Kars, James

James Kars was married to Alice Fetzer , who died of cancer in 1991. Alice, as a professor of comparative humanities, worked with her husband at New York University.

James and Alice have three children - daughter Alice (currently a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University ), and two sons - Keen and James, both professional musicians ^[9] .

For thirty years, James Kars was virtually the only professor of religious studies at New York University. Every year, Kars taught two introductory courses on the religions of the West and religions of the East, as well as a number of other courses. In the process of teaching, he focused on the clash of religious thought with philosophy, literature, political theory, and other sciences. The desire for such clashes can be traced in the name of the courses themselves: “ Theism, Atheism and Existentialism ”, “Ideal Society”, “Modern Religious Movements and Counter-Movements”, “World Mythology ” and “The Meaning of Death”.

In the fall of 2016, the first James Kars novel PhDeath: the Puzzler Murders was released. According to Kars himself, the novel grew out of a lifelong devotion to higher education and deep anxiety about the degradation of the university, which is the noblest creation of Western civilization ^[10] .

Jonathan Edwards and the Visibility of God

The book "Jonathan Edwards and the Visibility of God" ( Eng. Jonathan Edwards & The Visibility of God ) is dedicated to one of the most extraordinary American thinkers - Jonathan Edwards . The sermon, “A Sinner in the Hands of an Angry God,” brought Edwards a bad name that, according to James Kars, distorts Jonathan’s radical idea that God acts on human affairs not through direct power, but through aesthetic appeal. God reaches the heart and mind through beauty manifested in natural and individual forms. Kars pays particular attention to Edwards's idea that will is the most obvious good. This statement raises a number of questions: Is the will a mediator in this formulation? Is the most obvious good a real good? Kars answers these and other questions in the book Jonathan Edwards & The Visibility of God ^{[11] [12]}

Silence of God

The Silence of God ( Silence of God ) is a short meditation on one of the most abstract forms of religious preaching - prayer. The basis of the problems of this book is that, despite the universal use of prayer in the world of religion, it is at the same time and is not a real sermon.

The problem is that many worshipers are waiting for an answer. And many of them convince themselves that they receive this long-awaited "answer". Kars believes that we are all too familiar with people whose prayers send them to war, or persuade them to run for public office, or guarantee the victory of their sports team.

Through his own experience and literary references, James Kars tries to show that this peculiar use of language reveals the depth of our ignorance, not only in relation to divine matters, but also in relation to ourselves. This situation also recalls the level where the world and our personal experience of being in it do not have an obvious meaning. The ironic consequence of recognizing this is the comforting modesty in our judgment of others and of ourselves, a judgment that is always open to revision ^[13] .

Finite and Endless Games

In his book “ Finite and Infinet Games ” (James Finite and Infinet Games ), James Kars expresses a fundamentally new theory, according to which the whole human life consists of finite and endless games. Kars explores how important the game is to us. Kars understands the nature of property, power, culture, society, sexuality and self-knowledge in his own way, thereby opening up a world of infinite possibilities.

James Kars represents all life processes in the form of finite games and endless games. In the final games, the main thing is victory, in the endless games the continuation of the game. Each of the games has certain rules and characteristics.

An endless game can consist of finite ones, there are no winners or losers in it, and the rules always change, which makes it endless. Players engage in an endless game to unlock power. Strength is paradoxical. A player has power when he is able to enable other players to do what they want, but within his own game. The outcome in an endless game is always not clear. Endless players understand that there is no end to the end.

PhDeath: Mysterious Kills

"PhDeath: The Mysterious Murders" ( English PhDeath: the Puzzler Murders ) - the first novel by James Kars, published in November 2016.

The all-knowing riddle arranges a series of atrocities, beginning and ending with the school year. He constantly searches for points of moral and intellectual decay, unreliable research, shameless corruption, ideological ossification, obsession with pornography, excessive political and corporate influence, subtle blackmail schemes, penetration of national and foreign special services, blatant copyright infringement, as well as the production and sale of narcotic drugs , addictive.

All this happens in one of the leading universities in the country, in the center of a big city. Obviously, the actions of the person who made the riddle are aimed not at a specific university, but at the entire system of higher education. A well-thought-out plan of terrible events is the cause of the mystery's indignation regarding the self-destruction of the higher education system, which, in turn, is the noblest creation of Western civilization ^[14] .

The plot of the book is based on events that took place at New York University during his long work there. However, a significant number of trends are characteristic not only of New York University, but also of the higher education system as a whole. Most of the heroes of the book represent real people with whom Kars had to work ^[15] .

There are many different reviews regarding this book, from the most negative to the most positive ^{[16] [17] [18]} .

• https://www.paulagordon.com/shows2/carse3/index.html
• https://emptypath.wordpress.com/category/james-p-carse/
• https://www.simonandschuster.net/authors/James-Carse/313085
• https://www.jstor.org/stable/363376?read-now=1&seq=3#page_scan_tab_contents