Mircea Eliade's Vision for a New Humanism

ISBN-13: 9780195074345 / Angielski / Twarda / 1993 / 232 str.

John David Cave; David Cave

Opis

The influential scholar of religion Mircea Eliade envisioned a spiritually destitute modern culture coming into renewed meaning through the recovery of archetypal myths and symbols. Eliade defined this restoration of meaning as a "new humanism" of existential meaning and cultural-religious unity. Through a biographical exegesis of Eliade's life and writings from his earliest years in Romania to his final ones as professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago, Cave sets forward a structural description of what this "new humanism" might have meant for Eliade, and what it signifies for modern culture. Cave concludes by endorsing Eliade's radically pluralistic vision which, he argues, offers a key to the revitalization of our demythologized and material culture. This study repositions previous Eliadean studies and places the "new humanism" as the paradigm in relation to which future readings of Eliade should be evaluated.

Recenzje

`Cave has mastered the material and displays a thorough grasp of this literature ... He brings out a conceptual clarity not present in Eliade's comments on his own work ... Cave maps the fault-lines and tensions that radiate through Eliade's written corpus and life's decisions. The result is a fascinating tour of Eliade`s thought and life.' Lawrence Sullivan, Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University