Nieuws: Olav Hammer & Kocku von Stuckrad (eds.), Polemical Encounters: Esotericism and its Others

This new volume in the Aries Book Series is edited by Olav Hammer (assistant professor at the Center gHF from 2001-2004), and Kocku von Stuckrad. It contains twelve contributions specifically commissioned by the editors, but has its origin in the sessions on Polemics and Western esotericism organized at the 19th World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), Tokyo 2005.

Short description:
In its historical development from late antiquity to the present, western esotericism has repeatedly been the issue of polemical discourse. This volume engages the polemical structures that underlie both the identities within and the controversy about esoteric currents in European history. From Jewish and Christian kabbalah through heretical discourse and interconfessional polemics in early modernity to the legitimization of esoteric identity in modern culture, the 12 chapters, accompanied by an editors’ introduction, provide a cornucopia of relevant cases that are interpreted in a framework of polemical discourse and ‘Othering’. This volume sheds new light on the ultimately polemical structure of western esotericism and thus opens new vistas for further research into esoteric discourse.

The volume includes contributions by Konstantin Burmistrov, Dylan Burns, Renko Geffarth, Olav Hammer, Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Titus Hjelm, Boaz Huss, Brannon Ingram, Hanns-Peter Neumann, Peter Hanns Reill, Kocku von Stuckrad, and Steven M. Wasserstrom.

For a link to the publisher, click here