This book reads messianic expectation as the defining characteristic of German culture in the first decades of the twentieth century. It has long been accepted that the Expressionist movement in Germany was infused with a thoroughly messianic strain. Here, with unprecedented detail and focus, that strain is traced through the work of four important Expressionist playwrights: Ernst Barlach, Georg Kaiser, Ernst Toller and Franz Werfel. Moreover, these dramatists are brought into new and sustained dialogues with the theorists and philosophers of messianism who were their contemporaries: Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Martin Buber, Hermann Cohen, Gershom Scholem. In arguing, for example, that concepts like Bloch’s utopian self-encounter (Selbstbegegnung) and Benjamin’s messianic now-time (Jetztzeit) reappear as the framework for Expressionism’s staging of collective redemption in a new age, Anderson forges a previously underappreciated link in the study of Central European thought in the early twentieth century.

We willingly imagine that the speed of development of events has always remained constant here on earth. This is reflected in the fact that it is generally believed that the rate of natural phenomena is the same today as it has always been in the past and will remain this way more or less in the future. It is, now, a fact that the speed of progression of events is not constant over time. It was ascertained that since around the beginning of the 20th century the rate has accelerated in various fields, hence the term "acceleration of history" came to describe this phenomenon. This acceleration continues its course today and will even intensify. Examples meeting these historical vaults in short time periods are many, either local or international, that contributed to the change of the direction of history. Under any circumstances though, the “mature” conditions for change are not enough without the human interference. This phenomenon has been referred to as the “acceleration of history” in order to emphasize the fact that if in the past a certain lapse of time was necessary for history to unfold—for the events to take place—today, and starting around the beginning of the 20th century, this time lapse was becoming increasingly shorter. The events today, therefore, have intensified much more than in the past. So, which are considered as the main acceleration periods in history? Which events or developments de-normalized or deeply reformed the then acceptable norms, either national or international? Which events or developments changed the hard bits of history? These are the questions that we will try to answer in this edited volume.

The collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918 left all Austrians in a state of political, social, and economic turmoil, but Jews in particular found their lives shaken to the core. Although Jews' former comfort zone suddenly disappeared, the dissolution of the Dual Monarchy also created plenty of room for innovation and change in the realm of culture. Jews eagerly took up the challenge to fill this void, and they became heavily invested in culture as a way to shape their new, but also vexed, self-understandings. By isolating the years between the World Wars and examining formative events in both Vienna and the provinces, Becoming Austrians: Jews and Culture between the World Wars demonstrates that an intensified marking of people, places, and events as "Jewish" accompanied the crises occurring in the wake of Austria-Hungary's collapse, with profound effects on Austria's cultural legacy. In some cases, the consequences of this marking resulted in grave injustices. Philipp Halsmann, for example, was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his father years before he became a world-famous photographer. And the men who shot and killed writer Hugo Bettauer and philosopher Moritz Schlick received inadequate punishment for their murderous deeds. But engagements with the terms of Jewish difference also characterized the creation of culture, as shown in Hugo Bettauer's satirical novel The City without Jews and its film adaptation, other texts by Veza Canetti, David Vogel, A.M. Fuchs, Vicki Baum, and Mela Hartwig, and performances at the Salzburg Festival and the Yiddish theater in Vienna. By examining the lives, works, and deeds of a broad range of Austrians, Lisa Silverman reveals how the social codings of politics, gender, and nation received a powerful boost when articulated along the lines of Jewish difference.

Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of scholarly interest in the work of Johann Georg Hamann (1730–1788), across disciplines. New translations of work by and about Hamann are appearing, as are a number of books and articles on Hamann’s aesthetics, theories of language and sexuality, and unique place in Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment thought. Edited by Lisa Marie Anderson, Hamann and the Tradition gathers established and emerging scholars to examine the full range of Hamann’s impact—be it on German Romanticism or on the very practice of theology. Of particular interest to those not familiar with Hamann will be a chapter devoted to examining—or in some cases, placing—Hamann in dialogue with other important thinkers, such as Socrates, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

This book rethinks the concept of community taking Jean-Luc Nancy’s influential essay “La communauté désoeuvrée” as its starting point, tracing subsequent scholarship on community and adding new insights on avant-garde aesthetics and politics. Extensively exploring the communitarian dimension of avant-garde aesthetics and politics (focusing on artistic groups, intellectual circles and theoretical collectives), the author aims to bring literature and art into a philosophical examination of the paradoxical and complex idea of community.

Strangers to Nature challenges a reading public that has grown complacent with the standard framework of the animal ethics debate. Human influence on, and the control of, the natural world has greater consequences than ever, making the human impact on the lives of animals more evident. We cannot properly interrogate our conduct in the world without a deeper understanding of how our actions affect animals. It is crucial that the human-animal relationship become more central to ethical inquiry. This volume brings together many of the leading scholars who work to redefine and expand the discourse on animal ethics. The contributors examine the radical developments that change how we think about the status of non-human animals in our society and our moral obligations. Strangers to Natures will engage both scholars and lay-people by revealing the breadth of theorizing about current human/non-human animal relationships.