Though inspired by a Panofskyan legacy, this book diverges at certain points from Erwin Panofsky's declared objectives, and calls attention to several of aspects that were until now less accentuated in his intellectual reception. Insisting on the importance of iconology as a method for art history and the humanities in general, it shows how examining this promotes a cooperation between the history of art and the history of philosophy. It discusses whether Panofsky's method could be of use for general questions in the epistemology of the historical sciences that examine human works. Figural Philology also shows that Panofsky shares affinities with twentieth-century romance philology. A reading of Panofsky's work alongside the philological enterprise of Erich Auerbach and several other authors demonstrates that a proper appropriation of the philological impulse can provide a way out of the methodological antimony still hanging between hyper-formalist and hyper-theoretical approaches to the history of art.

This book analyzes and contextualizes Auerbach’s life and mind in the wide ideological, philological, and historical context of his time, especially the rise of Aryan philology and its eventual triumph with the Nazi Revolution or the Hitler Revolution in Germany of 1933. It deals specifically with his struggle against the premises of Aryan philology, based on völkisch mysticism and Nazi historiography, which eliminated the Old Testament from German Kultur and Volksgeist in particular, and Western culture and civilization in general. It examines in detail his apologia for, or defense and justification of, Western Judaeo-Christian humanist tradition at its gravest existential moment. It discusses Auerbach’s ultimate goal, which was to counter the overt racist tendencies and völkish ideology in Germany, or the belief in the Community of Blood and Fate of the German people, which sharply distinguished between Kultur and civilization and glorified völkisch nationalism over European civilization. The volume includes an analysis of the entire twenty chapters of Auerbach’s most celebrated book: Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, 1946.

From the closing decades of the eighteenth century, German theology has been a major intellectual force within modern western thought, closely connected to important developments in idealism, romanticism, historicism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics. Despite its influential legacy, however, no recent attempts have sought to offer an overview of its history and development. Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848, the first of a three-volume series, provides the most comprehensive multi-authored overview of German theology from the period from 1781-1848. Kaplan and Vander Schel cover categories frequently omitted from earlier overviews of the time period, such as the place of Judaism in modern German society, race and religion, and the impact of social history in shaping theological debate. Rather than focusing on individual figures alone, Oxford History of Modern German Theology, Vol. I: 1781-1848 describes the narrative arc of the period by focusing on broader intellectual and cultural movements, ongoing debates, and significant events. It furthermore provides a historical introduction to each of the chronological subsections that divides the book. Moreover, unlike previous efforts to introduce this time period and geographical region, the volume offers chapters covering such previously neglected topics as religious orders, the influence of Romantic art, secularism, religious freedom, and important but overlooked scholarly initiatives such as the Corpus Reformatorum. Attention to such matters will make this volume an invaluable repository of scholarship and knowledge and an indispensable reference resource for decades to come.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Between Religion and Ethnicity: Twentieth-Century Jewish Émigrés and the Shaping of Postwar Culture" that was published in Religions

Investigates the figures and materials of English tragedyKey FeaturesEstablishes a new approach to the relationship between historical performance and printed literatureComplicates the popular concept of metatheatreOffers boldly original readings of important English tragedies like Hamlet and The Spanish TragedyShows how our encounter with difficulty in the reading of revenge plays can be equivalent to an imaginative confrontation with the contradictions of early modern theatrical actionCharting a new course between performance studies and literary criticism, this book explores how recognition of the dramatic person is involved in theatrical materiality. It shows how the moral difficulty of revenge in plays like The Spanish Tragedy, Hamlet and The Duchess of Malfi is inseparable from the difficulty of discerning human shapes in the theatre and on the page. Intervening in a wide range of current debates within early modern studies, Oppitz-Trotman argues that the origins of English tragic drama cannot be understood without considering how the common player appears in it.

Erin Plunkett draws from both analytic and continental sources to argue for the philosophical relevance of style, making the case that the essay form is uniquely suited to address the sceptical problem. The authors examined here-Montaigne, Hume, the early German Romantics, Kierkegaard and Stanley Cavell-bring into relief the relationship between scepticism and ordinary life and situate the will to know within a broader frame of meaningful human activity. The formal features of the essay call attention to time, subjectivity, and language as the existential conditions of knowledge. In contrast to foundationalist approaches, which expect philosophy to reach empirical or rational certainty, Plunkett demonstrates through these writings the philosophical advantages of a fragmentary, non-dogmatic style of writing. A Philosophy of the Essay shows how this medium can help us come to terms with the contingency and uncertainty of life.

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. In a unique approach to historical representations, the central question of this book is 'what is history?' By describing 'history' through its supplementary function to the field of history, rather than the ground of a study, this collection considers new insights into historical thinking and historiography across the humanities. It fosters engagement from around the disciplines in historical thinking and, from that, invites historians and philosophers of history to see clearly the impact of their work outside of their own specific fields, and encourages deep reflection on the role of historical production in society. As such, Theories of History opens up for the first time a truly cross-disciplinary dialogue on history and is a unique intervention in the study of historical representation. Essays in this volume discuss music history, linguistics, theater studies, paintings, film, archaeology and more. This book is essential reading for those interested in the practice and theories of history, philosophy, and the humanities more broadly. Readers of this volume are not only witness to, but also part of the creation of, radical new discourses in and ways of thinking about, doing and experiencing history.