Letter from the Editor
The 58th Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle conference took place May 2–5, 2024 at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, with Shane Ewegen as the Convenor. The 59th Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle is scheduled to take place at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA in the spring of 2025, and the Convener will be Doug Peduti.
In this issue of Gatherings, I am pleased to present seven original and thought-provoking essays. The first essay, by Tom Sheehan, discusses the core matter of Heidegger’s thinking. The next four essays all take up Heidegger’s early work. Robert Scharff looks at destruction and formal indication in order to develop an improved understanding of phenomenology. Francesco Scagliusi argues that we need to understand the destruction of the history of ontology in terms of the destruction of factical life. Walter Brogan returns to Heidegger’s course on Aristotle’s Rhetoric to explore the relation between affection and virtue. In a close analysis of Heidegger’s 1921–22 lecture course Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle: Initiation into Phenomenological Research, Sean Kirkland interprets central ideas from that course, such as formal indication, ruinance, and counter-ruinance, as responding to the challenges posed by late-stage historicism. The sixth essay, by Avery Dawson, is on the later Heidegger and aims to offer a new interpretation of Ereignis. In the final essay, Elena Bartolini provides an analysis of the relation between Heidegger’s philosophy and his philosophical practice and teaching.
This issue also includes a new feature, namely a Book Forum, devoted to a discussion of Charles Bambach’s Of an Alien Homecoming: Reading Heidegger’s Hölderlin. Ian Alexander Moore and Krzysztof Ziarek comment on the book, and then Bambach responds to their commentaries.
In this issue, I am also pleased to offer reviews for two books: David Farrell Krell reviews Dialogue on the Threshold: Heidegger and Trakl by Ian Alexander Moore, and Daniel M. Herskowitz reviews Kabale: Hebräischer Humanismus im Lichte von Heideggers Denken by Michael Chighel.
As always, I would like to thank the Editorial Board of Gatherings. Each year, the journal receives numerous essays, and I call upon the Editorial Board regularly to read and review essays. I am grateful for their commitment to Gatherings. I would also like to extend my deep gratitude to Ben Brewer, our Documents Editor, who does fantastic work for the journal, as well as to our Book Review Editor, David Abergel.
This will be my final issue as Editor of Gatherings. It has been an honor for me to serve in this role the past four years, and I am pleased to continue to work on the journal in the role of Associate Editor. The Editorial Board has selected Kevin Aho as the new Editor of Gatherings. He is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Communication and Philosophy at Florida Gulf Coast University. He has published widely on Heidegger, existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and phenomenological psychopathology. He is the author of One Beat More: Existentialism and the Gift of Mortality (Polity, 2022), Existentialism: An Introduction (Polity, 2014, 2nd ed. 2020), Contexts of Suffering: A Heideggerian Approach to Psychopathology (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), Heidegger’s Neglect of the Body (SUNY Press, 2009), and Body Matters: A Phenomenology of Sickness, Illness, and Disease, with James Aho (Lexington Books, 2008). He edited Existential Medicine: Essays on Health and Illness (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) and co-edited The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Existentialism (Routledge, 2024). His work on Heidegger has appeared in numerous journals, and he has also served as an Associate Editor of Gatherings. He co-hosted the 48th Annual Meeting of The Heidegger Circle with the late Charles Guignon.
I wish Kevin all the best in his new role as Editor of Gatherings.