• 
  [more]
• About The Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy Fund
• New
• Available Works - The Catalog
• Order books
• Biography of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
• Bibliography
• Books & Articles on line
• Links
• Site Map

Mixed series

Volumes

Mixed Series consists of 36 hours of lectures in eight titles.

Wherever you have man, he is in this same strange quandary: that he must continue what others have done before him, and he must begin something what others must continue after him.

Therefore, to convey conviction and to inherit conviction is the essence of your fruitful living. Therefore this is the essence of all questions today of the philosopher, nothing about the world, nothing about pessimism, socialism, materialism. I mean, who cares? The main question is: how am I able to continue something which my fathers began? And how am I able to start something which my grandchildren will continue? If this cannot be, gentlemen, then there is no meaning in life, absolutely no meaning, because nothing, gentlemen, a man can do himself the -the final result of the -all these analyses ought to be for you -we come too late to our own lives. We come too late to our own lives unless we are allowed to continue what is worthwhile, and unless we are going to rely on other people to do with our lives something in continuation.

Hinge of Generations-1953 - 6, November 10, 1953

Another title for Hinge of Generations-1953 was "Fathers and Sons." It addresses history as a social process among generations. Rosenstock-Huessy uses biographical examples from American history to illustrate his points, with emphasis on Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, John Quincy Adams, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Herman Melville, Henry James, Sr., William James, and Henry Adams. Not all of the original lectures have survived; the series now consists of 14 partial or full transcripts.

The great mystery is expressed in history, is expressed in marriage, is expressed in my story when -- in every immigrant's story, who comes to America: important thought has to be timed. The deepest things we know about ourselves are not known always. The questions which you discuss in bull sessions--whether there is a God or not--they are irrelevant questions or impossible questions. Any important question--whether you are able to stay an American, or a Christian, or a Roman Catholic, or whether you have to become a professor, or whether you have to remain a student--all these questions--whether I have, perhaps to leave Dartmouth--are questions of timing. ... The Church has always been called the "apostolic church," because the Apostles form the second half of the life of the man Jesus, because when the temple fell, there had to be prepared a unity inside which the new faith, the love, and the hope already had been sunk. And now it could be witnessed. And so this story of the first two generations of Christianity will never be understood, as long as you look in- -- to the Bible for moral precepts, for doctrine. You must look not for philosophy. It is a -- %%Christianity is the very opposite of the philosophy of life because it's only connected with timing. It is constituted as a womb of the times. Our Lord is the lord of all the eras, where all newborn eons can spring up in reverence. What do we care for the denominations? All this is very minor compared to the one great fact that there entered the world at the decisive hour in freedom and reverence, in bashfulness and in independence, this what makes all the difference in the world. Because if nothing new had entered there into this gap, the great tradition which now everybody receives into his own life, that mankind is under one God, would have never reached you or me.

Make Bold to be Ashamed, 1953

Rosenstock-Huessy describes shame as a crucial link to personal growth. While we may acquire knowledge in the abstract we can only know its meaning, as related to our lives, at the right time. Shame then is the veil by which we protect our inner life until at that right time its meaning can be revealed to ourselves and others. And while there are many forces that control our everyday behavior, our freedom lies in determining the right moment to reveal those inner thoughts. This lecture is a succinct and comprehensive statement of one of his brilliant insights on human nature.

... a profession means three things: a brotherhood of the people who do the same thing, a service to the people who are in need of it, and the recognition by the leaders of the community, that this service is done in the right manner by this group of colleagues; by this guild and craft; by this, you see, metier; by this profession.

What Future Professions-1960 - 1, January 25, 1960

"To turn the hearts of the children to their parents" means to make them into professional people. That is, to make them inherit a spirit, which they have invented, and which they do not discover themselves, despite all pragmatism.

What Future Professions-1960 - 4, January 28, 1960

The central issue In What Future Professions - 1960 might be called the problem of how thought is circulated and vitality is maintained. The underlying assumption is that any idea that is to live longer than one human life must be institutionalized. The topic of "professional" is used to apply, by inference, to the practice and teaching of all services needed by the community requiring professional knowledge from doctor, lawyer, and teacher to plumber, and carpenter. The author points out the disastrous consequences when the relationships between the professionals and their colleagues, their clients, and the law break down. Four 1-hour lectures.

St. Augustine by the Sea - 1962

You can no longer hope to restore human language or to save it from -from destruction unless we get rid of our -of our grammar books, which tells you that language has been created to say, "La rose est une fleur." And I tried to tell you that the Copernican turning point is that you learn that Language is meant to place man before, inside, and after the event. And this is the meaning of any articulated language: that the person who speaks determines his relation to the event of which he speaks, and thereby creates history. There is no other way of creating history. There is no other way of creating history. And grammar has never been created for saying, "La rose est une fleur," but it has been created to say, "Europe was a great civilization, Europe is a great civilization, Europe will be a civilization." If you withhold this last sentence, you have taken a position in history, because you have decided that it's all over. 

St. Augustine by the Sea-1962 - 5, June, 1962

Economy of Times - 1965

Really something has happened. War and peace are embodied in the two meanings of the saint, Santa Barbara. And the modern economist omits war and the sufferings of humanity when he speaks of the supermarket. Santa Barbara, the saint, to which I owed allegiance for so many years as a soldier, asks that we are ready to die for our country, or for some cause. And that we --apply to this service, or this readiness to serve, the most developed, technical weapons and skill. We admit that engineering and machinery serves to produce more and more bombs. And on the other hand, here in Santa Barbara, we try to forget this. Man is at peace; it's a wonderful country. Everybody is here for his own best development. And there is no sacrifice needed. All modern -modern science has done -- all modern philosophy does is to omit one little thing: sacrifice. ... So the economy of our creation is a very difficult one, because it demands from you and me the -- as a first admission, that we are the victims in the process. God's world cannot stand without sacrifice.

Economy of Times-1965 - 1, November 16, 1965

Reviewing Economy of Times - 1965, Richard Feringer wrote that this was both the most comprehensive and most concise expression by Rosenstock-Huessy on time and its basic meaning to society, as opposed to the meaning of time in natural science. "Economy" has two meanings; pre-dating 1800, it meant that from the house of God, "plenty" was created out of the wilderness. After 1800, following Adam Smith and Karl Marx, it came to mean simply the production of goods and services, buying and selling. The old meaning inferred sacrifice was necessary to become a human being the new meaning inferred an avoidance of sacrifice. The old meaning also meant we must be convinced we are not wild animals and were within the House of God and were obligated to maintain an orderly house. The new meaning omitted community strictures. The purpose of this lecture is to explore these two different meanings of economy and to re-establish an integration of the two.

Talk with the Fransicans - 1965

I mean to say this, that hospitality is a spiritual act. It is a disarmament conference, because it means that you do not use terms that estrange you from that what happens to you, from the foreigner who comes in. And you and I, we are sovereigns by our terminology, to name this fellow, you see, as being either outside or inside. Hospitality today is so cheap, and is so common that you forget that any minute the same person, the same stranger, the same foreigner, you see, can be admitted to you as a brother, and can be estranged from you as public, as curiosity-seeker, as an intruder.

And there is no end to this liberty of the -- the human soul, by naming, to create foreigners and brothers, you see. The brotherhood of man is not a fact; it's an act of faith. And it's very strange that language has become obviously so cheap that people think that when you speak, you just use the right terms as you have learned in school. Beware of this. It's not true. You -- every minute -- ... you name, you appoint the -- the person to the role you are giving him at this moment.

...The society begins with this spiritual unity, you see, that everybody is glad that the other fellow also has something to eat. Where you don't have this, the society is broken. You have ana- -- not only anarchy, but you have war.

Talk with the Fransicans-1965 - 2, December 1965

In speaking with the Franciscan monks, Rosenstock-Huessy begins with reminding them of their philosophy, to live intensely each day, to maintain the ability "...to look into the chalice of a flower as though you saw it for the first time." But then he goes on to put this attitude in context by comparing it with that of the Dominicans, who eulogize the big picture and long time spans, and seek to generalize from experience. Of course, we need both attitudes and he gives vivid examples as to why. Generalizations represent order; at the same time, the revelations of each day, while unpredictable, are the source of creativity.

Lingo of Linguistics - 1966

...the philologist, the inquisitor in philology, seems not to know that to speak means to be changed. Any human being, however, whether he likes it or not, knows that by speech and by listening, we become different people. ...It is the most important quality of speech, that if you call my name, I respond. …We create by names the times and spaces which our historians, our politicians, our scientists take for granted. There is no Christian era, there is no 1966 except by our believing word. ...Such is the promise of a name. Such is the beginning of a long future, by bestowing a name on a person, and calling him by this name, that we cut avenues of time, through centuries. And if you are called an American, if you are called a Christian, or you are called a Jew, that means that you create and are created into a time. …Time is only to be had by people who share life with others, and thereby are introduced into the same time. All times are social creations.

Lingo of Linguistics-1966 - 2, April 5, 1966

These lectures were given at a conference on language held at Western Washington University. Rosenstock-Huessy attempts to point out to the other speakers that their formal studies of the structure of languages represent abstractions ripped from the larger context in which "life-giving speech" takes place. While he admits some value for such study, he points out how those formalizations omit the true nature of communication, which after all is an action between human beings who are struggling to survive against severe odds. In these lectures he details the essential differences between linguistics and vital speech, between generalizations and flesh and blood.

…Of living processes, you can only speak by participation. And of dead things, you can speak by reading books. It’s very different.

…The modern fashions in the last hundred years have all consisted in this one-and-the-same attempt to say that man is outside that which he learns, which he knows, which he judges, which he describes, which he discovers; and thereby saying that man could step outside his own life, and speak of life as though it wasn’t his, it wasn’t he involved.

...Living processes can only be known or understood by those who practice, who are alive, who are involved, who are breathing with these processes, because we only know of their existence, thanks to our quality of breathing, acting, reacting, responding. There is no other way.

March 1968    

This issue is examined in the larger context of religion in general, rather than focusing specifically on atheism. A regenerating religion, Rosenstock-Huessy asserts, is the value that addresses living social processes; atheism by contrast is a religion that addresses events objectively. Atheism is anti-human, because one cannot understand human experience without participating inside its processes.

For Richard Feringer's more detailed notes on Hinge of Generations - 1953 click here, Make Bold to be Ashamed - 1953 click here, What Future Professions - 1960 click here, St. Augustine by the Sea - 1962 click here, Economy of Times - 1965 click here, Talk with Franciscans - 1965 click here, Lingo of Linguistics - 1966 click here, Fashions of Atheism - 1968 click here,

The Rosenstock-Huessy lectures are available in two versions:
•     the original audio recording of Rosenstock-Huessy giving the lecture and
•     transcripts of the original audio.

Argo sells these versions in two different packages:
•     electronic and
•     paper

The electronic package of Mixed Series is sold on a DVD, which contains

•     the original recordings of 36 hours of college lectures in mp3 format,

•     as well as every transcript of all of the English-language lectures Rosenstock-Huessy recorded, in computer text format. These transcripts are an excellent basis for word searches, to compare what Rosenstock-Huessy had to say on a particular topic or on related topics, either in different contexts across nearly 20 years.

DVDs are produced to order, which can take up to 5 weeks. 

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Buy this item from Argo Books via

Alternatively, you can also order directly from Argo Books.