Letters from and to Jacob Taubes
The philosopher of religion Jacob Taubes (1923–1987), who published only a single book during his lifetime, was an outstanding project maker and networker whose thinking has generated enormous international interest in recent years. Taubes’ correspondence thus exemplifies both artistically and theoretically the concept of an “open work.” Since 2004, the ZfL has held a collection of over a thousand letters from and to him, as well as an extensive collection of further documents. The only one of its kind worldwide, it forms the basis of a series of editions of Jacob Taubes’ letters.
Taking into account questions of editing and archive theory, such as those raised by Jacques Derrida in Mal d'Archive when he merged biographical with judicial, scientific with administrative purposes, the archive is understood as a central model: as an institution, but also as a “thought image” in the sense of Walter Benjamin. The published editions of his correspondence thus facilitate the reconstruction of the central ideas in Taubes’ work. By reassembling the parts, long dispersed over the world, they convey far-reaching insights into the central constellations and controversies of an intellectual history of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1948 to 1987, extending extraterritorially to New York, Paris and Jerusalem. Not least, they are a living expression of the culture of German Jewry after the Shoah.
Fig. above: Jacob Taubes around 1985
See also:
ZfL project Jacob Taubes in Context. Philosophy of Religion in Germany after 1945 (2014–2017)
Publications
Jacob Taubes ~ Carl Schmitt
Ai lati opposti delle barricate. Corrispondenza e scritti 1948-1987
Hans Blumenberg / Jacob Taubes
Briefwechsel 1961–1981 und weitere Materialien
