Web Log Archives
2008-2009
Compte rendu
The French translation of my review of Martin Rodan's book has been published in Revue Juive.

-20100310 (permalink)
New in the library
In a class of its own within the Jewish Jesus literature stands the weighty tome (715 pages!), Our Christ, or the essence of genius, by the lately immortalized philosopher, Constantin Brunner (Leopold Wertheimer). Only some essential passages of the content-heavy book can be indicated here. Christ is a mystic, and in order to understand him, we must understand the essence of mysticism.
Read the rest of Gösta Lindeskog's 1938 appraisal of Brunner's Our Christ.

-20100204 (permalink)
Rodan's wager
I received my passport in the mail the other day. No, not the passport that lets us leave our native land and fellow citizens, but rather one that takes us to the home of the great geniuses of our culture. I'm talking about Martin Rodan's Notre culture européenne, cette inconnue.

Read the rest of my review.

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Book Notice
Martin Rodan has just published a book entitled Notre culture européenne, cette inconnue. I am eagerly awaiting my copy. I will be devoting a lot of space here to a detailed study of this important work.

-20090729 (permalink)
Then we take Berlin
In a recent interview, three prominent Brunnerians discuss the transfer of the Brunner archive from the Brunner Institute in The Hague to the Jewish Museum in Berlin. There is also mention of a symposium to be held in the German capital in 2012. The interviewer asks some excellent questions, including one about Einstein's criticism of Brunner (see here). Brunner Institute President Jürgen Stenzel answers the question by stressing the deep harmony of their thinking with regard to determinism in science.

-20081120 (permalink)
New in the Library
An article about Brunner originally published in The Jewish Quarterly (vol. 7 no. 1 (Winter 1959/1960)) provides an excellent synopsis of Brunner's life, work and significance.

-20080919 (permalink)
Spinoza contra Kant in English
I have uploaded to the Internet Archive an unpublished English translation of Spinoza gegen Kant. The translation is Henri Lurié's, which I have edited.

-20080912 (permalink)
Brunner in digital full text
The Internet Archive has digitized the full text of Brunner's Der Judenhass und die Juden. The scan, which is of the 1919 edition, is available in multiple formats, and includes extracts from several reviews of Brunner's other works, as well as an announcement for Our Christ.

-20080903 (permalink)
New monograph in French
Belgian publisher Didier-Devillez is presenting Jacques Aron's translation of Brunner's work on antisemitism. The monograph is entitled Le Malheur de notre peuple allemand et nos «völksich». Un philosophe allemand de l'antisémitisme, du nazisme et du sionisme, and includes Aron's introduction and notes. The publisher's blurb credits Brunner for his prescience and courage in confronting Nazism:
En 1924, pendant que Hitler, emprisonné après son putsch manqué, rédige Mein Kampf, le parti nazi connaît ses premiers succès en Thuringe. Aussitôt Brunner, philosophe spinoziste, toujours au fait de l'actualité, publie un pamphlet qui s'adresse à tous les Allemands, Juifs et non-Juifs, pour dénoncer les dangers de l'État de non droit qui se dessine.
Related post: Auschwitz understood.

-20080811 (permalink)
Brunner in portrait

The Center for Jewish History Digital Collections catalogs a number of artworks depicted Constantin Brunner. There is a portrait by Max Busyn, a wooden head of unknown authorship and Brunner's death mask. All are said to be in the possession of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, but I have seen a death mask at the Brunnerzimmer in The Hague.

...

A while ago, I posted an item about a portrait of Brunner by Julie Wolfthorn that appeared in the journal Ost und West, and is made available through a digitization project called Compact Memory, "the science portal for Jewish Studies." The database is searchable, and a number of articles by and about Brunner can be found in it. One item that I found was what appears to be a most compelling portrait of Brunner.

-20080626 (permalink)
Auschwitz Understood

The Bulletin Trimestriel de la Fondation Auschwitz has dedicated a special issue to Constantin Brunner (announced here, pdf, p. 5-6). Included are an editorial, an introductory essay and an extract from Brunner's Das unglück unsres deutschen Volkes und unsre Völkischen (The Misfortune of our German Folk and our "Folkish").

The impetus for this publication comes from Jacques Aron, a Belgian architect who has made many contributions to discussion of urgent social concerns, and has now taken a great interest in Brunner, whom he discussed in a forum sponsored by La Maison du Livre, an organization devoted to the promotion of "books, literature and writing."

There is much in Aron's introductory essay to reinforce the conviction of Brunner's growing importance for an adequate understanding of our times.

It appears that the Bulletin eventually will place the whole text of the issue (N°98) on its website.

-20080521 (permalink)
Vive la France!
Some of Brunner's most active support has come from France. Albert Camus mentioned Lothar Bickel in L'Homme révolté. Prof. Michaël Baraz wrote an excellent study entitled La révolution insespérée. And Henri Lurié translated and composed a considerable quantity of material that is deposited at the Sorbonne. Currently, Raoul Sabas operates discussion and information websites, including an msn group and a blog. Raoul attended the meeting of the ICBI in The Hague in 2004 at which I, too, was present. He is an unrelenting critic of the pseudo-élites that dominate cultural discourse, and a passionate advocate for truth and liberté d'esprit.
-20080111 (permalink)


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