click picture for AYCARDUS website

click picture for AYCARDUS website
Meister Eckhart

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Project Consultants


I am pleased with the responses from noted scholars who are very interested in the AYCARDUS Project and who are willing to serve as consultants. They are an international body and bring to the project an expertise in medieval history, medieval manuscripts, medieval philosophy, Latin, German, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart and more. Watch for the listing of these consultants on our website http://sites.google.com/site/aycardusproject/

We are working on getting the AYCARDUS Project into the web search engines so it will be easier to find. (Any help in this tech area is appreciated.)

Seeking Translators: Looking for anyone with the skills and interest to work on translating two Latin text and one sermon. This could be a great project for a Latin class, a religious community, or a retired teacher. There are so many valuable works and articles not accessible to most of the English world that even a basic translation will help in the projects efforts. So don't think you have to have the critical, definitive translation. The project members will be able to bring together their various talents to improving even an unpolished effort. "Many hands make light the labors" and in promoting the study of Dominican sources in Meister Eckhart, this project is meant to be a cooperative of hearts and hands and minds.


Help promote the project:
Please email this blog to interested friends.



Friday, February 19, 2010

AYCARDUS begins

The AYCARDUS project was born out of my interest in a 14th century German Dominican mystic called Meister Eckhart. He was a master at the university of Paris and an acclaimed preacher of the Rhineland. He has fascinated numerous writers from diverse perspectives, but what we know about him is limited. The great critical edition of his works by Kohlhammer Publisher in German and Latin is still incomplete. He has been used by various groups from New Age spiritualist to Germanist scholars. What we know about him has been sketchy and filtered through many lenses, from national socialist interpretation to post-Modern writers. But what do we really know? What can we say about this man who met Albert the Great and was a young man at the time of Thomas Aquinas's death?

I have become fascinated by his life and his contributions at the university of Paris, at a time when the Dominican Order was working to salvage the reputation of one of their greatest thinkers, Thomas Aquinas. Eckhart was at a number of those meetings, called general chapters, that legislated its members to faithfully defend and promote the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Even so, there remains a question as to Eckhart's own appreciation for Aquinas. Some believe Eckhart to have been a disciple of Dietrich of Freiburg and see them both as fiercely anti-Thomist. Others see him as strongly influenced by neoPlatonist thought, seeing him in Augustinian categories. This leaves me wondering. I have been looking for a pool of students and scholars who might investigate the Dominican sources in Eckhart's thought.

So, this blog and the AYCARDUS Project page (http://sites.google.com/site/aycardusproject) are a start, a beginning that I hope will call others into the investigation. I invite anyone who wonders just how Eckhart shaped Aquinas, or Albert, or others, to join the Project. The English speaking community, which has in one sense embraced Eckhart, could benefit from a fuller study of the factors and influences shaping his thought. The AYCARDUS website is that virtual place where articles, studies, books, conferences, and such, may be shared.

If you are looking for areas to explore in Eckhart, if you have ideas about the intellectual world in which Eckhart lived, if you are aware of literature that is not available in English, then I hope you will join this Project.