Genom sin distinkta röst och inriktning har Marcia Sá Cavalcante utvidgat det svenska filosofiska språket. I sina texter har hon förvandlat den i hennes eget fall fritt valda exilen till ett tema av större räckvidd. Hennes tänkande är inte bara ett ”lovtal till intet”, som titeln lyder på en av hennes böcker, utan också till mellanrummet, såväl det historiska, kulturella, språkliga och filosofiska mellanrum där förlust och ankomst alltid är sammanlänkade. Genom hennes närvaro har den svenska och nordiska filosofiska miljön blivit rikare, mer mångfacetterad och mer spännande. Hon har också breddat förståelsen för vad filosofi är och därmed utvidgat möjligheterna för vad som är möjligt inom nordisk filosofi. Men hennes inflytande hörs inte bara i norden, utan har även fått internationell genklang och sträcker sig långt utöver det egna ämnets gränser. Om detta vittnar flera av bidragen i denna bok. Det känns följdriktigt att få hylla denna sällsynt mångspråkiga och mångbegåvade filosof med en volym som både genom sin utformning och sitt innehåll utgör en mötesplats for många röster, språk, och uttrycksformer – inte bara filosofin, utan även litteraturen, konsten och musiken.

This chapter explores the relation between Heidegger, Rudolf Bultmann and Hans Jonas, through the figure of Paul. Bultmann was Heidegger’s friend and colleague from Marburg who used an existential ontology to reinvent Lutheran theology. Hans Jonas was a student of both of them, who left Germany for USA in 1933. For Heidegger, Paul was a voice of original facticity and historicity, but also a source for his choice of National Socialism and anti-Judaism. For Bultmann, Paul and Christianity served as a defence against totalitarian temptations. Jonas’s return to Paul in his later years is both a response to Heidegger’s betrayal and a celebration of his original interpretation in a reinvention of Paul as a Jewish existential thinker. © The Author(s) 2017.

Thomas Laqueur has brought together half a century of research on modern European mortuary culture into an impressive narrative of how the Christian churchyard was replaced by the modern cemetery, how interment was partly replaced by the technology of cremation, and how writing and preserving the names of the dead coincided with democratization and social reform. Beyond the grand narrative of the history of modern burial, he also shows how the modern culture of history and memory is intertwined with the transformation of mortuary practices. On a deeper level, he points toward new ways of conceptualizing the relation between the living and the dead, leading up toward, if not fully confronting, the challenge that propels his own endeavor, namely the existential-ontological predicament of living after those who have been and the nature of spectrality.

Against the backdrop of anti-pagan Christian imperial policies during the 4th century, Hans Ruin draws attention to the core of the Christian canon: the letters of Paul. While taking its lead from Stroumsa’s overall interpretative scheme concerning the transformation and internalization of sacrifice during and after the time of Christ, as essentially a transformation within Jewish culture itself, the analysis differs when it comes to the specific role and meaning of the Pauline letters. These canonical documents for Christianity, notably Romans, Hebrews, and First Corinthians, are interpreted as decisive expressions of precisely this inner critical transformation of Jewish spiritual culture in the direction of an internalized sacrifice. They also became the cornerstone for the emergence of a new “sacrificial subjectivity.” The analysis critically engages with Hegel’s understanding of Christianity, and also revokes Foucualt’s and Hadot’s work on the ancient culture of care for the self. Finally it acknowledges the work of Derrida, thus building a bridge to the last section of the book.