Proof of this is the publication of more than twenty volumes, as well as some correspondence (with Jacob Taubes and Carl Schmitt), that made the attempt to draw a reliable map of his vast production even harder. At least they complicated the task according to some central nuclei: the investigation into the critical threshold from the Middle Ages to Modernity and theCopernican revolution, which implied the debate around the so-called secularization theorem; the nexus between myth and metaphor understood as an anthropological problem; the inescapability of the aesthetic-literary dimension as a form of knowledge; the continuous return to the phenomenological and theological presuppositions of historical understanding of the world of life.

Two main reasons seem to have complicated this broad and multifaceted panorama in the last decade.

On the one hand, we find newly published writings. We are talking about autograph texts, such as Blumenberg’s dissertation dedicated to Scholastic ontology, written in 1947 but published in 2020, andrelevant collections: from Quellen, Ströme, Eisberge (2012) and Präfiguration. Arbeit am politischen Mythos (2014); until the writings on literature of the period 1945-1958 (2017), the phenomenological writings of the period 1981-1988 (2018) and the recent, Realität und Realismus (2020).

On the other hand, the scholarly work and critical investigation of the author has intensified. In fact, in the last ten years, especially in Germany, numerous collective books and significant monographic works on Blumenberg’s philosophical thought and biography have been released.

In short, it seems that time has come to devote to Blumenberg’s thought the philosophical attention it deserves. “Aisthesis”, therefore, aims to collect 4 to 6 contributions from qualified scholars in a Focus on this issue.

Albeit also open to other proposals and suggestions, the Focus is intended to address in particular the following lines of research:

• the contribution that recent critical enquiry has made with regard to Blumenberg’s production and intellectual figure;
• the young Blumenberg, with particular reference to the relationship between theology and phenomenology;
• what new ways of reading Blumenberg’s “classical” production are possible in light of the newly published materials;
• the relationship between aesthetics, mythology and literature as it emerges in the texts and contributions published in the last decade in Germany.

 

Deadline: May 27th 2022

Expected release: June 2022

Advisory Editors:

Andrea Borsari, University of Bologna, Italy (a.borsari@unibo.it)

Fabrizio Desideri, University of Florence, Italy (fabrizio.desideri@unifi.it)

Francesco Valagussa, University of Vita-San Raffaele, Milan (Italy) (valagussa.francesco@hsr.it)

 

Download the PDF of the call (ENG)