Explores the impact the discovery of the New World had upon Europeans' perceptions of their identity and place in history

A newly discovered treatise by a major European writer

There can be no doubt that most of the thinkers who are usually associated with the existentialist tradition, whatever their actual doctrines, were in one way or another influenced by the writings of Kierkegaard. This influence is so great that it can be fairly stated that the existentialist movement was largely responsible for the major advance in Kierkegaard's international reception that took place in the twentieth century. In Kierkegaard's writings one can find a rich array of concepts such as anxiety, despair, freedom, sin, the crowd, and sickness that all came to be standard motifs in existentialist literature. Sartre played an important role in canonizing Kierkegaard as one of the forerunners of existentialism. However, recent scholarship has been attentive to his ideological use of Kierkegaard. Indeed, Sartre seemed to be exploiting Kierkegaard for his own purposes and suspicions of misrepresentation and distortions have led recent commentators to go back and reexamine the complex relation between Kierkegaard and the existentialist thinkers. The articles in the present volume feature figures from the French, German, Spanish and Russian traditions of existentialism. They examine the rich and varied use of Kierkegaard by these later thinkers, and, most importantly, they critically analyze his purported role in this famous intellectual movement.

This volume examines the lives of more than thirty-five key personalities in Latin American law with a focus on how their Christian faith was a factor in molding the evolution of law in their countries and the region. The book is a significant contribution to our ability to understand the work and perspectives of jurists and their effect on legal development in Latin America. The individuals selected for study exhibit wide-ranging areas of expertise from private law and codification, through national public law and constitutional law, to international developments that left their mark on the region and the world. The chapters discuss the jurists within their historical, intellectual, and political context. The editors selected jurists after extensive consultation with legal historians in various countries of the region looking at the jurist’s particular merits, contributions to law in general, religious perspective, and importance within the specific country and period under consideration. Giving the work a diversity of international and methodological perspectives, the chapters have been written by distinguished legal scholars and historians from Latin America and around the world. The collection will appeal to scholars, lawyers, and students interested in the interplay between law and religion. Political, social, legal, and religious historians among other readers will find, for the first time in English, authoritative treatments of the region’s essential legal thinkers and authors. Students and other who may not read Spanish will appreciate these clear, accessible, and engaging English studies of the region’s great jurists.

“New Insights on the Gospels” Volume VII, is part of a collection that enables you to accompany Our Lord Jesus Christ throughout every Sunday of the liturgical year, together with the founder of the Heralds of the GospelThe work “New Insights on the Gospels,” beyond being exegetical and pastoral, has the merit of making theology accessible to all readers regardless of social status or academic level. To soar in the heights of Theology, what is needed, more than culture or intelligence, is faith. Faith enables us to penetrate truths and mysteries that lie beyond the reach of human understanding. When it comes to believing, higher learning or intellectual capacity is not of consequence; what truly matters is having a soul that is open to God’s light. It is only in the Catholic Faith that today’s world will find answers to the problems that perturb it. Perhaps this explains the growing interest among the faithful in deepening their knowledge of Catholic Doctrine. Could this be the reason for the successful publication of the first volumes of this collection? Published in four languages—English, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese—its first edition quickly ran out, achieving a circulation of almost seventy thousand copies. Saving precious teachings of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church from falling into oblivion, it is a response to the worthy and emphatic recommendation of the Second Vatican Council of giving primacy to Thomism (cf. Optatam totius, n.16) in the study of the mysteries of salvation. The work has met wide acceptance among priests, for whom it is mainly intended, to serve as a resource in homily preparation. But it has met an equally warm reception among the lay faithful who are eager to broaden their religious knowledge. This may be a unique symptom of the spiritual condition of our age: the thirst for the divine. It is a thirst that increases as it is quenched, causing neither distress nor pain but only joy for those who seek to satisfy it in the crystalline springs of the Word of God.

At Macedonio Fernández's funeral in 1952, Jorge Luis Borges delivered the following elegy: “In those years I imitated him to the point of transcription, to the point of devout and passionate plagiarism. I felt: Macedonio is metaphysics, Macedonio is literature.” This is the first book available in English that collects essays by the world's leading scholars on Macedonio Fernández, one of Borges's most important mentors and a still enigmatic thinker of the early 20th century. Macedonio's philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and experimental writing laid the foundations for Borges's own theoretical and literary matrix. Nonetheless, Borges helped shape a myth of Macedonio as a thinker who could not translate his oratorial geniality into written intelligibility. So, despite the centrality of Macedonio to Borges's thought, his work has remained almost unknown to English-speaking readers. Contributors to this volume demonstrate, however, that this myth reduces the complexities of Macedonio's life and creative process, as each chapter shines new light on his texts. Conceived as both a companion for new readers of Macedonio's writings and an invitation for specialists to revisit his work through new perspectives, essays in this volume provide extensive background and bibliographical references, as well as English translations of Macedonio's original texts. This collection seeks to serve as a catalyst for the continued discovery and rediscovery of Macedonio Fernández's texts and the ways they might help us to rediscover the singularities of our own present moment.

Once called 'the wellspring of the revolution' by Fidel Castro, Jose Marti (1853-1895) is revered as one of the greatest figures in the history of Cuba. Not only was he instrumental in the late nineteenth-century cause of securing Cuban independence from Spain. He is also considered one of Cuba's most brilliant writers, orators and formative intellectuals, who provided inspiration to the young Fidel, Che and their fellow revolutionaries by dedicating his whole life to the goal of national political emancipation. Jose Marti suffered persecution and early imprisonment for his convictions, and in consequence is often referred to as the 'Cuban Apostle'. In this wide-ranging discussion of Marti's life, work and influence, distinguished Cuban poet Cintio Vitier and prominent Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda explore their subject's understanding of non-violence; his nationalism that was also a profound openness to difference and dialogue; his spirituality; his poetical writings; and most of all his fundamental dignity, humanity and self-mastery. The book explores above all the nature of sacrifice, and the cost of relinquishing personal happiness for the sake of a great cause. The discussants examine Marti's family life, including his difficult relationships with his wife - Carmen Zayas Bazan - and his parents, who distanced themselves from his revolutionary fervour. Comparisons are drawn between Marti's ideals and Nichiren Buddhism as a source of unfailing hope and courage. As Daisaku Ikeda, follower of Nichiren, says at one point in the dialogue: 'Self-mastery is the hardest thing of all. But to have a spiritual nature worthy of the name, a person must overcome himself, a task that only a true optimist can accomplish. Marti's perspicacity is revealed in his conviction that final victory in life is assured by such optimists.' Marti, like Nichiren, had the unerring ability to turn enemies into friends. And as Cintio Vitier and Daisaku Ikeda reveal, what set Marti apart was not his thought or ideas alone but what emanated from his words and found embodiment in his actions. It was thus that a follower at the time could say of him: we don't understand him, but we are ready to die for him.