It was a tight deadline, but there was just enough time: the book "Liebe:Sophie Briefe aus dem Lockdown über Schellings Freiheitsabhandlung" was finished in time for the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was presented at the fair. The book, which was sponsored by the University Society, was written during the first lockdown at Osnabrück University's Institute of Philosophy in the summer semester of last year. Lecturer Dr. Sven Jürgensen decided to take a different approach when teaching had to be switched from face-to-face to online courses at short notice: He wrote 12 letters to the students, which he sent out by email.
"I didn't realize at the time that I was already writing the basis for a book. It was only the warm-hearted response from a student that encouraged me to approach Passagen-Verlag, who were very willing to include the project in their program. So while a virus was threatening our freedom, I sent letters about freedom in Osnabrück, namely about Schelling's famous treatise on freedom, to a circle of addressees whom I wanted to familiarize with this important text in this way. The result is a text of remembrance, but also a text of hope."
The letters have been published in a revised version. "I had only sketched out the essays The True Witness about Jorge Semprun's story The Dead Man with My Name and The Thinking of the Abandoned about Martin Heidegger's Schelling Lecture in the summer of 2020," says Jürgensen. They are intended to create a productive split from the middle by pointing out two receptions and perspectives that are incompatible with each other, but which nevertheless contribute to clarifying the relevance of the freedom treatise for contemporary readers as well. The fact that the book was written in Osnabrück is also made clear by the fact that the essay on Semprun's story mentions Felix Nussbaum's painting "Cowering Prisoner", which he painted in 1940.
The German-American artist Maria Bussmann mingled with the addressees and commented on the letters with her drawings. She, who is always looking for ways between the lines of philosophical texts by drawing, has transformed the material through the treatise on freedom and the letters "Liebe:Sophie" and placed the reading in its own light, so that through her drawings, too, the Corona Pandiemie
has also found its way into the discussion with Schelling. In this way, a triangular interrelationship has been created: The pandemic has triggered the letters "Liebe:Sophie" about Schelling's approach to freedom, to which Maria Bussmann has added her drawings and made herself a co-author with her pen.
Dr. Sven Jürgensen teaches philosophy at Osnabrück University and is Press Officer for the City of Osnabrück.
Dr. Maria Bussmann is an artist and lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. She lives in Vienna and New York.
