Questioning Judaism: Interviews by Elisabeth Weber

by Elisabeth Weber, Rachel Bowlby (Translator)

Overview

In the wake of the Dreyfus affair and the Shoah, many French intellectuals have maintained rich and complex relationships with Judaism, beyond as well as within the religious dimension. Whether they approach it via history, philosophy, biblical studies or sociology, or following a personal itinerary, many contemporary intellectuals are deeply involved in Jewish culture.

Interviewed at length by Elisabeth Weber, this volume presents the meditations of seven well-known French thinkers on the special relations of their own intellectual pursuit to Judaism. As memory or as the place of “circumfession” (in Jacques Derrida's words), as the symbol of the “unrepresentable” (Jean-François Lyotard) or as the witness, according to Emmanuel Levinas, to a “biblical humanity,” Judaism is continually engaged in renewing and displacing contemporary thought.

The volume includes interviews with: Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Jacques Derrida, Rita Thalmann, Emmanuel Levinas, Léon Poliakov, Jean-François Lyotard, and Luc Rosenzweig.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780804742207
Publisher:	Stanford University Press
Publication date:	07/23/2004
Series:	Cultural Memory in the Present
Edition description:	1
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Elisabeth Weber is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the editor of Jacques Derrida, Points . . . : Interviews 1974-1994 (Stanford, 1995).

Table of Contents

	Contributors	ix
	Translator's Note	xi
	Introduction: The Youngest Children of the Republic	1
1.	Against the Murderers of Memory	26
2.	A Testimony Given ...	39
3.	Women of Resistance	59
4.	Humanity Is Biblical	77
5.	Humanity, Nationality, Bestiality	87
6.	Before the Law, After the Law	104
7.	Born in 1943	122
	Notes	137

Editorial Reviews

"...this is a remarkable interview, conducted by one of Derrida's most conscientious and demanding readers."

The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

"These interviews will challenge readers to examine their Jewish identity while taking a fresh look at history."—AJL Newsletter

"...this is a remarkable interview, conducted by one of Derrida's most conscientious and demanding readers."—The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory

From the Publisher

"These interviews will challenge readers to examine their Jewish identity while taking a fresh look at history."

AJL Newsletter