Inside Issue 6: New and Forthcoming 
Ronald CollinsEditorial
I do not give the human race more than one chance in a thousand, but I should not be a man if I did not operate on that one chance.
— Albert Camus
We live in an age of anxiety, and there seems to be little relief beyond the existential horizon. War crimes in Ukraine continue as does Vladimir Putin’s nuclear campaign. So, too, with his threats against Finland and Sweden, his attempt to blackmail Europe by suspending oil and gas supplies, and his “ruthless assassination program.” Meanwhile, the Russian Orthodox Church serves as a pillar of support for Putin’s regime (“To Vladimir Putin, Orthodox Christianity is a tool for asserting Moscow’s rights over sovereign Ukraine.”) In the process, evil is normalized.
Meanwhile, Nato forces prepare for the possibility of direct conflict with Putin’s Russia — this as the specter of unchecked force becomes ever more real. As all of this plays out each day, the United States is snarled in a hopeless ideological conflict between its two main political parties, this as the specter of Trump looms large.
Against this backdrop and more, the hope is that the worst does not befall us. But it is just an idle hope. What makes that hope an idle one is the absence of any real counterforce to the evils confronting us. We lack both the will and the way. In such a world turned upside down, Weil’s steadfast resolve and Camus’s fighting faith serve to inspire us.
Here are some organizations that are raising money and have the capability and capacity to deliver humanitarian aid and other assistance to people fleeing the conflict, or those that are wounded by it:
- The Razom Emergency Response fundraiser was created to provide urgent help and support in face of extreme and unforeseen situations in Ukraine. Right now they are purchasing medical supplies for critical situations like blood loss and other tactical medicine items.
- Support Hospitals in Ukraine They continue their operation to support this key infrastructure in Ukraine at a time of war.
- United Help Ukraine is working to provide life-saving individual first aid kits (IFAKs) containing blood-stopping bandages and tourniquets and other emergency medical supplies to the front lines and is cooperating with other emergency response organizations to prepare humanitarian aid to civilians that might be directly affected by Russia’s attack.
- United Ukrainian American Relief Committee is gathering funds to provide humanitarian aid to victims of war in Ukraine.
- International Rescue Committee has launched an emergency appeal to help support displaced Ukrainian families with critical aid.
- UNHCR is working with the authorities, the United Nations and other partners in Ukraine and is ready to provide humanitarian assistance wherever necessary and possible.
- Amnesty International works to protect the human rights of Ukrainians and protect Ukrainians at risk.
- World Central Kitchen WCK is on the ground in Poland to support families fleeing Ukraine.
- USA Reporters Without Borders
Мужньому народу України-Хай живе ваша свобода! Нехай зло гнобителів переможе їх. Слава Україні.
Interview
- Ronald Collins & Malcolm Barber, “Simone Weil & the Cathars: A Q & A Interview with Malcolm Barber“
Original & Newly Translated Articles & Reviews
- Silvia Caprioglio Panizza & Philip Wilson, “The Challenges of Translating Simone Weil’s Literary Works“
- Eric Springsted, “The Challenges of Translating Simone Weil’s Philosophical Works with an Eye on The Need for Roots“
- E. Jane Doering, “Translations of Beauty: Simone Weil and literature — the 2022 American Weil Society colloquy at the University of Notre Dame (Part I)“
- Carlos Hoevel, “Two Philosophers Facing War” (newly translated)
- Eric Springsted, “Iris Murdoch’s engagement with theology” (book review essay)
News From Italy
- Michela Dianetti, “News From Italy: Books, Articles & Events“
New & Soon-to-be-Released Books
- Silvia Caprioglio Panizza, The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real With Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil (Routledge, June 6, 2022)
- Christine Ann Evans, The French Historical Narrative and the Fall of France: Simone Weil and her Contemporaries Face the Debacle (Lexington Books, forthcoming: July 15, 2022)
- The Friends of Attention (authors) & D. Graham Burnett & Stevie Knauss (eds), The Twelve Theses on Attention (2022)
New Articles
- Sean Illing & Lyndsey Stonebridge, “The philosopher who warned us about loneliness and totalitarianism,” Vox (May 8, 2022)
- Juan Manuel Ruiz Jimenez, “The presence of the world in Simone Weil’s early writings,” Unisinos Journal of Philosophy (2022)
- Antony Fredriksson, “Václav Havel, Simone Weil and Our Desire for Totalitarianism,” Filosofický časopis (2022)
- Aldis H. Petriceks, “A Negative Effort: Simone Weil and the Ethics of Attention in Palliative Care,” Palliative Supportive Care (April 25, 2022)
- Pierre Gillouard, “The mysticism of the ordeal of the absence of God in the context of the Second World War: The case of Simone Weil and Etty Hillesum,” Dans Études théologiques et religieuses 2022/1 (Tome 97), pages 49-65
- Juan Manuel Ruiz Jiménez, “The presence of the world in Simone Weil’s early writings,” Filosopfia, vo. 23, no. 1 (Jan-Apr. 2022)
- Rodolphe Olcèse, “Horror Transfigured: Force Drama and World’s Beauty According to Simone Weil,” Alkemie (2022)
- Emanuele Pili, “Thinking about Judaism: Jacques Maritain and Simone Weil,” Pensare l’ebraismo: Jacques Maritain e Simone Weil (Italian Edition) Kindle Edition (Feb. 2022)(Italian Edition)
- Edward J. Hughes, “A Degrading Division: Hands & Minds in Simone Weil,” essay in Edward J., Hughes, Egalitarian Strangeness: On Class Disturbance and Levelling in Modern and Contemporary French Narrative (Liverpool University Press, 2021), pp. 131-156
Newly Posted Article
- M. Rybakova, “Imagination and Attention: Simone Weil translating The Iliad,” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics (2007)
New Videos (lectures)
- Alexander Nemerov, “On Simone Weil and Giotto” (Keynote Lecture delivered at the 2022 American Weil Society)
- Abi Doukhan, “Simone Weil: Waiting for God (parts 1 and 2)–The God Frequency” (Queens College of the City University of New York, May 2022)
New Book Review Essay
- Eric Springsted on Robert Zaretsky’s The Subversive Simone Weil, The Review of Politics (March 10, 2022)
Newly Posted Dissertation
- Matthew J. Godfrey, “The Lost Futures of Simone Weil: Metaxu, Decreation, and the Spectres of Myth,” Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in English, York University Toronto, Ontario (Sept. 2021)
Recommended Reading
- Mario von der Ruhr, “Christianity and the Errors of Our Time: Simone Weil on Atheism and Idolatry ” in A. Rebecca Rozelle-Stone & Lucian Stone, eds, The Relevance of The Radical: Simone Weil 100 Years Later (Continuum 2010), pp, 53-75)