Turning Traditions Upside Down
Rethinking Giordano Bruno's Enlightenment

Edited by Anne Eusterschulte and Henning Hufnagel

Anne Eusterschulte is professor of philosophy at Freie Universität Berlin
Henning Hufnagel is Research Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

A non-conformist at the dawn of an epoch, a martyr of modernity, or just a polemic controvert? Giordano Bruno is known today as an exceptional, yet ambivalent figure within the history of ideas. As a great scholar, celebrated for his comprehensive erudition, famous for his emphatic defence of philosophical inquiry against religious doctrine and his rigid attacks against reputed authorities, he caused an intellectual sensation. He was burnt at the stake on the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, on February 17th, 1600.

Some of the world’s most eminent researchers on Bruno offer an exhaustive overview of the state-of-theart research on his work, discussing Bruno’s methodological procedures, his epistemic and literary practices, his natural philosophy, or his role as theologian and metaphysic at the cutting-edge of their disciplines. Short texts by Bruno illustrate the reasoning of the contributions. The book also reflects aspects of Bruno’s reception in the past and today, inside and outside academia.

Contents

Introduction Part 1: Epistemic Practices of a Revolutionary. Bruno´s Methods and Thinking - Bruno’s Mnemotechnics: Thinking through Images - Giordano Bruno's Changing of Default Positions - Divine Mind and Mathematical Structures in Giordano Brunos’s De tripliciminimo et mensura - Part 2: Experience and Vision of a New Cosmic Order - . Giordano Bruno´s Natural Philosophy - De immensoetinnumerabilibus, I, 3 and the concept of planetary systems in the infinite universe. A commentary - Giordano Bruno and the Relativity of Time - Giordano Bruno and the New Order of Nature Between Copernicus and Galilei - Atom, matter and monade - Part 3: Challenging Norms and Institutions - . Giordano Bruno as Theologian and Metaphysic Picturing Metaphysics - Bruno and Heinrich Kunrath - A Catholic Reader of Giordano Bruno in Counter-Reformation Rome: Athanasius Kircher, SJ and Panspermia Rerum 41273 signs - Part 4: Forms of Non-Conformity. Bruno´s Works as Literary Texts - The Comic and Philosophy. Plato’s Philebus and Bruno’s Candlebearer - Bruno’s Cabala: Satire of knowledge and the uses of the dialogue form - The (in)discreet presence of Machiavelli in Giordano Bruno's Candelaio Part 5: Aspects of Bruno’s Afterlife in Art and Literature - From Paris to Rome, Hamburg and London: Aspects of the Afterlife of Giordano Bruno in the Twentieth Century - Sculptures of Giordano Bruno in 19th and 20th Century - Part 6: Visibility of the Invisible. - About the Sculpture "Giordano Bruno” of Alexander Polzin - On Alexander Polzin’s Sculpture “Giordano Bruno" - The Statue – photos and description.

208 pages, Forthcoming in 2012
978-615-5053-63-4
$50.00 / €45.00 / £40.00 cloth