A veritable Fromm renaissance is underway today. Many of Fromm’s insights about character, ethics, culture, socialism, alienation, and love are in the process of being retrieved. One persistent question is, how does religion fit into Fromm’s theorizing and oeuvre? It is manifest that the development of his ideas was influenced by Judaism, given his Orthodox Jewish upbringing and the explicit engagement with that tradition found in some of his writings, with You Shall Be as Gods being a notable example. Indeed, Fromm’s attitudes towards phenomena such as nationalism, war, and dialogue are colored by a religious sensibility. But what is the exact nature of this influence, and how do other religious traditions figure in this story? Can Fromm’s humanism be made sense of outside of the religious currents that flow through his work? The Erich Fromm Society of North America invited a number of distinguished Fromm scholars and theologians to explore, dialogically, the influences of Judaism and other religious traditions on Fromm’s humanistic thought and politics, as well as address their relevance to the present moment. Please join us for this virtual, panel-style dialogue on Sunday, January 21, between 12 and 3 PM (EST).
Panelist Biographies
Rudolf Siebert has lectured and published widely in Germany, Western and Eastern Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, India, and Israel. He is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at Western Michigan University, where he taught for over 50 years. He was the founder and director of the Centre for Humanistic Future Studies at Western Michigan University. Siebert’s major works include the three-volume Manifesto of the Critical Theory of Society and Religion: The Wholly Other; Liberation, Happiness and the Rescue of the Hopeless; The Critical Theory of Religion: Frankfurt School; and From Critical Theory to Political Theology: Personal Autonomy and Universal Solidarity. Siebert was also one of the creators of the Critical Theory of Religion and Society, drawing on the critical social theory of the Frankfurt School.
Dustin J. Byrd is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion at The University of Olivet, and a Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University. He holds a Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Political and Social Philosophy (2017). His expertise is in the Frankfurt School, Critical Theory of Religion, Psychoanalytic Political Theory, as well as contemporary Islamic and Eurasian political thought. He is the Founder and Co-Director of the Institute for Critical Social Theory and the editor of its new journal, Critical Perspectives. He is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Ekpyrosis Press, an academic publishing house established in 2019. Dr. Byrd is an author of numerous books on Critical Theory and Contemporary Islamic Thought, and has co-edited numerous books on Malcolm X, Ali Shariati, Frantz Fanon, Syed Hussein Alatas, Sigmund Freud, and populism. His latest publications include the co-edited book, Syed Hussein Alatas and Critical Social Theory: Decolonizing the Captive Mind (Brill 2023), and the monograph, The Dark Charisma of Donald Trump: Political Psychology and the MAGA Movement (Ekpyrosis Press, 2023). He is currently working on a book entitled, Alt-Fascism: Essays on the Evolution of the Far-Right. www.dustinjbyrd.org
Rainer Funk, born 1943, studied first philosophy and theology at the Universities of Tuebingen and Wuerzburg and started in 1972 working on a dissertation on Erich Fromm’s social psychology and ethics (finished in 1977; published under the title Mut zum Menschen. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978; English: Erich Fromm: The Courage to Be Human, New York: Crossroad/Continuum, 1982). In 1974 he became Erich Fromm’s last assistant in Locarno, Switzerland, and prepared from 1975 on a 10-volume German edition of the Erich Fromm Collected Works,which were published in 1980 and 1981. In his last will Fromm designated Funk his sole Literary Executor and dedicated his library and literary estate to him. From 1989 on Funk started to publish Fromm’s then unpublished writings in more than 20 languages and published in 1999 a 12-volume German edition of the Erich Fromm Collected Works (Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt and Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag). In connection with the Erich Fromm centenary, he published a pictured biography of Erich Fromm (German: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt; Spanish: Paidós; English: Continuum International). In 2014 he edited 25 English Fromm titles as e-books (with OPEN ROAD MEDIA) and in 2016 the e-book-version of the 12-volumes German Collected Works of Fromm. Under the title Life Itself is an Art (Das Leben selbst ist eine Kunst) he published an introduction to the life and work of Erich Fromm (2018 with Herder / Freiburg; 2019 with Bloomsbury / New York).
Hille Haker holds the Richard McCormick S.J. Endowed Chair in Catholic Ethics at Loyola University Chicago. Before, she taught at Goethe University Frankfurt and Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge MA. She holds a Ph.D. and Habilitation in Catholic Ethics, MA in German Literature, and BA in Philosophy from the University of Tübingen, Germany. Her most recent book is Towards a Critical Political Ethics. The Renewal of Catholic Social Ethics (2020). She has written on feminist ethics, with interests in moral identity and questions of recognition and responsibility, critical theory and social ethics, narrative ethics and literature and ethics.
Joan Braune (she/her), Ph.D., is Lecturer in Philosophy and Instructor in the Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, USA. She is author of Erich Fromm’s Revolutionary Hope: Prophetic Messianism as a Critical Theory of the Future (Sense Publishers 2014) and Understanding and Countering Fascist Movements: From Void to Hope (Routledge 2024), and co-editor of Kieran Durkin and Joan Braune, Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future (Bloomsbury 2020) and co-editor of various titles, and co-editor, Antonia Vaughn, Joan Braune, Megan Tinsley, Aurelien Mondon, The Ethics of Researching the Far Right (forthcoming, University of Manchester Press 2024).
Zoom Link
Maor Levitin is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Maor Levitin’s Zoom Meeting
Time: Jan 21, 2024 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89528143352?pwd=C6AmHBegQyvDNJrziY7L7unYPB78lJ.1
Meeting ID: 895 2814 3352
Passcode: 767463
—
Erich Fromm Society of North America 