Launch Event:
18 October 2021

The Digital Cassirer Collection is ready to launch, an online edition of his works for all to read.

Book a free place at the online launch event (Monday 18 October 2021, 17:00 BST) for an introduction to the digital interface and to hear more about the background to this scholarly edition. The 75-minute programme includes reflections on Cassirer’s significance beyond the field of interdisciplinary biblical studies and an open question and answer session.

About HW Cassirer

The eldest son of Ernst and Toni, Heinz Cassirer studied at Hamburg and Heidelberg, gaining a PhD and international recognition for his study of Aristotle’s understanding of the soul (Mohr, 1932). Relocating to the UK to escape Hitler’s regime, he found work at the Universities of Glasgow and Oxford. As tutor, Cassirer proved a formative influence for philosophers including Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, and Philippa Foot. His work on Kant’s aesthetics invigorated English-language scholarship. In retirement, he produced a complete translation of the New Testament, inspired by years studying Paul’s letters in Greek, a process that resulted in his conversion to Christianity. The New Testament translation was published posthumously, together with a comparative study of Kant and Paul, thanks to the labours of friend and executor Ronald Weitzman and Cassirer’s widow, Olive, with hearty encouragement from Scots churchman and academic Thomas Torrance, enthusiasm from publisher William B. Eerdmans Jr., and careful scrutiny from Bible Society consultant Paul Ellingworth.

The Digital Cassirer Collection is an open access web-based resource featuring all Cassirer’s English-language works, together with the text of his German thesis (a study of Aristotle). Those familiar with Cassirer’s New Testament translation (God’s New Covenant, 1989) or his comparative study of Kant and Paul (Grace and Law, 1988) will be fascinated to compare the Categories of Paul published for the first time. Combining transcription and manuscript images while incorporating both earlier and later versions of Cassirer’s Categories, this edition enables direct access to Cassirer’s workings, illuminating his iterative analysis of Paul. New publications in the Collection also include an address on Paul’s character originally delivered to an audience of Anglican clergy, and Cassirer’s version of Sophocles’ final play, Oedipus at Colonus. The latter is accompanied by a complete audio edition, read by a cast of South Yorkshire actors.

The Collection also includes Cassirer’s Kantian works: A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Judgment (Methuen, 1938), Kant’s First Critique (Muirhead Library of Philosophy, 1954) and his translation of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason (Marquette, 1998).

Register to attend the 18th October launch event (via Eventbrite):

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launch-the-digital-cassirer-collection-tickets-170429960600

For updates, follow @HWCassirer and @UniShefSIIBS on Twitter.