Volker Zotz | |
---|---|
Born | Landau in der Pfalz, Germany | 28 October 1956
Occupation | writer, university professor |
Citizenship | Austria |
Education | Ph.D. |
Alma mater | University of Vienna |
Period | since 1978 (books) |
Subject | Buddhism, Confucianism, philosophy, religious studies, lyric poetry, fiction, essay |
Notable works | Geschichte der buddhistischen Philosophie (1996) Konfuzius für den Westen (2007) |
Spouse | Birgit Zotz |
Website | |
volkerzotz |
Volker Helmut Manfred Zotz (born 28 October 1956) is an eminent Austrian philosopher, religious studies scholar, Buddhologist and a prolific author. [1]
The Zotz family originated in Tyrol and spread to Germany. Volker Zotz was born in Landau in der Pfalz, Germany, where he attended elementary school and high school.
His interest in spirituality led him to an early study of Christianity as well as of Indian and Chinese religions. What impressed him most was Buddhist philosophy and meditation. When Zotz was sixteen he became a major disciple of Lama Anagarika Govinda, with whom he was close until his death in 1985. [2] During his high school days, Zotz also met the author Oscar Kiss Maerth, whose ideas he did not completely agree with, but with whom he had an intense exchange of ideas. [3]
After graduating from Max Slevogt High School in Landau in the 1970s, he published his first poems in two volumes [4] and a novel. [5] As a conscientious objector Zotz had to perform eighteen months of alternative civilian service in a nursing home. From 1978 he studied Buddhism under Ernst Steinkellner and philosophy under Kurt Rudolf Fischer at the University of Vienna. He repeatedly interrupted his studies in Vienna to conduct research and fieldwork in India, Nepal and Afghanistan and to receive spiritual training from Lama Anagarika Govinda.
In 1986 Zotz received a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna for his doctoral thesis Zur Rezeption, Interpretation und Kritik des Buddhismus im deutschen Sprachraum. This dissertation investigates the influence of Buddhism on German philosophy, literature and culture during the Fin de siècle. [6]
Zotz has been a lecturer of Buddhist philosophy at the University of Vienna. 1989 he moved to Japan where he was a professor and researcher at Ryukoku University and Otani University in Kyoto and at Rissho University in Tokyo for ten years. During the period in Japan he was influenced considerably by the Buddhologist Takamaro Shigaraki. [7] In 1999 Zotz was appointed professor of philosophy at the University of Luxembourg. At that time he was also teaching at Saarland University.
Besides his scholarly work, Volker Zotz's European audience knows him as author and publicist. The volume, Buddha, is the most popular book on its topic in German language, regularly reprinted and translated into several languages. Zotz is a leading member of the Arya Maitreya Mandala, founded by Lama Anagarika Govinda in 1933. In the early 1990s Zotz initiated a study centre called Komyoji in Austria which is an attempt at describing a cross-cultural philosophy of religion. Since 1994 Zotz has been the driving force behind many of Komyoji's educational programs, [8] such as workshops explaining various philosophical and theological topics. Volker Zotz is married to the Austrian writer and anthropologist Birgit Zotz.
Anagarika Govinda was the founder of the order of the Arya Maitreya Mandala and an expositor of Tibetan Buddhism, Abhidharma, and Buddhist meditation as well as other aspects of Buddhism. He was also a painter and poet.
Buddhism in Germany looks back to a history of over 150 years. Arthur Schopenhauer was one of the earliest Germans who were influenced by Buddhism. Schopenhauer got his knowledge of Buddhism from authors like Isaac Jacob Schmidt (1779-1847). German Buddhists or Orientalists like Karl Eugen Neumann, Paul Dahlke, Georg Grimm, Friedrich Zimmermann and the first German Buddhist monk Nyanatiloka Mahathera were also influenced by Schopenhauer and his understanding of Buddhism. But also German Indologists like Hermann Oldenberg and his work ”Buddha, sein Leben, seine Lehre, seine Gemeinde“ had an important influence on German Buddhism.
Notker Wolf is a German Benedictine monk, priest, abbot, musician, and author. He is a member of St. Ottilien Archabbey located in Bavaria, Germany, which is part of the Benedictine Congregation of Saint Ottilien. He previously was elected and served as the ninth Abbot Primate of the Benedictine Confederation of the Order of Saint Benedict. He was elected to his position as Abbot Primate in 2000 and ended his final term in 2016.
Friedemann Schulz von Thun is a German psychologist and expert in interpersonal communication and intrapersonal communication. Schulz von Thun worked as a professor of psychology at the University of Hamburg until his retirement on 30 Sep. 2009. Among his various publications is a three-part book series titled "Miteinander Reden" which has become a standard textbook series in Germany and is widely taught in schools, universities, and vocational skills training. Schulz von Thun developed a number of comprehensive theoretical models to help people understand the determinants and processes of inter-personal exchange and their embeddedness in the individual inner states and the outward situation. He invented the four sides model and developed a widely used visualization of the virtue square.
Imanuel Geiss was a German historian.
Elmar Kraushaar is a German journalist and author who lives in Berlin.
Wolf Dietrich Schneider is a German journalist, author and language critic.
Ursula Wolf is a German philosophy professor and writer.
Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider (born 11 July 1940, in Hütten bei Gellin, Province of Pomerania, Germany is a Professor Emeritus in Public Law at University of Erlangen in Nuremberg, Germany.
Armin Rohde is a German actor and voice actor.
Wolf Haas is an Austrian writer. He is most widely known for his crime fiction novels featuring detective Simon Brenner, four of which were made into films. He has won several prizes for his works, including the German prize for crime fiction.
Birgit Zotz is an Austrian writer, cultural anthropologist and an expert on the subject of hospitality management studies.
Arya Maitreya Mandala is a tantric and Buddhist order founded 1933 by Lama Anagarika Govinda.
Takamaro Shigaraki was a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and priest within the Honganji-ha branch of Jōdo Shinshū. Shigaraki is widely regarded as one of the most influential Buddhologists of the Jōdo Shinshū in the 20th century.
Georg Klein in a German novelist. He lives in Jemgum. His wife Katrin de Vries is also a writer. In September 2012 he was keynote speaker at the British Council sponsored Edinburgh World Writers' Conference in Berlin. Having worked for many years as a ghost-writer Georg Klein was discovered in 2001 with his detective story "Barbar Rosa."
Hans-Hermann "Hannes" Sprado was a German journalist and author. Until his death he was editor-in-chief and publisher of the popular science magazine P.M. Magazin.
Li Gotami Govinda was an Indian painter, photographer, writer and composer. She was also skilled in ballet and stagecraft. She gained fame with her conversion to Mahayana Buddhism and travels in Tibet.
Martin Geck was a German musicologist. He taught at the Technical University of Dortmund. His publications concerned a number of major composers. Among the composers in whom he specialised was Johann Sebastian Bach.
Gabriele Fritsch-Vivié is a German theatre studies schlolar, playwright and journalist. A member of the working group "Women in Exile", she focuses on biographies of political repression in the first half of the 20th century.
Hans Wolfgang Schumann was a German diplomat as well as an Indologist and Buddhologist.