Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies
Louisiana State University

Voegelin Research News
Editors: Geoffrey L. Price & Maben W. Poirier

Centre for Voegelin Studies
University of Manchester

Wilhelm Fink Verlag



Besondere Aufmerksamkeit erfährt das Werk Voegelins seit Jahren in den USA. Sie zeigt sich in den Aktivitäten des im März 1987 an der Louisi­ana State University in Baton Rouge gegründeten Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies ebenso wie in zahlreichen seinem Werk gewidmeten Konferenzen im Rahmen der American Political Science Association. Starke Impulse erfuhr die Aus­einandersetzung mit seinem Werk durch die Veröffent­lichung seines wissen­schaftlichen Nachlasses durch die Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, Kalifornien, sowie durch die 1990 begonnene, auf 34 Bände angelegte Edition der Collected Works of Eric Voegelin.

Wichtige Initiativen und Aktivitäten gibt es in eini­gen Län­dern Westeuropas: So wurden an der National University of Ireland in Dublin seit Beginn der 80er Jahre Studien über Voegelin durchgeführt; in Groß­bri­tannien entstand 1993 an der University of Man­chester ein Centre for Voegelin Studies, das sich durch eine Reihe internationaler Tagungen einen Na­men gemacht hatte. In Italien wurden zahlreiche Arbeiten Voege­lins übersetzt — die Beschäfti­gung mit seinem Werk konzentriert sich dort auf die Uni­versitäten von Salerno, Padua, Bologna, Florenz und Mailand. In Öster­reich befasst sich das Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institut für Politik, Religion und Anthropologie in Innsbruck mit seinem Werk. Zu Beginn der 90er Jahre setzte auch in eini­gen Staaten Osteuropas die Beschäftigung mit der Philoso­phie Voegelins ein, insbesondere in Polen, wo Über­setzun­gen einiger seiner Werke – darunter der Neuen Wissen­schaft der Politik – erschienen.

 

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY in Germany possesses few thinkers of the international rank. Eric Voegelin is one of these few. Born in Cologne in the year 1901, Voegelin grew up in Vienna, where he habilitated in 1928 at the Rechts- und Staatswissenschaftlichen Fakultät after making research visits in the United States and France. In Vienna, he taught sociology and political theory until 1938. Upon withdrawal of his teaching permit and in view of his impending arrest, Voegelin fled in the summer of 1938: first to Switzerland and then to the United States, where he was active at a series of American universities. In 1942, he assumed a position at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. It was here that he wrote The New Science of Politics (1952) and the first volumes of Order and History (1956/57), works which established his reputation as one of the most significant political philosophers of the twentieth-century. In 1958, Voegelin accepted an appointment at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, and established there the Institut für Politische Wissenschaft. Science, Politics and Gnosticism as well as Anamnesis: Zur Theorie der Geschichte und Politik were written during this time in Munich. On becoming an Emeritus Professor in 1968, Voegelin returned to the United States and worked from 1969 until 1974 as Henry Salvatori Distinguished Scholar. From 1974 until 1985, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the renowned Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace in Stanford, California. In 1974, The Ecumenic Age - the fourth volume of Order and History - appeared after a lengthy delay. On January 19, 1985, Voegelin died at the age of eighty-four, shortly before finishing the fifth and final volume of Order and History, which appeared posthumously under the title, In Search of Order.

IN THE UNITED STATES, Voegelin's work has received special attention for some years. This is indicated by the activities of the Eric Voegelin Institute for American Renaissance Studies, founded in March 1987 at Louisiana State University. It is also indicated by the publication, beginning in 1990, of a complete edition of his works spanning thirty-four volumes, as well as by the numerous conferences devoted to his work at the American Political Science Association. There are similar initiatives and activities in several countries of Western Europe: at the National University of Ireland in Dublin, studies of Voegelin's work have been undertaken since the beginning of the 1980s. In Great Britain, a Centre for Voegelin Studies was founded in 1993 at the University of Manchester. This centre has since made a name for itself through a series of international conferences. In Italy, a number of Voegelin's works have been translated and the universities of Salerno, Padua, Bologna and Florence are significant sites of engagement with his work. At the beginning of the 1990s, treatments of Voegelin's philosophy also emerged in several states of Eastern Europe, particularly in Poland. 

 



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