Rüdiger Safranski
Encyclopedia
Rüdiger Safranski is a German
philosopher and author.
), German literature
, history
and history of art
at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and at the Free University
in Berlin
(then West Berlin
). There, he worked as an assistant lecturer for German literature from 1972 to 1977. He earned a PhD from FU Berlin in 1976 for a dissertation by the title of "Studies on the Development of Working-Class Literature in the Federal Republic of Germany
" (original German
: Studien zur Entwicklung der Arbeiterliteratur in der Bundesrepublik). In the late 1970s, he worked as the co-publisher and editor of the Berliner Hefte, a journal on literary life. From 1977 to 1982 Safranski worked as a lecturer in adult education
. Since 1987 he has worked as a freelance writer.
In 2005 he married his longtime girlfriend Gisela Nicklaus.
He currently lives in Berlin and Munich
.
, E.T.A. Hoffmann
, Arthur Schopenhauer
, Friedrich Nietzsche
and Martin Heidegger
.
Since 1994, he is a member of the P.E.N.
Center, since 2001 member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung
(German Academy for Language and Poetry) in Darmstadt
.
Since 2002, he has been co-hosting (along with Peter Sloterdijk
) a bi-monthly debate on philosophical and ethical questions, the so-called "Philosophical Quartet" (German: Philosophisches Quartett), for German public-service TV
station ZDF
.
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
philosopher and author.
Life
From 1965 to 1972, Safranski studied philosophy (among others with Theodor W. AdornoTheodor W. Adorno
Theodor W. Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist known for his critical theory of society....
), German literature
German literature
German literature comprises those literary texts written in the German language. This includes literature written in Germany, Austria, the German part of Switzerland, and to a lesser extent works of the German diaspora. German literature of the modern period is mostly in Standard German, but there...
, history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
and history of art
History of art
The History of art refers to visual art which may be defined as any activity or product made by humans in a visual form for aesthetical or communicative purposes, expressing ideas, emotions or, in general, a worldview...
at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main and at the Free University
Free University of Berlin
Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
(then West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
). There, he worked as an assistant lecturer for German literature from 1972 to 1977. He earned a PhD from FU Berlin in 1976 for a dissertation by the title of "Studies on the Development of Working-Class Literature in the Federal Republic of Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
" (original German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Studien zur Entwicklung der Arbeiterliteratur in der Bundesrepublik). In the late 1970s, he worked as the co-publisher and editor of the Berliner Hefte, a journal on literary life. From 1977 to 1982 Safranski worked as a lecturer in adult education
Adult education
Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...
. Since 1987 he has worked as a freelance writer.
In 2005 he married his longtime girlfriend Gisela Nicklaus.
He currently lives in Berlin and Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
.
Works and TV appearances
Safranski's most popular works are monographs on Friedrich SchillerFriedrich Schiller
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life , Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe...
, E.T.A. Hoffmann
E.T.A. Hoffmann
Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann , better known by his pen name E.T.A. Hoffmann , was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist...
, Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
, Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
and Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
.
Since 1994, he is a member of the P.E.N.
International PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
Center, since 2001 member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung
Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung
The Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung was founded on August 28, 1949—the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe—in Paulskirche in Frankfurt...
(German Academy for Language and Poetry) in Darmstadt
Darmstadt
Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...
.
Since 2002, he has been co-hosting (along with Peter Sloterdijk
Peter Sloterdijk
Peter Sloterdijk is a German philosopher, television host, cultural scientist and essayist. He is a professor of philosophy and media theory at the University of Art and Design Karlsruhe. He currently co-hosts the German show Im Glashaus: Das Philosophische Quartett.-Biography:Sloterdijk's father...
) a bi-monthly debate on philosophical and ethical questions, the so-called "Philosophical Quartet" (German: Philosophisches Quartett), for German public-service TV
Public broadcasting
Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing and commercial financing.Public broadcasting may be...
station ZDF
ZDF
Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...
.
List of works
- Goethe and Schiller. Geschichte einer Freundschaft. Story of a friendship. München ua, Hanser. Munich, Hanser. 2009. ISBN 978-3-446-23326-3 2009th ISBN 978-3-446-23326-3
- Romantik. Eine deutsche Affäre. Romanticism. A German affair. München ua, Hanser. Munich, Hanser. 2007. ISBN 978-3-446-20944-2 2007th ISBN 978-3-446-20944-2 [Review: Hans-Dieter Gelfert in The Berlin Review of Books, 30 November 2009]
- Schiller als Philosoph - Eine Anthologie. Schiller as Philosopher - An Anthology. Berlin, wjs-Verlag. Berlin, wjs-Verlag. 2005. ISBN 3-937989-08-0 2005th ISBN 3-937989-08-0
- Schiller oder die Erfindung des Deutschen Idealismus. Schiller, or the invention of German idealismGerman idealismGerman idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment...
. München ua, Hanser. Munich, Hanser. 2004. ISBN 3-446-20548-9 [Rezension: Manfred Koch in NZZ, 25. 2004th ISBN 3-446-20548-9 [Review: Manfred Koch in the NZZ, 25 September 2004] September 2004] - Wieviel Globalisierung verträgt der Mensch? How much globalizationGlobalizationGlobalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
can a human being tolerate? München ua: Hanser. Munich: Hanser. 2003. ISBN 3-446-20261-7 2003rd ISBN 3-446-20261-7 - Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche. Biographie seines Denkens. Biography of his thinking. München ua, Hanser. Munich, Hanser. 2000. ISBN 3-446-19938-1 [Rezension: Ijoma Mangold in Berliner Zeitung, 18. 2000th ISBN 3-446-19938-1 [Review: Ijoma Mangold in Berliner Zeitung, 18 August 2000] August 2000]
- Das Böse oder Das Drama der Freiheit. Evil or the drama of freedom. München ua, Hanser. Munich, Hanser. 1997. ISBN 3-446-18767-7 [Rezension: Micha Brumlik in Die Zeit, 19. 1997th ISBN 3-446-18767-7 [Review: Micha Brumlik in Die Zeit, 19 September 1997] September 1997]
- Ein Meister aus Deutschland. A master from Germany. Heidegger und seine Zeit. Heidegger and his time. München ua, Hanser. Munich, Hanser. 1994. ISBN 3-446-17874-0 1994th ISBN 3-446-17874-0
- Wieviel Wahrheit braucht der Mensch? How much truth do we need? Über das Denkbare und das Lebbare. About the thinkable and liveable. München ua, Hanser. Munich, Hanser. 1990. ISBN 3-446-16045-0 1990th ISBN 3-446-16045-0
- Schopenhauer und die wilden Jahre der Philosophie. Schopenhauer and the wild years of philosophy. Eine Biographie. A biography. 2. 2. Aufl. München ua: Hanser. Munich et al. ed: Hanser. 1988. ISBN 3-446-14490-0 1988th ISBN 3-446-14490-0
- ETA Hoffmann. ETA Hoffmann. Das Leben eines skeptischen Phantasten. The life of a skeptical dreamer. München ua: Hanser. Munich: Hanser. 1984. ISBN 3-446-13822-6 1984th ISBN 3-446-13822-6
- Studien zur Entwicklung der Arbeiterliteratur in der Bundesrepublik (Dissertation), Berlin, Freie Univ., 1976. Studies on the development of working-class literature in the Federal Republic (dissertation), Berlin, Freie Univ., 1976.
Awards
- 1995 Friedrich Märker Prize for Essayists
- 1996 Wilhelm Heinse Medal of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature
- 1998 Ernst Robert Curtius Prize for Essay Writing
- 2000 Friedrich Nietzsche Prize of the State of Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...
- 2003 Premio Internazionale Federico Nietzsche, the Italian Nietzsche Society
- 2005 Leipzig Book FairLeipzig Book FairThe Leipzig Book Fair is the second largest book fair in Germany after the Frankfurt Book Fair. The fair takes place annually over four days at the Leipzig Trade Fairground in the northern part of Leipzig, Saxony...
Prize in the category Non-Fiction/Essays for "Schiller, or The Invention of German IdealismIdealismIn philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
" - 2006 Friedrich HölderlinFriedrich HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
Prize of the City of Bad HomburgBad HomburgBad Homburg vor der Höhe is the district town of the Hochtaunuskreis, Hesse, Germany, on the southern slope of the Taunus, bordering among others Frankfurt am Main and Oberursel... - 2006 Die WeltDie WeltDie Welt is a German national daily newspaper published by the Axel Springer AG company.It was founded in Hamburg in 1946 by the British occupying forces, aiming to provide a "quality newspaper" modelled on The Times...
(newspaper) Literature Prize - 2009 Corine - International Book Award
- 2009 Lifetime Achievement prize from the BavariaBavariaBavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
n Minister President