Judeities: Questions for Jacques Derrida / Edition 3

by Bettina Bergo, Joseph Cohen, Raphael Zagury-Orly, Michael B. Smith

Overview

Invited to answer questions about his relationship to Judaism, Jacques Derrida spoke through Franz Kafka: As for myself, I could imagine another Abraham.From the experience of a summons that surprises us and prompts the query Who, me? Derrida explores the movement between growing up Jewish, becoming Jewish,and Jewish beingor existence. His essay The Other Abrahamappears here in English for the first time. We no longer confront Judaismbut judeity,multiple Judaisms and Jewishnesses, manifold ways of being and writing as a Jew-in Derrida's case, as a French-speaking Algerian deprived of, then restored to French nationality in the 1940s. What is it to be a Jew and a philosopher? How has the notion of Jewish identitybeen written into and across Jewish literature, Jewish thought, and Jewish languages? Here distinguished scholars address these questions, contrasting Derrida's thought with philosophical predecessors such as Rosenzweig, Levinas, Celan, and Scholem, and tracing confluences between deconstruction and Kabbalah. Derrida's relationship to the universalist aspirations in contemporary theology is also discussed, and his late autobiographical writings are evaluated. This multifaceted volume aims to open the question of Jewishness, above all, to hold it open as a question, though not one of practical or theoretical identity. As much a contestation of identity as a profound reflection on what it means today to seek, elude, and finally to wrestle with the significance of being-jew,Judeities invites us to revisit the human condition in the twenty-first century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823226429
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2007
Series:	Perspectives in Continental Philosophy
Edition description:	3
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

BETTINA BERGO is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Montral and the author of Levinas: Between Ethics and Politics. The most recent of her many translations is,with Michael B. Smith, Judeities: Questions for Jacques Derrida (Fordham).

Joseph Cohen is Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the Hochschule fur Gestaltung in Karlsruhe, Germany, and Program Director at the College International Philosophie, Paris. He has published Le sacrifice de Hegel (2006) and Le spectre juif de Hegel (2005). Author of many articles, he recently edited Heidegger-le danger et la promesse (2006), a critical collection on Heidegger and the end of history.

Raphael Zagury-Orly is Professor of Philosophy at the Bezalel Academy of Fine Arts in Jerusalem and Researcher in Philosophy atthe University of Tel Aviv. He has translated Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida into Hebrew and is the author of many articles.

MICHAEL B. SMITH is Professor Emeritus of French and Philosophy at Berry College and the translator of many works, including, with Bettina Bergo, Judeities: Questions for Jacques Derrida(Fordham).

Table of Contents

Translators' Preface     ix
Preface to the French Edition     xi
Abraham, the Other   Jacques Derrida     1
The Last, the Remnant...: (Derrida and Rosenzweig)   Gerard Bensussan     36
This Stranjew Body   Helene Cixous     52
The Story of a Friendship: The Archive and the Question of Palestine   Michal Ben Naftali     78
Jacques Derrida and Kabbalistic Sources   Moshe Idel     111
Historicity and Differance   Gianni Vattimo     131
How to Answer the Ethical Question   Jurgen Habermas     142
A Monster of Faithfulness   Joseph Cohen   Raphael Zagury-Orly     155
The Shibboleth Effect: On Reading Paul Celan   Hent de Vries     175
The Judeo-Christian   Jean-Luc Nancy     214
Contributors     235
Notes     239

Editorial Reviews

Essays on the relationship between the writings of the French philosopher and multiple understandings of Jewish identity; also includes the first English translation of Derrida's essay 'Abraham, the Other'.

The Chronicle of Higher Education

In this volume sparks fly and cast unexpected light. Judeities represents a new phase in the difficult work of bringing together the speaking of Jewishness and the speaking of theory. If Derrida can be said to remain for us literally, in his writings, here is at once a candid self-portrait and a set of vigorous, equally courageous critical reflections thereof. This is the kind of work that makes us want to keep talking and thinking.——Jonathan Boyarin, Universityof Kansas

“A work of ground-breaking scholarship that brings together some of today’s most prominent thinkers in continental philosophy, literary theory, and religious studies.”

——Ulrich Baer, New York University

From the Publisher

In this volume sparks fly and cast unexpected light. Judeities represents a new phase in the difficult work of bringing together the speaking of Jewishness and the speaking of theory. If Derrida can be said to remain for us literally, in his writings, here is at once a candid self-portrait and a set of vigorous, equally courageous critical reflections thereof. This is the kind of work that makes us want to keep talking and thinking.

University of Kansas - Jonathan Boyarin

. . .An impressive collection of essays stemming from a colloquium held in Paris in December 2000, addressing the work of Jacques Derrida. . .All essays are strong and provide for a text rich in material for fruitful contemplation.

Choice

A work of ground-breaking scholarship that brings together some of today’s most prominent thinkers in continental philosophy, literary theory, and religious studies.”

New York University - Ulrich Baer