Abraham

Summary

Dominique Pagani often returns to Abraham through one recurring image: the shepherd from Ur of the Chaldees who grazes his flocks on a boundless land1. He makes him the figure of pastoral nomadism and notes that this image obsesses the young Hegel. He takes it up in varied contexts: music and interpretation, worldliness in Clouscard, the question of identity. For him Abraham is also the patriarch shared by Jews, Christians and Muslims, called Ibrahim in Islam, hence the phrase "we are all children of Abraham"23. Speaking of the Sahel, he presents him as the human figure of that landscape and sees the desert as the common ground of the three monotheisms4. In his view, it is in the desert that a way of thinking appears in which salvation is not here5. He also mentions the trial God imposes on Abraham and his son. Finally, he cites literary scenes that recall Abraham, such as the engraving that reminds the narrator of his father's posture, or the almost biblical welcome of the grandfather in Nerval.

1. 1Is history a subject?9 Mar 2017 · 18:46
2. 2I am not who you think I am: the elusive identity4 Jan 2024 · 1:15:53
3. 3The quest for the Grail, sanctimony or sacrilege?1 Apr 2024 · 17:42
4. 4Sahelian Africa and imperialism: Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger23 Mar 2024 · 27:39
5. 5Saving the saviour? Redemption, the end of the cycle or its new beginning?21 Apr 2024 · 1:13:04

Summary produced automatically from 16 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.