© Columbia University Press
The Holy Family and Its Legacy
October, 2003
Cloth, 216 pages, 25 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-12756-1
$38.00
/ £22.50
"Illuminating. . . . rich in astounding analogies, metamorphoses and rapid thoughts, agilely executed." — Die Welt
"An interesting dance of signs going back through the epochs" — Die Zeit
"This book demands a careful read." — Linda J. Strozdas, Family Ministry
"Theologians can find some help in this book for the history and the cannons of their on discipline." — Mary Ann Donovan, Theological Studies
"Koschorke is... the most original and imaginative literary scholar of his generation in Germany and his The Holy Family and Its Legacy is a tour de force essay in cultural history. Koschorke has found a way to synthesize successfully what one might call structural or systemic analysis with textured interpretations of historical particulars.... The book's field of references is vigorously international and comparatist: this is a study that will engage readers in a number of disciplines." — David Wellbery, University of Chicago
"Albrecht Koschorke belongs to the most productive and original scholars of his generation. His book on the Holy Family once more testifies to the innovative intellectual power of Konschorke’s thinking. His topic is both old and new and he masters it with wonderful flexibility in moving between theology, political theory and psychoanalysis. He investigates the ways in which religious symbols continue to function far into the late period of secularization. He defines religious symbols as steering signs' that mediate between the symbolic order of culture and the imaginary of a given society. His study addresses nothing less than the 'transcendental mechanics of Western society.'His inspiring and brilliantly written survey of the religious and social history of marriage and family focuses on its prototype, the holy family in which mother and child form a symbiotic relationship while the third in this group, the father is kept at bay, in order to open up an extension unto divine transcendence. His object is the metamorphoses of the transcendence-ridden nuclear family as it is reconstructed in modernity according to secular premises: now it is the state that can enter into the role of a non-procreative paternality, thus creating a link between the private and the public realm. The daunting spirit of Koschorke’s thought is matched by the brilliantly concise and pithy style of his writing, a style that is inspired both by Foucault and Luhmann. Koschorke’s study of the holy family shows what 'basic reasearch'can mean in the humanities: a susceptible and stunningly innovative analysis of the symbolic foundations of Western society." — Aleida Assmann, University of Konstanz
"It all begins with a child's Christmas question: What is the Holy Family? Koschorke's brilliant response ventures through theology, comparative religion, cultural and art history, psychoanalysis, sociology, and more to explore the meaning of this religiously peculiar, ambiguous, and strangely durable constellation. He reflects on the uncanny similarity between this founding myth of Christianity and the modern ideology of the nuclear family, and in particular the precarious position of the human father in both, a jeopardized authority both sharing in and rivaling the authority of God or the State. And on the other side: Mary with the infant, as Madonna; Mary with her dead son, as pieta. From the first to the last page, the reader remains as curious and astonished as a child, so skillfully does Koschorke lead him through the history and traditions of Christianity in its profound influence on the Western world." — Barbara Hahn, Princeton University