Emmanuel Levinas

Emmanuel Levinas is now widely recognized alongside Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre as one of the most important Continental philosophers of the twentieth century. His abiding concern was the primacy of the ethical relation to the other person and his central thesis was that ethics is first philosophy. His work has had a profound impact on a number of fields outside philosophy--such as theology, Jewish studies, literature and cultural theory, psychotherapy, sociology, political theory, international relations theory and critical legal theory.

Although Jewish scholars have recognized the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas as one of the greatest Talmudic minds of this century, the majority of Jews have remained ignorant of his teachings - now Rabbi Stone makes Levinas accessible to lay readers for the first time.

Contemporary Jewish Theology: A Reader presents the most comprehensive collection to date of Jewish religious writings from the latter half of this century. Featuring selections from both pre- and post-World War II thinkers, this carefully constructed anthology highlights the enormous range of theological viewpoints and methods that have characterized Jewish theological reflection in modern times. An extraordinarily rich compilation, it represents many different perspectives, including those of Orthodox thinkers and feminists, Israelis and Americans, rationalists and mystics, and post-modernists. Extensive introductions place these writings in historical and philosophical context and identify the fundamental continuities and tensions among contemporary Jewish thinkers. Following a general introduction, the volume is organized into four parts. The first section includes representative selections from the major Jewish philosophers of the early twentieth century (Cohen, Rosenzweig, Buber, Kook, Kaplan, and Heschel). The second part includes recent essays on God, creation, revelation, redemption, covenant/chosenness, and law. The third section provides seminal essays on the Holocaust and the modern State of Israel, topics that have held tremendous importance for Jewish thinkers over the past few decades. The book concludes with a symposium on future directions in Jewish theology at the dawn of the twenty-first century, and also provides extensive suggestions for further reading. Contemporary Jewish Theology: A Reader is designed as a companion volume to the editors' earlier book, Contemporary Jewish Ethics and Morality: A Reader (OUP< 1995). An exceptional introduction to contemporary Jewish thinking, it is an essential text for courses in Jewish thought and theology.

John Llewelyn's book is a timely and exemplary study of Levinas's work. Following his philosophical works in roughly chronological order, Llewelyn shows how Levinas's argument - that metaphysics is anarchically ethical - departs from the tradition culminating with Hegel from the thinking of contemporaries like Husserl and Heidegger.He examines in detail the relationship between Nietzsche's scripture after the 'death of God' - so central to post-structuralism and post-modernism - and looks at the significance of the interruption by Levinas's genealogy of ethics of Nietzsche's genealogy of morals. John Llewellyn argues convincingly that in this time of crisis in ethics, Levinas's work provides a valuable alternative way to understand ethics. He asks, how after Auschwitz, can we afford to leave Levinas unread? Written for students of continental philosophy and theology, as well as for readers pursuing more advanced research, this book finally brings the work of Levinas to a wider audience.

Howard Caygill systematically explores for the first time the relationship between Levinas' thought and the political. From Levinas' early writings in the face of National Socialism to controversial political statements on Israeli and French politics, Caygill analyses themes such as the deconstruction of metaphysics, embodiment, the face and alterity.He also examines Levinas' engagement with his contemporaries Heidegger and Bataille, and the implications of his rethinking of the political for an understanding of the Holocaust.

French philosophy since World War II has been preoccupied with the issue of difference. For some thinkers, especially Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Derrida, Emmanuel Levinas, and Gilles Deleuze, this preoccupation has led to a mode of philosophizing that privileges difference as a philosophical category. Reconsidering Difference has a twofold task, the primary one critical and the secondary one reconstructive. The critical task is to show that these various privilegings are philosophical failures. They wind up, for reasons unique to each position, endorsing positions that are either incoherent or implausible. Todd May considers the incoherencies of each position and offers an alternative approach. His reconstructive task, which he calls "contingent holism", takes the phenomena under investigationcommunity, language, ethics, and ontology - and sketches a way of reconceiving them that preserves the motivations of the rejected positions without falling into the problems that beset them.

Wittgenstein and Levinas examines the oft-neglected relationship between the philosophies of two of the most important and notoriously difficult thinkers of the twentieth century. By bringing the work of each philosopher to bear upon the other, Plant navigates between the antagonistic intellectual traditions that they helped to share. The central focus on the book is the complex yet illuminating interplay between a number of ethical-religious themes in both Wittgenstein's mature thinking and Levinas's distinctive account of ethical responsibility.

"Philosopher Levinas, novelist and essayist Blanchot, poet Jabes, all three constitute the rich intellectual soil from which more visible thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault have emerged.... A user-friendly essay on a very difficult subject.... All students of literary theory will want to have this book". -- Jean-Michel Rabate, University of Pennsylvania

"Among the best things written in English on (these writers).... Presents a lucid and intelligent reading of all three authors, centering on their relationships to Jewish themes and concerns. It demonstrates the intimacy and near-complicity that connects them, but also the distance that separates them from one another.... A major work of scholarship". -- Steven Shaviro, University of Washington

In the first critical study to consider together the work of Emmanuel Levinas (Lithuanian Jew, philosopher), Maurice Blanchot (French Catholic, novelist and literary theorist, and Edmond Jabes (Egyptian Jew, poet), Gary D. Mole demonstrates and compares the ways in which these writers have been instrumental in raising those issues of Jewishness that have been so central to contemporary postmodern thought.

The questions of writing and exile, the opposition between ethics and metaphysics, and the central disaster of the Shoah emerge as the dominant themes of each writer, and Mole explores the ways in which they borrow from, respond to, and challenge each other in a rich intellectual dialogue. Specifically, Mole traces their engagement with Jewish tradition and thought, exploring their overlapping considerations of the etranger; of Revelation and the Law through the figure of Moses; and of ethics, dialogue, and silence in the story ofAbra(ha)m. Finally, he looks at the ways each identifies the imperative of responding to the Shoah and its repercussions for philosophical, fictional, and poetic discourse.

Judicious close readings and an accessible style help t

In the last decades of the twentieth century, French poststructuralist 'theory' transformed the humanities; it also met with resistance and today we frequently hear that theory is 'dead'.In this brilliantly argued volume, Colin Davis:*reconsiders key arguments for and against theory, identifying significant misreadings*reassesses the contribution of poststructuralist thought to the critical issues of knowledge, ethics, hope and identity*sheds new light on the work of Jean-François Lyotard, Emmanuel Levinas, Louis Althusser and Julia Kristeva in a stunning series of readings*offers a fresh perspective on recent debates around the death of theory.In closing he argues that theory may change, but it will not go away. After poststructuralism, then, comes the afterlife of poststructuralism.Wonderfully accessible, this is an account of the past and present fortunes of theory, suitable for anyone researching, teaching, or studying in the field. And yet it is much more than this. Colin Davis provides a way forward for the humanities - a way forward in which theory will play a crucial part.

Introduction, by David N. Myers nbsp; The Cultural Significance of the Ghetto in Jewish History, by David B. Ruderman "The Blessing of Assimilation" Reconsidered: An Inquiry into Jewish Cultural Studies, by David N. Myers Redemption and Community: Reflections on Some European Jewish Intellectuals, 1900-1940, by Michael L. Morgan Difficult Liberty: The Basis of Community in Emmanuel Levinas, by William V. Rowe The Puzzling Persistence of Community: The Cases of Airmont and Kiryas Joel, by Nomi M. Stolzenberg Communal Rites: The Public Culture of American Jews, by Arthur Aryeh Goren Toward a History of Scranton Jewry, by Michael Brown nbsp; Contributors Index

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-96) is now widely regarded as a major European moral philosopher profoundly shaped by his Jewish background. A pupil of Husserl and Heidegger, Levinas pioneered new forms of Biblical interpretation. Richard A. Cohen's book expands on Levinas' work to explore broader questions of interpretation in ethical thinking. Levinas' views of philosophy are considered in critical contrast to alternative contemporary approaches, such as those found in modern science, psychology, Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Derrida. Cohen explores a manner of philosophizing that he terms "ethical exegesis."