International Kierkegaard Newsletter 2004

No. 26 . October 2004 ISSN 0108-3104

EDITORIAL:

Dear Friends, I am delighted to report that the International Kierkegaard Information website now has a permanent home at the Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota, U.S.A. The website will also continue for the time-being as a mirror website at the University of Tasmania. Grateful thanks to David Possen for his wonderful work in putting International Kierkegaard Information on the St. Olaf website. (Please note that International Kierkegaard Information, including the International Kierkegaard Newsletter and other resources, is thus now available at: http://www.utas.edu.au/docs/humsoc/kierkegaard/ and also at: http://www.stolaf.edu/collections/kierkegaard/). On the St. Olaf website the International Kierkegaard Newsletter is to be found under 'Publications' and International Kierkegaard Information is to be found at 'Related Links' under 'Kierkegaard Information Web Sites'. One can easily access International Kierkegaard Information from the International Kierkegaard Newsletter page by going to the Main Menu (International Kierkegaard Information). Please continue to send information about your latest article, book, conference, etc. to Julia Watkin (email: Julia.Watkin@utas.edu.au).

Søren Kierkegaard Research Unit Library, Australia: I am also delighted to report that the library belonging to the Søren Kierkegaard Research Unit at the University of Tasmania has just been moved from the University of Tasmania to the University of Melbourne. When reorganized by the Joint Theological Library at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, Parkville 3052, Victoria, Australia, the collection will be much more accessible to Australian Kierkegaard students and scholars. I am delighted with this new development. The Research Unit at the University of Tasmania is now combining with the Søren Kierkegaard Society of Australia, so that there will still be a strong Kierkegaard presence also in Tasmania.

Obituary: It is with deep regret and sadness that I report the death of Kierkegaard scholar Paul L. Holmer who died on June 29th, 2004. Paul Holmer, a former professor at Yale Divinity School, made an outstanding contribution to philosophy and theology generally, but many generations of students, as well as his colleagues, will also remember him for his enormous contribution to Kierkegaard teaching and research. I was privileged to meet him at an international Kierkegaard conference at St. Olaf College, Minnesota, some years ago, when I was able to tell him that I had in my possession a copy of David F. Swenson's The Faith of a Scholar, complete with Paul Holmer's dedication to my father who gave a lecture in Minneapolis in the 1950s. Paul Holmer will be missed by many, and Dr. Bill Cahoy has asked me to let everyone know that there will be a funeral wake on the evening of July 6th, with the funeral on Wednesday, July 7th at 2.00 p.m. in the chapel of Luther Seminary, St. Paul. If anyone would like further details please contact Bill Cahoy (email: bcahoy@csbsju.edu).

Obituary: I am very sad to have to report the death of yet another Kierkegaard scholar, Louis Mackey, who died on March 25th, 2004. There will be a full remembrance of Louis Mackey coming in the 2005 February edition of the Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter but here I would like to put my own indirect remembrance of him through his writings. I encountered Louis Mackey through his writings on Kierkegaard when he was already an established scholar and I was a beginner in the world of Kierkegaard. I found what he wrote exciting because it encouraged one to think carefully when reading Kierkegaard. I remember my encounter with his "Poetry of Inwardness", "The Loss of the World in Kierkegaard's Ethics" and "The View from Pisgah: A Reading of Fear and Trembling" in the 1970s. Then there was his book Kierkegaard: A Kind of Poet in 1971 and as late as 1986 his collection of articles spanning 22 years from 1960 in Points of View: Readings of Kierkegaard, work that still has the power to stimulate, not least because it presents a genuinely scholarly challenge to the reader to think critically about his or her view of Kierkegaard. No one could read Mackey's work and be indifferent to it. He, as well as his work, will be missed by many.

Copyright © Julia Watkin 2004. All rights reserved.
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