Messianic Time
This Saturday at The Public School:
The aim of these classes is to get an insight into the messianic, but most of all, to discuss the relevance of the term today. Why is there a comeback with regards to the discussion of religion/religions today? What is the legacy of Christianity or its strange alliance with other religions?
1) Please read Walter Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History” and find all relevant citations on Messianic. Benjamin’s text is going to serve as a “backdrop” if we can imagine it so, to all that will follow, so it is good if we always keep his basic concepts in mind.
2) Eduardo Cadava’s essay gives a good insight to Benjamin’s “Jeztzeit” or “now-time”
We will discuss relationships between non-linear time, photographic time and the time of tele-technics (see Derrida Faith and Knowledge, p. 48-55)
3) Reading Agamben, The time that remains, Chapter 1& particularly 4:
Why does Agamben chose the term Messiah as opposed to Jesus (Iesous)
4) Also see the Appendix, Letter to the Romans, translation: St. Paul’s text is widely available in the Bible, as it forms part of the New Testament.
We are briefly going to discuss the figure of St. Paul and the overall structure of the Letter. Consider the term Apostle Paul instead of Saint Paul.
5) History/prophecy: why messiah instead of prophet. Who can be a prophet today? What are the terms of historicity :
Particularly Derrida, Faith and Knowledge, p. 55 ” there where a certain concept of history itself becomes innappropriate” …let us refer first to the “messianic” and to “chora”