Benjamin Lazier

Benjamin Lazier (* 21. August 1971 in Jerusalem) ist ein US-amerikanischer Historiker und Professor am Reed College, Portland. Sein Hauptfachgebiet ist die moderne europäischen Geistesgeschichte zu Themen wie der Umwelt, der Globalisierung, des religiösen und politischen Denkens, der politischen Ökonomie sowie der Animalität und der Emotionen und Bewegungen für soziale Aktionen.

Von 2002 bis 2005 lehrte er an der University of Chicago. Während eines Jahres am Humanities Center der Stanford University, begann er seine Arbeit an einigen neuen Forschungsprojekten: Eines über die Geschichte des Begriffs der Erde, und eines zum Thema der Organismen und Artefakte in der Geistesgeschichte des 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Aktuell unterrichtet er eine Reihe von Kursen zum Thema "Whole Earths, Globalizations, World Pictures". Eine frühere Version dieser Sequenz führte zu einigen beachteten Studenten Exponaten. Daneben unterichtet er auch ein Reihe von Kursen zur modernen europäischen Geistesgeschichte, von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart.

Lazier erlangte seinen Bachelor 1993 an der University of Virginia mit der höchten Auszeichnung, und nach Forschungsaufenthalten an der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (1993-1994), der Hebräische Universität Jerusalem(1994-1995) und der Freie Universität Berlin (1999) 2002 seinen seinen Doktorgrad als Schüler von Martin Jay an der University of California, Berkeley.

Schriften und Herausgeberschaften (Auswahl)

Bücher

• God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination Between the World Wars, Princeton University Press, 2008
• Best First Book in the History of Religion (American Academy of Religion), Koret Foundation Publication Prize, Templeton Prize for Best First Book on “God or Spirituality”
• The Berkeley Guides: Germany and Austria, 4th ed. (New York, 1996).

Editierte Bücher

• Fear: Across the Disciplines (co-edited with Jan Plamper), Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012
• "The Ends of Nature: Special Issue on Hans Blumenberg," Qui Parle: Literature, Philosophy, Visual Arts, History 12, 1 (Spring/Summer, 2000).

Artikel und Essays

• "Przezwyciężyć gnozę. Hans Jonas, Hans Blumenberg i prawomocność świata natury," Kronos 2, 25 (2013), 142-160.
• "introduction" (co-author with Jan Plamper), in Fear: Across the Disciplines (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).
• "Earthrise; or, the Globalization of the World Picture," American Historical Review (June, 2011), 602-630.
• "The Phobic Regimes of Modernity" (co-author with Jan Plamper), Representations, 110 (Spring, 2010), 58-65.
• "Natural Right and Liberalism: Leo Strauss in Our Time," Modern Intellectual History, 6, 1 (2009), 171-188.
• "The Origins of 'Political Theology': Judaism and Heresy Between the Wars," New German Critique 105, 35:3 (Fall 2008), 143-164.
• "Pauline Theology in the Weimar Republic: Hans Jonas, Karl Barth, Martin Heidegger," in Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Christian Wiese, eds., Judaism and the Phenomenon of Life: the Legacy of Hans, Jonas (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2008), 107-129.
• "Abject Academy, 1936-1939," in William Cohen and Ryan Johnson, eds., Filth: Dirt, Disgust and Modern Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005).
• "Overcoming Gnosticism: Hans Jonas, Hans Blumenberg and the Legitimacy of the Natural World," Journal of the History of Ideas 64 (2003), 619-637. Winner of the Selma V. Forkosch Prize (best article in the Journal of the History of Ideas, 2003)
• "Writing the Judenzarathustra: Gershom Scholem’s Encounter with Modernity, 1913-1917," New German Critique 85 (2002), 33-67.

Reviews

• Carl Schmitt and the Jews: The “Jewish Question,” the Holocaust, and German Legal Theory. By Raphael Gross. Translated by Joel Golb. Forward by Peter C. Caldwell. George L. Mosse Series in Modern European Cultural and Intellectual History. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2007. In Religious Studies Review 35, 2 (June 2009).
• Memoirs. By Hans Jonas. Edited by Christian Wiese. Translated by Krishna Winston. The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2008. In Religious Studies Review 35, 2 (June 2009).
• The Life and Thought of Hans Jonas: Jewish Dimensions. By Christian Wiese. Translated by Jeffrey Grossman and Christian Wiese. The Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2007. In Religious Studies Review 34, 3 (September 2008).
• Leo Strauss and the Theological-Political Problem. By Heinrich Meier. Translated by Marcus Brainard. Modern European Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. In Religious Studies Review 33, 4 (October 2007), 328.
• "The Philosopher, the Heretic, the Jew and His Lovers: Spinoza," The Jerusalem Report (October, 2006)

In Vorbereitung

• “From Three Worlds to Whole Earth: On the Redirection of Radicalism after 1968”
• “Biospherics: Globalizing Life in the 20th Century"
• “Miracles and European Thought Between the Wars and Beyond”

Auszeichnungen

• 2009 Best First Book in History of Religion, American Academy of Religion (co-winner)
• 2008 Templeton Prize for Theological Promise, (for a first book on “God or spirituality”)
• 2007-2008 Stanford Humanities Center Residential Fellowship
• 2005 Koret Foundation Publication Prize
• 2003 Selma V. Forkosch Prize (for best article in the Journal of the History of Ideas)
• 2001-2002 Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship, Woodrow Wilson Foundation
• 1997-2001 Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education
• 2000 David Baumgardt Memorial Fellowship, Leo Baeck Institute
• 2000 Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities Fellowship, UC Berkeley
• 1999 DAAD Scholar, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
• 1994-1995 Rotary Foundation Scholar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• 1993-1994 DAAD Scholar, Universität Freiburg, Germany
• 1989-1993 Virginia Honors Scholar, University of Virginia
• 1989-1993 Echols Scholar, University of Virginia

Lehraufträge

• Whole Earths, Globalizations, World Pictures
• Whole Earths: Advanced Topics
• 1968: Origins, Actions, Afterlives
• Histories of Biological Life in the Liberal Era
• Technology and Social Thought in Twentieth-Century Europe
• Social Action in the Twentieth Century
• Germany 1918-1945
• Liberalism and its Critics: Political Thought from Hobbes to the Present
• The Problem of Western Prosperity: Political Economy in History and Theory
• Modern European Humanities, 1750-1950
• Theology and the European Imagination Between the World Wars
• Modern Jewish History

Weblinks

• Benjamin Lazier's Faculty Page, Reed College
• Benjamin Lazier's Faculty Page, University of California, Berkeley
• Benjamin Lazier's Faculty Page, Harvard University
• Benjamin Lazier's Faculty Page, Stanford University
• Princeton University Press
• Oxfordjournals: Earthrise; or, The Globalization of the World Picture
• University of Pittsburgh Press