A History Of Hegelianism In Golden Age Denmark Tome 1

This is the first of a three-volume work dedicated to exploring the influence of G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophical thinking in Golden Age Denmark. The work demonstrates that the largely overlooked tradition of Danish Hegelianism played a profound and indeed constitutive role in many spheres of Golden Age culture. This initial tome covers the period from the beginning of the Hegel reception in the Danish Kingdom in the 1820s until the end of 1836. The dominant figure from this period is the poet and critic Johan Ludvig Heiberg, who attended Hegel’s lectures in Berlin in 1824 and then launched a campaign to popularize Hegel’s philosophy among his fellow countrymen. Using his journal Kjøbenhavns flyvende Post as a platform, Heiberg published numerous articles containing ideas that he had borrowed from Hegel. Several readers felt provoked by Heiberg’s Hegelianism and wrote critical responses to him, many of which appeared in Kjøbenhavnsposten, the rival of Heiberg’s journal. Through these debates Hegel’s philosophy became an important part of Danish cultural life.

This is the second volume in a three-volume work dedicated to exploring the influence of G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophical thinking in Golden Age Denmark. The work demonstrates that the largely overlooked tradition of Danish Hegelianism played a profound and indeed constitutive role in many spheres of the Golden Age culture. This second tome treats the most intensive period in the history of the Danish Hegel reception, namely, the years from 1837 to 1841. The main figure in this period is the theologian Hans Martensen who made Hegel’s philosophy a sensation among the students at the University of Copenhagen in the late 1830s. This period also includes the publication of Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s Hegelian journal, Perseus, and Frederik Christian Sibbern’s monumental review of it, which represented the most extensive treatment of Hegel’s philosophy in the Danish language at the time. During this period Hegel’s philosophy flourished in unlikely genres such as drama and lyric poetry. During these years Hegelianism enjoyed an unprecedented success in Denmark until it gradually began to be perceived as a dangerous trend.

The present tome is the first of a three-volume work dedicated to exploring the profound influence of G.W.F. Hegel's philosophical thinking in Golden Age Denmark. This initial volume covers the period from the beginning of the Hegel reception in the Danish Kingdom from the turn of the century until 1836. While Kierkegaard's polemic with the Danish Hegelians is a well-known part of his philosophical agenda, the actual texts and ideas of these thinkers have received little attention in their own right. The present work demonstrates that this largely overlooked tradition of Hegel reception played a profound and indeed constitutive role in many aspects of Golden Age culture: philosophy, theoloy, literature, poetry, law, journalism, and the arts. Moreover, it brought into its orbit most of the main figures from the period.

The Danish Golden Age of the first half of the nineteenth century endured in the midst of a number of different kinds of crisis — political, economic, and cultural. The many changes of the period made it a dynamic time, one in which artists, poets, philosophers, and religious thinkers were constantly reassessing their place in society. This book traces the different aspects of the cultural crisis of the period through a series of case studies of key figures, including Johan Ludvig Heiberg, Hans Lassen Martensen, and Søren Kierkegaard. Far from just a historical analysis, however, the book shows that many of the key questions that Danish society wrestled with during the Golden Age remain strikingly familiar today. Jon Stewart is associate professor at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen.

This second tome treats the most dynamic period in the history of the Danish Hegel reception, namely, the years from 1837 to 1842. The main figure in this period is the theologian Hans Lassen Martensen who made Hegel's philosophy a sensation among the students at the University of Copenhagen in the late 1830s. This period also includes the publication of Johan Ludwig Heiberg's Hegelian journal, Perseus, in 1837 and 1838, and the monumental review of it by Frederik Christian Sibbern. During this time Hegel's philosophy flourished in unlikely genres such as drama, with Heiberg's speculative comedy, Fata Morgana (1838), and lyric poetry with his New Poems (1841), which included his satirical classic, ""A Soul after Death."" This period also witnessed Hegel's philosophy make inroads in fields such as jurisprudence and art criticism. During these years Hegelianism enjoyed an unprecedented success in Denmark that began to fade as it gradually became perceived as a dangerous trend.

The Abased Christ is the first monograph to be devoted exclusively to Søren Kierkegaard’s Christological masterpiece, Practice in Christianity. Alongside an argument for a new translation of the work’s title, it offers detailed textual commentary on a series of themes in Practice in Christianity, such as the person of Christ, contemporaneity, imitation, and Kierkegaard’s philosophy of history. Anti-Climacus, the pseudonymous author of Practice in Christianity, presents to his readers a uniquely challenging understanding of who Christ is and what it means to follow him. The Christ of Anti-Climacus is not the glorious Christ who abides with the Father in heaven, but the abased Christ who is poor, marginal, offensive, and persecuted. Throughout Practice in Christianity, we are called not only to perceive the abased Christ, but to follow after him. The Abased Christ aims to enrich historical theologians’ appreciation of Kierkegaard’s Christology. However, it concludes by grappling with questions of power, agency, and sacrifice which have been at the forefront of contemporary theology in the 20th and 21st centuries, thereby suggesting how we might make sense of Kierkegaard’s Christology today.