Christian Clement

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Christian Clement (* 1968 ) is Professor of German Studies at the Mormon- run Brigham Young University in Provo ( Utah ).

life and work

Christian Clement first studied church music at the church music school in Berlin-Spandau and then philosophy , pedagogy and music at the University of Hamburg . He wrote his first state examination paper on the concept of knowledge with Rudolf Steiner and the work on his second state examination in 2001 on his concept of freedom.

Clement was employed as a teacher in a Waldorf school in Germany before he emigrated to the United States, where he received his doctorate on Rudolf Steiner's dramaturgical work after studying German at the state University of Utah in Salt Lake City . He then became an Associate Professor of German Studies at the Mormon Brigham Young University .

Since 2010, Clement has been creating the Rudolf Steiner Online Archive, a German-language website with which he wants to make the copyright-free part of the more than 340 volumes of the Rudolf Steiner Complete Edition accessible to a wider readership. This resulted in his current project of a first text-critical edition of 16 central writings by Steiner, which he published in Frommann-Holzboog Verlag . One of the planned eight volumes has been published annually since 2013.

In April 2012 the Rudolf Steiner Archive and the Rudolf Steiner Verlag found out about the Frommann-Holzboog Verlag's edition plans and asked him in autumn 2012 about a collaboration. After the publisher had given an insight into the galley proofs, the decision was made to enter into a sales cooperation, in which the full editorial and entrepreneurial responsibility for the project remained with Frommann-Holzboog Verlag.

criticism

Clements SKA of Rudolf Steiner's writings is sharply criticized by historians. The American historian Peter Staudenmaier describes many of Clement's accounts in Volume 7 of the SKA as an exercise in wishful thinking , and accuses him of inadequacies and the creation of legends . Clement made an anthroposophical canonization of Rudolf Steiner and offered interpretations that would not contribute anything to an understanding of Steiner. Rather, they are a classic example of Eisegesis , because Clement interprets things into the text in his personal interpretations that are not there, for example when he tries to reinterpret Steiner's esoteric teachings as extensions of his early philosophical works. According to the historian of religion Helmut Zander , the reader is only presented with anthroposophy instead of science . Zander particularly criticizes Clement's attempt to deny theosophy , against the historical findings, as the most important source of anthroposophy, in which he appropriated Steiner's personal points of view.

The introduction to the edition by Clements may come up with a great deal of detailed knowledge and many new insights, but it is deeply written with devotion to anthroposophy. In view of further technical deficiencies, which Zander sees particularly in the sometimes large research distance, he recommends that the edition be rethought from the ground up and incorporated into the scientific community .

Published volumes of the SKA

  • Rudolf Steiner: Writings - Critical Edition (SKA), Volume 5: Writings on mysticism, mysteries and the history of religion . Edited and commented by Christian Clement. Preface by Alois Maria Haas . Frommann-Holzboog Verlag eK, Stuttgart 2013. ISBN 978-3-7728-2635-1 .
  • Rudolf Steiner: Writings - Critical Edition (SKA), Volume 7: Writings for knowledge training . Edited and commented by Christian Clement. Foreword by Gerhard Wehr . Frommann-Holzboog Verlag eK, Stuttgart 2014. ISBN 978-3-7728-2637-5 .
  • Rudolf Steiner: Writings - Critical Edition (SKA), Volume 2: Philosophical writings . Edited and commented by Christian Clement. Preface by Eckart Förster . Frommann-Holzboog Verlag eK, Stuttgart 2016. ISBN 978-3-7728-2632-0 .
  • Rudolf Steiner: Writings - Critical Edition (SKA), Volume 6: Writings on anthropology . Edited and commented by Christian Clement. Foreword by Egil Asprem . Frommann-Holzboog Verlag eK, Stuttgart 2016. ISBN 978-3-7728-2636-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Christian Clement on the Brigham Young University website
  2. ^ Peter Staudenmaier: The Higher Worlds meet the Lower Criticism. New Scholarship on Rudolf Steiner. Correspondences 2015 (3): 93-101. ISSN  2053-7158 , [1] . P. 95 .; Christian Clement: The Birth of the Modern Mystery Drama from the Spirit of Weimar - On the Topicality of Goethe and Schiller in Rudolf Steiner's Dramaturgy . 2005. [2]
  3. ^ Peter Staudenmaier: The Higher Worlds meet the Lower Criticism. New Scholarship on Rudolf Steiner. Correspondences 2015 (3): 93-101. ISSN  2053-7158 , [3] . P. 95 .; Rudolf Steiner Online Archive by Christian Clement
  4. ^ Opinion of the Rudolf Steiner estate administration and the Rudolf Steiner Verlag of April 3, 2014 on the cooperation between the publishing houses regarding Rudolf Steiner - Schriften (SKA).
  5. ^ Christian Clements "critical edition of Rudolf Steiner's writings" (SKA). Steiner's new clothes. SKA review on hpd.de. April 22, 2015.
  6. ↑ R. Steiner: Writings for knowledge training. Reviewed for H-Soz-Kult by Helmut Zander.
personal data
SURNAME Clement, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German university professor, author and editor
DATE OF BIRTH 1968