hegel returning as a potent force in contemporary thinking? Why, after a long period when Hegel and his dialectics of history have seemed less compelling than they were for previous generations of philosophers, is study of Hegel again becoming important? Fashionably contemporary theorists like Francis Fukuyama and Slavoj Zizek, as well as radical theologians like Thomas Altizer, have all recently been influenced by Hegel, the philosopher whose philosophy seems somehow perennial - or, to borrow an idea from Nietzsche, eternally returning. Exploring this revival via the notion of 'negation' in Hegelian thought, and relating such negativity to sophisticated ideas about art and artistic creation, Andrew Hass argues that the notion of Hegelian negation moves us into an expansive territory where art, religion and philosophy may all be radically reconceived and broken open into new forms of philosophical expression. The implications of such a revived Hegelian philosophy are, the author argues, vast and current.Hegel thereby becomes the philosopher par excellence who can address vital issues in politics, economics, war and violence, leading to a new form of globalised ethics. Hass makes a bold and original contribution to religion, philosophy and the history of ideas.

This collection of essays explores the way our notions of self, other, subjectivity, gender and the sacred text are being re-visioned within contemporary theory. These new ways of conceiving create upheavals and radical shifts that rework our understanding of philosophical, psychological, political, sexual and spiritual identity, allowing us to trace the fault lines, regulatory forces, exclusions and unmarked spaces both within our selves, and within the discourses that attend these selves. As such, revisionings break down borders, and the encounter of literature and theology becomes a crucial focus for these explorations, as the self learns to resituate its own being creatively vis-a-vis others and, ultimately, the Other.