... of the Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen, whose interpretation of human weakness represents not only an alternative but in many respects a counterposition to Paul. In my article I present Cohen's messianism and his generation of the concept of the individual out of the recognition of human weakness. I return...

...Willem Styfhals The story of the renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism Gershom Scholem and his disloyal student Jacob Taubes was one of continuing intellectual quarrel and personal enmity. Their intellectual disagreements centered on Jewish messianism, but the significance of this issue for Taubes’s...

... own thought, an intellectual messianism or revolutionary nihilism that frames Kafka's legal world with a radical critique of law. The verdict against modernity that Benjamin finds in Kafka is couched in a series of theologically tinted figures. The obscurity of Kafka's “parables,” the fruit...

...: the (biopolitical) implications of the emergence of the modern notion of Beruf , and the relevance and possibility of a “secularized” or “postsecular” messianism. New German Critique, Inc. 2008 Beruf: Luther, Weber, Agamben Christiane Frey...

... of the three—the discourse swerved, taking on the theopolitical as the “true” messianic calling. By historicizing political theology within the German Jewish response in Palestine, the article problematizes some key concepts of current biopolitical critique. New German Critique, Inc. 2008 The Jerusalem...

.... Defining the language of lamentation as the silent, (self-) destructive “language of the border” allowed Scholem to generate a performative essay as an act of inscription into tradition. Moreover, by pointing to the anarchic, apocalyptic, and messianic moments in the language of lamentation, this early...

... and strength, the tension between embracing hyperrationality and rejection of modernity, were significant for Benjamin. Supported by Rabinbach's understanding of the appeal of messianic movements and of occupying the position of moral superiority, Benjamin was able to formulate her perspective on the need...

... of figures in his late essay “Typological Motifs” (1953), the present article argues that the temporality of serial repetition provides a key to understanding the antihistoricist elements of Auerbach’s historiography, which breaks with the messianic logic of progressive fulfillment. Contextualizing...

... . On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism . New York : Schocken . ———. 1971 . The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality . New York : Schocken . ———. 1971 . “The Neutralization of the Messianic Element in Early Hasidism.” In The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays...

... to the point where our problems again resemble those of the sixteenth cen- tury. . . . Theological ideas still stir up messianic passions, leaving societies in ruins.” According to Lilla, much of the current trouble in the world is a by- product of this political theology: “So long as a sizable population...

... efforts to come to grips with Paul’s messianism. Taubes developed his notion of the Mysterium Judai- cum thinking about Paul not only in relation to Schmitt’s notion of the “katechontic form of existence” but also in relation to Gershom Scholem’s notion that the “price” of Jewish messianism was “a life...

... of modernism, including Benjamin’s work, deployed to undermine the absolutes of earlier, idealist and Romantic thought. 6 I find this strategy in Benjamin’s engagements with anarchist thought, which is why I disagree with Michael Lowy’s appraisal of Benjamin’s anarchism as “Romantic Messianism” and “Jewish...

... work. In his excellent essay on Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, and German Jewish messianism from In the Shadow of Catastrophe, Rabinbach displays the skills of a first-rate intellectual historian who sympathetically engages yet critically assesses the messianic and utopian longings...

... the crucial categories or concepts at work in their thought, and second, to ask after the order by which these categories achieve a broader intellectual coher- ence. The most fundamental of these categories he identifi es as messian- ism, language, and justice, but these do little more than provide...

... decided in our favor. At twelve o’clock everything shall close and won’t open again! Accursed be those who don’t believe us! And now, off to Clayton!” 14 The language used here resembles the language of a messianic calling, depicting life in the theater as the righteous way of living...

... heritage, something on display in their diverging receptions of the tradition of messianism. Nick Braune and Joan Braune argue that, while Adorno and many other Frankfurt thinkers were influenced by a sense of “catastrophic messianism,” Fromm instead turned to “prophetic messianism” for inspiration...

... of the Critique of Violence, the debate about a “messianic without messianism,” and the broad debate over the writings of Giorgio Agamben.4 These discourses are new in the sense that they refer to religion less as an element in Benjamin’s work, something to grasp in order to understand what Benjamin...

... of the disenchanted world. His comparison of our situation with Jewish exile makes his diagnosis of modernity appear as little other than an intensifi cation of the unredeemed state of the world, which in turn provoked Isaiah’s curiously and fi ttingly refracted, very unpromising messianic promise: “From Seir...

... belonging to a people or to an age” (A System of Logic, in Collected Works, ed. J. M. Robson, vol. 8 [Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2006], 904–5). 206 Birth of the “Psychological Jew” duty to pray for the messianic age.21 In a typical analysis of Jewish participation in the German workers...

..., revolutionary act, which would solve the actual problem of the Jewish masses. ‘Catastrophe Zionism’—in this concept one sees both the urgency and the moral justification of the Zionist vision, much like the redemption that is arriv- ing following messianic times.”10 When examining the history of law...