The Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften: Events
Thursday, 24 April 2025, 11:00
Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften, Am Wingertsberg 4, 61348 Bad Homburg
Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften of Goethe UniversityFKH colloquium
Galili Shahar (Tel Aviv University)
»Towards a Theory of Angels«Abstract
The angels are known among the ancient figures of world literature. They appear in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions as messengers and governors in the name of heaven. Post-biblical literatures tell about the angels of the divine court, being appointed as priests, ministers and officers of war, serving as jurists, scribes and scholars of mysteries who hold the secrets of creation and divine justice. The angels imply cosmic powers over the spheres, moving the planets and guarding the world from evil and injustice. However, at certain times the angels gather in great choruses to sing hymns and psalms, poems of lament and the verses of Holiness. In modernity the angelic tradition seems to have vanished. The angels turned silent. The new angels are remnants of a great tradition, in which knowledge (science), governance (politics) and singing (poetry) were harmoniously associated. What is left for us to learn and to save from this tradition?
The speaker
Galili Shahar is professor of Comparative Literature at Tel Aviv University. His work is dedicated to research and teaching of German, Jewish and Hebrew literatures and classical Persian literature. In the years 2013–2020 he served as the director of the Minerva Institute for German History at the Tel Aviv University, and 2020–2023 as the head of the School of Cultural Studies at the Tel Aviv University. Since 2020 he is the head of The Leo Baeck Institute for the Study of German-Jewish History and Culture in Jerusalem. As a research fellow, he has worked at the Institut für Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft at the Free University of Berlin, the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Selma Stern Zentrum für jüdische Studien Berlin-Brandenburg.
Participation
Closed event. Contact: Beate Sutterlüty; email: b.sutterluety@forschungskolleg-humanwissenschaften.de
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