‘Teutonic Philosophy’: Jacob Boehme (1575–1624) in context, his life and the reception of his writings
The theosophical works of Jacob Boehme [or Jakob Böhme] (1575–1624), the ‘inspired cobbler’ of Görlitz, have influenced Western culture in complex and profound ways, from the radical sects of the English Civil Wars to twentieth-century Russian Orthodox theology. This interdisciplinary conference will draw on the insights of literary, philosophical, theological and historical scholarship to illuminate Boehme’s thought and trace its reception over four centuries. We invite proposals which aim to:
- renew our understanding of Boehme’s system;
- explain its resonance within different contexts and discourses;
- assess its contribution to processes of historical and intellectual change.
We would particularly welcome papers on the legacy of the Radical Reformation and the sixteenth-century anticlerical tradition, alchemy, Hermeticism, medicine, mysticism, radical religious ideas during the English Revolution, John Pordage, the Philadelphian Society, Pietism, William Law, Emanuel Swedenborg and the Swedenborgians, William Blake, Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Martin Heidegger, American Transcendentalism and Eastern Orthodox sophiology.
Confirmed speakers include: Howard Caygill, Vittoria Feola, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Ariel Hessayon, Glenn Magee, George Pattison, Marsha Keith Schuchard, Jane Shaw, Nigel Smith, Arthur Versluis, and Andrew Weeks.
