Hilde and Max Kochmann Memorial Lecture
Research Professor Edward Timms, University of Sussex.
Kraus was a double renegade, rejecting both Church and Synagogue, but sensitive readers of his magazine Die Fackel were aware of the religious dimension of his writings. Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem were both fascinated by this aspect. The theme of this lecture is their debate about the religious implications of Kraus's writings, especially his attitude to language. A careful reading of recently published sources, especially Benjamin's letters and Scholem's diaries, makes it possible to reconstruct their Krausorientated debate about the 'messianic movement of language', which began in 1918 while they were students at the University of Berne and continued intermittently for twenty years, inspiring a wealth of intellectual refl ection and philosophical insight.
Edward Timms is Research Professor in History at the Centre for German-Jewish Studies, University of Sussex. His specialist field of interest is Austrian Jewish cultural history. He is best known for his book Karl Kraus - Apocalyptic Satirist: Culture and Catastrophe in Habsburg Vienna first published in 1986 and subsequently translated into several other languages. Recent publications include Romantic Communist: The Life and Work of Nazim Hikmet (1999) co-edited with Saime Gosku; Writing After Hitler: The Work of Jakov Lind (2001), co-edited with Andrea Hammel and Silke Hassler; and Intellectual Migration and Cultural Transformation: Refugees from National Socialism in the English Speaking World (2003), co-edited with Jon Hughes. His second volume on Karl Kraus, Karl Kraus - Apocalyptic Satirist: The German-Jewish Dilemma between the World Wars is scheduled for publication in 2005.
