IN SEARCH OF GOD aspects of Hermann Broch's religiosity

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Katia Marly Leite Mendonça
Isabel Cristina das Neves Oliveira

Abstract

 


Hermann Broch was both a witness and a victim of the rise of Nazism, which was fuelled by the madness of the masses. This theme was at the centre of his fictional, poetic and essayistic work. His main concern centred on understanding evil and preventing it from happening again. Throughout his work, he developed a movement that oscillates between two interpenetrating axes: rationality and religiosity. Within the limits of this article, we will discuss some aspects of Broch's religiosity, indicating that even in his psychosociological analyses, the question of the absolute and the search for God remains present. In the first part we'll look at his vision of the social origins of the sickness of the masses; in the second part, his spiritual vision of this process and in the third part we'll look at the theme of waiting for the coming of Christ.

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MENDONÇA, Katia Marly Leite; OLIVEIRA , Isabel Cristina das Neves. IN SEARCH OF GOD: aspects of Hermann Broch’s religiosity. INTERAÇÕES, Belo Horizonte, v. 20, n. 1, 2025. Disponível em: https://periodicos.pucminas.br/interacoes/article/view/33080. Acesso em: 21 oct. 2025.
Section
ARTICLES
Author Biographies

Katia Marly Leite Mendonça, Universidade Federal do Pará

Doutorado em Ciência Política pela Universidade de São Paulo. Mestrado em Ciências Sociais pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo. Bacharelado em Ciências Econômicas pela Fundação Armando Álvares Penteado. 

Isabel Cristina das Neves Oliveira , UFPA- Federal University of Pará

Master in Sociology from the Federal University of Pará.

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