The longing for home in the modern world is preceded by the loss of home. Flight and expulsion are therefore often the beginning of a heightened longing for home. The impossibility of returning and the prevention of finding a new home therefore mean a lasting injury for those who have been displaced. But even those who did not have to leave the places and landscapes of their childhood have lost their homes in the course of industrialization, urban sprawl and the destruction of the natural environment.

Prof. Dr. Alfred Hirsch teaches philosophy at the University of Witten-Herdecke. He studied philosophy, German and political science in Münster, Hamburg, Paris and Bochum and was a research fellow at New York State University. Prof. Dr. Alfred Hirsch has also taught at the Université Paris Sorbonne/IV, the University of Hildesheim and was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen.