Illich bio available in Italian

Martina Kaller-Dietrich's biography of Ivan Illich has been translated into Italian. What appears to be a review is published here.

Any plans for an English translation?

An event in Bologna

And yet another Illich event, planned for Monday, Dec. 17. Mr. Franz Tutzer -- a longtime Illich scholar and author of this impressive bibliography of Illich's work -- kindly sent us this:

Yet another celebration, in Bern

We've been informed of another celebration of Ivan Illich, scheduled to take place Dec. 6 in Bern, Switzerland. A flyer for the event reads like so:

Ivan Illich interpretiert das Gleichnis vom Samariter

Donnerstag, 6. Dezember 2012, 20 Uhr, im Berner Münster

Ivan Illich, geboren 1942 in Wien und verstorben vor 10 Jahren, am 2. Dezember 2002, studierte Naturwissenschaften, Philosophie und Theologie. 1961 gründete er in New York das «Center oft intercultural Formation». In der Folge setzte er sich in der Lehre und in seinen Tätigkeiten in Nord- und Zentralamerika und in Europa (auchin seinem Schrifttum) intensiv mit den Grundlagen der abendländischen Kultur und der Rolle des Christentums auseinander. Vieles davon stellte er radikal in Frage. Er empfiehlt, das theologische Wirken und das spirituelle Leben als lebendige Sorge für die Menschen in unserer Zeit zu verstehen.
Zu seinen wichtigsten Schriften gehören: ‚Entschulung der Gesellschaft‘, ‚Die Nemesis der Medizin‘, ‚Genus. Zu einer historischen Kritik der Gleichheit’ und ‚In den Flüssen nördlich der Zukunft. Letzte Gespräche über Religion und Gesellschaft‘.

Das Gleichnis vom barmherzigen Samariter (Lk 10, 25-37) aus dem Lukas Evangelium war der Leitstern im Leben des Historikers und gläubigen Christen Ivan Illich, eine Textstelle, um die sein Denken und Tun kreiste. Dabei interpretierte er die Geschichte, mit welcher Jesus die Frage eines Schriftgelehrten „Wer ist mein Nächster?“ beantwortete, in einer neuen und radikalen Weise. Der Samariter, der den geschlagenen Juden aufhob und seine Wunden verband, handelte nicht nach einer Regel oder einem vorher gesetzten „Soll“, als er sich dem Mann aus einem fremden oder gar feindlichen Stamm zuwandte. Er handelte in freier, frei gewählter Zuwendung. Diese Zuwendung birgt seitdem die Möglichkeit, ein einzigartiges Verhältnis zu einem anderen Menschen herzustellen, ein Verhältnis jenseits aller Normen. Für Ivan Illich stiftete also Jesu Auskunft im Lukas Evangelium eine bis dahin undenkbare, ja anstössige Grundlage, um die höchste Form der Bezüglichkeit zu einem anderen Menschen durch einen freien Akt herzustellen.

Barbara Duden, Professorin für Soziologie an der Universität Hannover und langjährige Le-bensgefährtin von Ivan Illich, stellt die Texte vor und kommentiert sie.

Henriette Cejpek, Schauspielerin am Stadttheater Bern, liest Texte von Ivan Illich.

Sandra Mangini, Sängerin und Schauspielerin, Venedig, singt traditionelle italienischeLieder.

Der Abend ist gleichzeitig Abschluss der fünfjährigen Auslegung des Lukas Evangeliums durch Maja Zimmermann-Güpfert, Münsterpfarrerin.

Jean Robert video

Some video has appeared on YouTube showing Jean Robert discussing his friend and collaborator, Ivan Illich. The animated Robert is seated in a plush arm chair that swivels, talking in Spanish with several other people seated around a coffee table. There are two clips, actually, one 28 seconds long, the other nearly 8 minutes. Both have the title: "Seminario Iván Illich." Here's the longer one:






And the shorter one:

A Recent Paper Available Online

Last month, here, we noted the publication of a paper, "Ivan Illich's Late Critique of Deschooling Society: 'I Was Largely Barking Up the Wrong Tree'," by Rosa Bruno-Jofré and Jon Igelmo Zaldívar. We've just noticed that the full text of this paper, in a journal called Educational Theory, is available on line right here.

[CORRECTION: As of Jan. 1, 2013, the link we provided here no longer works.]

More celebrations, at State College and in Antwerp

Just as we were saying to a friend that it seemed no events were planned in the U.S. to mark the tenth anniversary of Ivan Illich's death, word has arrived that there will, in fact, be a small celebration at Penn State. And we've also been informed of an event planned for Antwerp, Belgium.

The Penn State affair will take place Dec. 3, from 7 to 8:30PM, with a panel of faculty members remembering Illich's life and contributions. All are welcome to attend, light refreshments will be served. The event will be held in 112 Walker Building. More information is available from the estimable Dana L. Stuchul.

The Antwerp event is to take place Dec. 1 at the university there. One of our spies, reporting from Holland, writes:

It's from 10 till 16, and the speakers will explore the legacy of Illich. The flyer says they "wish to explore whether Illich left us a utopia, or a guide we're currently missing in the jungle of alternatives for the crisis" (free translation). There will be three lectures, concluded with a debate between the speakers. Of the speakers, the only one I'm familiar with is Hans Achterhuis, our "denker des vaderlands" (thinker of our country, some sort of title they give to a philosopher each year). Occasionally I stumble across an article or interview with him, in which he quite regularly quotes Illich. In the Netherlands, he is somewhat famous for his book De markt van welzijn en geluk (The market of well-being and happiness, I don't know wether it is translated in other languages) in which he gives a critique on our welfaresystem, based on Illich.

Illich in Russian

We've just stumbled onto a crowd-sourced translation project whose goal is to produce a Russian translation of Ivan Illich's Tools for Conviviality (Инструменты для добрососедства). Only 2% of the book has been translated, so far. All who can help are invited to join in. The same website, Translatedby.com, also is hosting a similar English-to-Russian translation of Deschooling Society, or Дешколирование общества.

David Cayley 's Latest: "The Myth of the Secular"

Canadian Broadcasting has just made David Cayley's latest series of programs, "The Myth of the Secular," available for downloading as MP3 podcasts. There are five parts, each one about 54 minutes long. They are available here, off the Web, or via iTunes. Or, the shows may be listened to on the Web, starting here.


Part 1

Western social theory once insisted that modernization meant secularization and secularization meant the withering away of religion. But religion hasn't withered away, and this has forced a rethinking of the whole idea of the secular. IDEAS producer David Cayley talks to Craig Calhoun, Director of the London School of Economics, and Rajeev Barghava of India's Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Part 2

The secular is often defined as the absence of religion, but secular society is in many ways a product of religion. In conversation with IDEAS producer David Cayley British sociologist David Martin explores the many ways in which modern secular society continues to draw on the repertoire of themes and images found in the Bible.

Part 3

Early in the post-colonial era, politics in most Muslim countries were framed in secular and nationalist terms. During the last thirty years, the Islamic revival has dramatically changed this picture. Anthropologist Saba Mahmood talks with IDEAS producer David Cayley about her book, The Politics of Piety.

Part 4

The Fundamentals was a series of books, published by the Bible Institute of Los Angeles between 1910 and 1915, which tried to set the basics of Christianity in stone. Fundamentalism now refers to any back-to-basics movement. Malise Ruthven's Fundamentalism asks what all these movements have in common, in this feature interview with David Cayley.

Part 5

"All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts." So wrote German legal theorist Carl Schmitt in a book called Political Theology. American legal theorist Paul Kahn has just published Political Theology: Four New Chapters in which he argues that the foundations of the American state remain theological. He explores this theme with IDEAS producer David Cayley.

Also available from CBC in podcast form is Cayley's five-part program, "The Scapegoat: René Girard's Anthropology of Violence and Religion." It is an excellent introduction to Girard's thinking:

Human beings, according to French thinker René Girard, are fundamentally imitative creatures. We copy each other's desires and are in perpetual conflict with one another over the objects of our desire. In early human communities, this conflict created a permanent threat of violence and forced our ancestors to find a way to unify themselves. They chose a victim, a scapegoat, an evil one against whom the community could unite. Biblical religion, according to Girard, has attempted to overcome this historic plight. From the unjust murder of Abel by his brother Cain to the crucifixion of Christ, the Bible reveals the innocence of the victim. It is on this revelation that modern society unquietly rests. Girard's ideas have influenced social scientists over his long career as a writer and teacher.

Ivan Illich mentions Girard at some length in his notes at the back of Shadow Work, and in the book The Challenges of Ivan Illich, Jean-Pierre Dupuy attempts to find some common ground between the two men, both of whom Dupuy has worked with closely. We'd be curious to know what, if anything, Illich and Girard thought of each other's thinking and analysis of history and Christianity.

One hint: Gene Burkart wrote this in an email last January: "I remember Ivan once saying […], in an off hand remark, that Girard had made the concept of sacrifice hopelessly confusing for people."

More celebrations of Illich, in Austria and Italy

We've just learned of two more Illich events planned for the coming weeks. In Lucca, Italy, Dec. 1 and 2:

“LA CASSETTA DEGLI ATTREZZI”

IVAN ILLICH 10 ANNI DOPO

a cura de Il Granchio di Kuchenbuch






And in Eisenstadt, Austria, Nov. 7-9:

Ivan Illich, Gedenktagung

Among those participating will be Barbara Duden, Marianne Gronemeyer, and Martina Kaller, Illich's biographer.

Recalling a visit to CIDOC

Now a design consultant, writer and educator, Rodney Clough visited CIDOC in 1971, to attend a seminar on "interpersonal relational networks," organized by cybernetician Heinz von Foerster. (We wrote about this CIDOC event early last year.) At a website serving as a Festschrift for the Austrian von Foerster, Clough remembers his visit, which had its moments:

I did not know Heinz, nor did I know the other seminar participants, save one, Gordon Pask, a "cybernetician," whom I had heard lecture in New York two months earlier. I can blame June 21 [the day he arrived at CIDOC] on cybernetics, for it was cybernetics that lured me, caught me and beached me on the Mexican plateau.

"You're a day late."

I was listening to my other Cuernavaca host, Ivan Illich, with whom I had corresponded briefly and who suggested I attend this seminar.

"You printed the wrong day in the catalog," I countered, pointing to the catalog, which read, "Interpersonal Relational Networks, June 22." Ivan Illich shrugged me off and launched an "annoying-and-at-the-same-time-charming" non sequitur, "We have something for everybody."

He did. ...

Clough ranks as the first person we've ever seen use the word effulgent.