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International scholars to study at St. Olaf's Kierkegaard Library

By Anna Stevens '10
May 30, 2008

St. Olaf College will be home to plenty of critical thinking this summer as more than two dozen scholars from around the world arrive to examine the work of 19th century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.

Soren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard
St. Olaf's Howard and Edna Hong Kierkegaard Library will welcome 28 scholars to campus over the next few months to study the largest collection of works by and about Kierkegaard outside of Denmark. The scholars, who aim to compare and link Kierkegaard's work to authors such as Dostoevsky, J.D. Salinger, Martin Luther, Nietzsche and more, will be participating in the Summer Fellows Program, the Young Scholars Program or the Danish Course for Kierkegaard Scholars. Ranging from undergraduate students to professors, the scholars hail from seven different countries and have a wide range of interests and backgrounds.

Scholars from all over the world are drawn to St. Olaf to study at the Hong Kierkegaard Library. The library's collection consists of approximately 11,000 volumes, which include multiple editions and translations of Kierkegaard's works, extensive secondary literature on Kierkegaard as well as numerous works by related thinkers who influenced or were influenced by Kierkegaard. This summer, scholars will travel from as far as France, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Portugal to study in the Kierkegaard Library. They will also come from 10 different colleges and universities from within the United States, and six of the participants are students of former scholars who studied at the Kierkegaard Library.

Participant Alexander Stehn is a Ph.D. candidate at the State University of Pennsylvania who will study at the Kierkegaard Library this summer along with his wife, Mariana Alessandri, who is also a Ph.D. candidate and Kierkegaard scholar at Penn State. Stehn's research this summer will focus on the relationship between what one believes and what one says, along with how one lives their life. More generally, Stehn will look at philosophy as a way of life through the eyes of Kierkegaard and American philosopher John Dewey.

"My interest in Kierkegaard stems from his profound exploration of the relations between what a philosopher believes, what a philosopher professes and how a philosopher lives," Stehn wrote about his studies.

While Stehn plans to focus on this aspect of the library's large collection, the other scholars studying this summer each plan to study different facets of Kierkegaard's work.

There will be a few familiar faces performing research in the library this summer, including alumnus Carl Hughes '03 and recent St. Olaf graduates Joseph Christianson '08 and David Moon '08. The recent graduates will be participating in the Young Scholars Program. Christianson '08 plans to pursue general research in Kierkegaard studies, while Moon '08 intends to spend his time investigating Johannes Climacus' notion of subjective truth, found in Kierkegaard's Postscript, through the lens of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. Current student Maria Squadroni '10, a philosophy major, will also be participating in the Young Scholars Program. St. Olaf Professor of Philosophy and Kierkegaard Library Curator Gordon Marino will be teaching the program, which he created.

The Hong Kierkegaard Library
Howard and Edna Hong graduated from St. Olaf College in 1934 and 1938, respectively. From the late 1930s on, the Hongs developed a passionate interest in the works of Soren Kierkegaard. After Howard completed 40 years of dedicated teaching at St. Olaf, he and Edna devoted themselves to the task of providing a new English translation of Kierkegaard's writings. Over the years the Hongs collected an enormous body of literature, which they then donated to St. Olaf College in 1976 as the foundation of the present Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library.

Howard and Edna Hong have received many grants and awards during the course of their work, including Knight of the Order of Dannebrog in Denmark in 1978. The Hongs were the first recipients of the Minnesota Humanities Commission's annual Public Lecture Award and have both received notoriety within their field. Edna Hong died in April 2007. Howard Hong continues to reside in their Heath Creek home in Northfield.

Soren Kierkegaard
A Danish philosopher from the 19th century, Kierkegaard's words have a greater effect on scholars today than when he was alive. Unknown to the English-speaking world until 1908, many scholars, including the Hongs, have worked tirelessly to translate the Danish author's works, which speak in the realms of philosophy, theology, psychology, literary criticism, devotional literature and fiction. Some scholars refer to Kierkegaard as the "Father of Existentialism."

Contact Kari VanDerVeen at 507-786-3970 or vanderve@stolaf.edu.