MACMILLAN Interrogating Modernity: Debates with Hans Blumenberg (Political Philosophy and Public Purpose)

Interrogating Modernity returns to Hans Blumenberg's epochal The Legitimacy of the Modern Age as a springboard to interrogate questions of modernity, secularisation, technology and political legitimacy in the fields of political theology, history of ideas, political theory, art theory, history of philosophy, theology and sociology. That is, the twelve essays in this volume return to Blumenberg's work to think once more about how and why we should value the modern. Written by a group of leading international and interdisciplinary researchers, this series of responses to the question of the modern put Blumenberg into dialogue with other twentieth, and twenty-first century theorists, such as Arendt, Bloch, Derrida, Husserl, Jonas, Latour, Voegelin, Weber and many more. The result is a repositioning of his work at the heart of contemporary attempts to make sense of who we are and how we’ve got here. Review ‘Hans Blumenberg’s profound analysis of the origins and meaning of modernity continues to inspire new insights and provoke fresh controversies. The trenchant responses to his legacy assembled by Bielik-Robson and Whistler set his ideas in motion, sparking illumination as they collide with those of other thinkers, including Descartes, Locke, Husserl, Weber, and Latour’.  ―Martin Jay, Ehrman Professor of European History Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, USA   ‘In this immensely significant and highly original collection, Blumenberg's monumental work provides the perfect foil for a set of fresh, searching and powerful interrogations of the character of philosophical modernity. Learned and deeply penetrating, these essays set the standard for contemporary discussions about the origins of modernity’. ―Philip Goodchild, Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Nottingham, UK From the Back Cover Interrogating Modernity returns to Hans Blumenberg's epochal The Legitimacy of the Modern Age as a springboard to interrogate questions of modernity, secularisation, technology and political legitimacy in the fields of political theology, history of ideas, political theory, art theory, history of philosophy, theology and sociology. That is, the twelve essays in this volume return to Blumenberg's work to think once more about how and why we should value the modern. Written by a group of leading international and interdisciplinary researchers, this series of responses to the question of the modern put Blumenberg into dialogue with other twentieth, and twenty-first century theorists, such as Arendt, Bloch, Derrida, Husserl, Jonas, Latour, Voegelin, Weber and many more. The result is a repositioning of his work at the heart of contemporary attempts to make sense of who we are and how we’ve got here. Agata Bielik-Robson is a Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK and at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Daniel Whistler is Reader in Modern European Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK About the Author Agata Bielik-Robson is a Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK and at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. Her publications include The Saving Lie. Harold Bloom and Deconstruction (2011), Judaism in Contemporary Thought. Traces and Influence (co-edited with Adam Lipszyc, 2014), Jewish Cryptotheologies of Late Modernity: Philosophical Marranos (2014), and Another Finitude: Messianic Vitalism and Philosophy (2019).  Daniel Whistler is Reader in Modern European Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His publications include The Schelling-Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801: Nature and Identity (2020), The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-Century Theology (2017) and After the Postmodern and the Postsecular: News Essays in Continental Philosophy