Kierkegaard and Political Theory - UGent · new line in Kierkegaard studies that illuminates new...
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Museum Tusculanum Press Edited by Armen Avanessian and Sophie Wennerscheid Edited by Armen Avanessian and Sophie Wennerscheid Kierkegaard and Political Theory Kierkegaard and Political Theory Religion, Aesthetics, Politics and the Intervention of the Single Individual Søren Kierkegaard’s radical protestant philosophy of the individ- ual – in which a person’s leap of faith is favoured over general ethics – has become a model for many contemporary political theorists. Thinkers such as Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou have drawn on its revolutionary spirit to position truth above the con- straints of political systems. In Kierkegaard and Political Theory , contributors from a wide range of disciplines – including theology, sociology, philosophy and aesthetics – examine just how crucial Kierkegaard’s anti-institutional thinking has been to such efforts and to modernity as a whole. The contributors convincingly position Kierkegaard’s radical phi- losophy as a starting point for contemporary political theories. They show how he pioneered a modernity defined as an argu ment – an experience – of the impossibility of rationally com- prehending a system of thinking. They show how religious and aesthetic experiences function as a response to this impossibil- ity, how their coherence in politics must always be questioned, especially in history’s extreme example: totalitarianism. En- gaging this and many other subjects, they provide a compelling new line in Kierkegaard studies that illuminates new contours of our political thought. ARMEN AVANESSIAN, Free University Berlin, and recently visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg as well as the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, is a comparatist and philosopher. SOPHIE WENNERSCHEID is professor of Scandinavian studies at Ghent University, Belgium. www.mtp.dk ISBN 978 87 635 4154 1
Transcript of Kierkegaard and Political Theory - UGent · new line in Kierkegaard studies that illuminates new...
Museum Tusculanum Press
Edited by Armen Avanessian and Sophie Wennerscheid
Edited by Armen Avanessian
and Sophie Wennerscheid
Kierkegaard andPolitical TheoryK
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Po
litical Th
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Religion, Aesthetics, Politics and the Intervention of the Single Individual
Søren Kierkegaard’s radical protestant philosophy of the individ-ual – in which a person’s leap of faith is favoured over general ethics – has become a model for many contemporary political theorists. Thinkers such as Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou have drawn on its revolutionary spirit to position truth above the con-straints of political systems. In Kierkegaard and Political Theory, contributors from a wide range of disciplines – including theology, sociology, philosophy and aesthetics – examine just how crucial Kierkegaard’s anti-institutional thinking has been to such efforts and to modernity as a whole.
The contributors convincingly position Kierkegaard’s radical phi-lo sophy as a starting point for contemporary political theo ries. They show how he pioneered a modernity defined as an ar gument – an experience – of the impossibility of rationally com-prehending a system of thinking. They show how religious and aesthetic experiences function as a response to this impossibil-ity, how their coherence in politics must always be questioned, especially in history’s extreme example: totalitarianism. En- gaging this and many other subjects, they provide a compelling new line in Kierkegaard studies that illuminates new contours of our political thought.
ARMEN AVANESSIAN, Free University Berlin, and recently visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg as well as the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, is a comparatist and philosopher.
SOPHIE WENNERSCHEID is professor of Scandinavian studies at Ghent University, Belgium.
www.mtp.dk
ISBN 978 87 635 4154 1
