Prestigious sponsorship of an international project on Rosenzweig

As preliminary work, Prof. Dr. Martina Sitt, Art Studies, had carried out a project supported by the Central Research Funding of the University of Kassel (ZFF) in the summer of 2017 on "Investigation and Presentation of the Archival Holdings of the Partial Estate of Franz Rosenzweig in Kassel with Regard to His Writings on the Baroque in Theological and Artistic Perspective" together with Dr. Susanne Märtens. On this basis, it was possible to submit an international cooperation project together with Prof. Dr. Luca Bertolino, University of Turin, on the Close Reading format "Reading Classics" in December 2017. The one-week meeting at Villa Vigoni allows the applicants to work with 16 interlocutors, researchers, professors including four young researchers from different disciplines.

Franz Rosenzweig is considered one of the most important German-Jewish scholars and innovative thinkers before, during and after the First World War. In addition to numerous interdisciplinary individual studies in cultural studies, philosophy and theology, his main work "Star of Redemption", which has been translated into numerous languages, is of lasting importance. If one has already spoken of a multi-layered culturally, philosophically, and theologically fascinating work, the gathering of Italian and German scholars is intended to draw attention to that hitherto neglected area of his interest, his theory of the Baroque, in which Rosenzweig - although still quite young in 1908 - also shows himself to be a distinctive and creative conceptual thinker. Since Rosenzweig's text on the Baroque can only be understood from the perspective of different sciences, renowned philosophers, theologians and art historians as well as pedagogues and literary scholars have been invited to participate.

The "Close Reading" of Franz Rosenzweig's highly complex "Theory of the Baroque" makes it possible for the first time to do justice to Rosenzweig's philosophical, aesthetic, literary and religious complexity with regard to his reflections on art history. Keynote speeches complement and expand the scholarly reflections, thus creating the basis for the development of further research perspectives, collaborations and edition projects.

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Martina Sitt
University of Kassel
Kunsthochschule Kassel
Tel.: +49 561 804-5327
E-Mail: sitt[at]uni-kassel[dot]de