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Martin Buber Correspondence – Digital Edition

Theology

Hesse

Running Projects

Digital Academy

Humanities and Social Sciences Class

The philosopher of religion Martin Buber (1878‑1965) is arguably the most influential and still internationally resonant thinker of modern German‑Jewish cultural and intellectual life. He moved within the intellectual, political and artistic milieus of the Danube Monarchy (Galicia and Vienna) and Germany, experienced the Weimar Republic and the Nazi dictatorship in Germany, lived from 1938 onwards among German‑Jewish emigrants in Jerusalem, and after 1945 participated in an extensive network of scholars and intellectuals across Europe, Israel and the United States. Buber's biographical path has rightly once been described by Maurice S. Friedman as a 'life in dialogue'. His trans‑disciplinary thought spanned theology, philosophy, religious studies, literature, art, sociology, pedagogy and psychology, and he maintained contacts with both Jewish and non‑Jewish intellectuals worldwide. However, Buber is not just an outstanding figure of the past. The ideas that emanated from his thinking continue to influence philosophical, political-social, artistic and educational discourse around the world to this day.

In addition to Buber's writings, it is in particular his correspondence (approx. 40,000 letters) with countless renowned contemporary personalities and important institutions, which has been largely unexamined by researchers to date, that reveals the network character of his influence. Digitising this correspondence promises to yield a wealth of insights into the history and intellectual and cultural environment of his time. The letters are mainly held in his bequest at the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem, but also in other archives. Making them accessible to scholars is a major desideratum following the completion of the Buber edition, both for German‑Jewish cultural history in general and for Buber studies in particular. 

The aim of the project is to produce a digital edition of the letters, focusing on a systematic reconstruction, an editorial analysis to produce a text that is as faithful to the original as possible, and a cultural-historical analysis of Martin Buber's dialogical relationships and networks of scholars and intellectuals. Differentiated methods of historical and digital network analysis will be applied to examine the 'letter discourses' that emerge in the correspondence. The overwhelming amount of material makes it necessary to distinguish between several different stages of processing. Making the material comprehensively accessible for research involves creating facsimiles of the letters and indexing them with metadata and, where appropriate, content abstracts or letter summaries. A second stage of processing concerns a carefully selected portion of the letters, which will be transcribed and provided with historical-critical commentary.

The National Library of Israel is a close partner in this project.

Arbeitsstelle Frankfurt
Buber-Rosenzweig-Institut für jüdische Geistes- und Kulturgeschichte der Moderne und Gegenwart
Goethe-Universität Frankfurt
Besucher: Campus Westend | IG-Farben-Haus | Raum 5.515
Norbert-Wollheim-Platz 1
60323 Frankfurt am Main
PO Box FB 06 | 60629 Frankfurt am Main
Telefon
+49 69 798 32154
Trägerin

Akademie der Wissenschaften und Literatur | Mainz

Project Lead
Prof. Dr. Christian Wiese
Research Associate
Michal Bondy, M.A.
Dr. Heike Breitenbach
Nadine Dietz, M.A.
Rabea Freund-Biton, M.A.
Julian Jarosch, M.A.
Denise Jurst-Görlach, M.A.
drs Thomas Kollatz
Dr. phil. habil. theol. Christof Müller
Dr. Lea Müller-Dannhausen
Promotionsstipendiaten
Martin Kudla, M.A.
Claudio Lasperanza, M.A.
Research Assistant
Leonie Otters, M.A.
Student Assistant
Magdalena Stumm
Former Employee
Dr. Susan Baumert
Dr. Francesco Ferrari
Prof. Dr. Martin Leiner
Dr. Inka Sauter

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Institutionen
The National Library of Israel (NLI), Jerusalem, Israel

Personen
Prof. Abigail Gillman
Professor of Hebrew, German & Comparative Literature
Department of World Languages and Literatures
Boston University, USA

Activities

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Akademie der Wissenschaften
und der Literatur | Mainz
Akademie der Wissenschaften
und der Literatur | Mainz