Author Archives: Abigail
Book Matters
The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest By Felix Salten, translated & introduced by Jack Zipes, illustrated by Alenka Sottler. Bambi was the first book I truly loved when it was read to me as a … Continue reading
Book Matters
Book Matters Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman by Stefan Zweig It’s impossible to write a more definitive biography of Marie Antoinette, the unluckiest Queen of France, than the one by Stefan Zweig. The biography combines the objectivity … Continue reading
The Theologian’s Wife
At the time I was at Columbia University, as a graduate student in philosophy as well as an Assistant in the Religion Department, Paul Tillich – a theologian of world stature in the twentieth century – was just a few … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, mysticism, nineteenth-century, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, racism, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, science, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal’s A Good Look at Evil, Columbia Religion Department, Columbia University, commitments betrayed, communists and nazis, connecting the dots, deathbed farewell, denial of evil, emancipation as the excuse, escaping when Hitler takes power, female powerlessness, German politics, Germany between the wars, getting a look at Hitler, God of history, great man’s wife, great men who exploit women, great thinkers who betray women, Hannah Tillich, Hannah Tillich’s From Time to Time, Hannah Tillich’s memoir, Hitler rally, Hitler’s spell, honor under fire, impersonal God vs personal God, keeping one’s honor, lifelong friendship, long suffering wives, love at first sight, love surviving disappointment, love triangle, loving but not trusting, marital infidelity, marriage as lifelong voyage, meditation as emotional shelter, meeting great men, nazi’s uncanny speed, Nietzsche, open marriage, open relationship, Paul Tillich, Paul Tillich’s marriage, Paul Tillich’s widow, perceiving evil, personal betrayal, personal virtue, post-war Germany, recognizing evil, rekindled friendship, repressed jealousy, scorning bourgeois values, spiritual discernment, spoiling true love, the disappointed woman behind the great man, theologians and nazism, theological problems, theology professorships, Tillich in America, Tillich’s Biblical Faith, Tillich’s Biblical Religion and the Search for Ultimate Reality, Tillich’s Ground of Being, Tillich’s personal God, Tillich’s Ultimacy, ultimacy, Union Theological Seminary, victimization in marriage, virtue under pressure, weathering the storms of marriage, world class theologian, yoga and emotional shelter, yoga and meditation
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Anti-Semitism’s Secret Springs
Before October 7, 2023, the anti-Semite was a type I seldom encountered. I can remember the very first time the phenomenon came my way in an academic setting. A philosophic colleague of my late father was scheduled to give a … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, agnosticism, alienation, American politics, anthropology, anti-semitism, appreciation, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, bigotry, book reviews, books, bureaucracy, childhood, chivalry, Christianity, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eighteenth century, erotic life, eternity, ethics, ethnicity, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, nineteenth-century, non-violence, novels, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, remembrance, repairing the culture, roles, romance, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, TV, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged Abigail L. Rosenthal's "A Good Look at Evil", academic freedom, academic philosophy, answer to prayer, anti-hero, anti-Semite defined, anti-Semites, chronology and guilt, chronology and moral judgment, Columbia University, concealed cunning, death ending a friendship, divine revelation, divine revelation in New York subway, divine separation and human visibility, divine separation and our narrative, family friends, friends become enemies, friendship betrayed, friendship lost, God can see through masks, God sees the story, guests for dinner, hating God's historical aspect, heroes and villains, hiding from God, human life as storylike, human visibility to God, inherited friends, institutional powerlessness, Jewish mission defined, Jewish passion for God, Jews and God in history, living behind a mask, masked protesters, misreading the Bible, misusing the Bible, moral courage, mysticism and moral evasion, naive facade as a mask, October 7, personal God vs God as Oneness, philosophic colleagues, philosophy of religion, pretended naivete, selective Biblical citations, the timeline and moral clarity, transcendent God vs immanent God, trial run for unacceptable behavior, what people will do in the dark, what you see is what you get, when the cat's away the mice will play
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