You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
An original and revolutionary interpretation of the Jews’ destiny in modern politics.
Examines the image of "the Jew" in Sartre's work to rethink not only his oeuvre but also the role of the intellectual in France and the politics and ethics of existentialism. This book explores how French identity is defined through the abstraction and allegorization of "the Jew".
The Jews of Modern France: Images and Identities synthesizes much of the original research on modern French Jewish history published over the last decade. Themes include Jewish self-representation and discursive frameworks, cultural continuity and rupture from the eve of emancipation to the contemporary period, and the impact of France's role as a colonial power. This volume also explores the overlapping boundaries between the very categories of "Jewish" and "French." As a whole, this volume focuses on the shifting boundaries between inner-directed and outer-directed Jewish concerns, behaviors, and attitudes in France over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Contributors highlight the fluidity of French Jewish identity, demonstrating that there is no fine line between communal insider and outsider or between an internal and external Jewish concern.
"I am not a particularly Jewish thinker," said Emmanuel Levinas, "I am just a thinker." This book argues against the idea, affirmed by Levinas himself, that Totality and Infinity and Otherwise Than Being separate philosophy from Judaism. By reading Levinas's philosophical works through the prism of Judaic texts and ideas, Michael Fagenblat argues that what Levinas called "ethics" is as much a hermeneutical product wrought from the Judaic heritage as a series of phenomenological observations. Decoding the Levinas's philosophy of Judaism within a Heideggerian and Pauline framework, Fagenblat uses biblical, rabbinic, and Maimonidean texts to provide sustained interpretations of the philosopher's work. Ultimately he calls for a reconsideration of the relation between tradition and philosophy, and of the meaning of faith after the death of epistemology.
It has become a commonplace to regard nature and politics as the privileged sphere of Greet philosophy and to consider the thinking of Israel as exclusively attuned to the word of God. Yet an unbiased reading of the text of the Torah reveals a coherent biblical approach to the political. In Philosophy of the Law, Shmuel Trigano outlines the political theory of the Bible through a philosophical inquiry into the biblical text. Trigano claims that, far from advocating a theocracy, with all power in the hands of the Divine, biblical politics is based on human freedom. The Covenant in the Hebrew Bible may not be a "social contract," but the politics to which it leads can illuminate our thinking on the social contract model, which dominates the modern understanding of politics. Book jacket.
Dissecting how facile accusations of “anti-Semitism” are used to stifle dissent Since the inception of the “War on Terror,” Israel has become increasingly important to Western imperial strategy and ever more aggressive in its policies towards the Palestinians. A key ideological weapon in this development is the cynical and unjustified accusation of “anti-Semitism” to silence protest and dissent. For historical reasons, this tactic has been deployed most forcefully in France, and in the first of the two essays in this book French writers Alain Badiou and Eric Hazan demolish the “anti-Semitism is everywhere” claim used to bludgeon critics of the Israeli state and those who stand in solidarity with the banlieue youth. In “The Philo-Semitic Reaction,” Ivan Segré undertakes a meticulous deconstruction of a rampant reactionary trend that identifies Jewish interests with the “democratic” West. Segré’s aim is to uphold a universalist position and to defend Jewish tradition from Zionist ideological distortion.
"[A leading French Christian writer,] Guillebaud leads the search for the Greek, Jewish and Christian roots of our fundamental Western values. . . an erudite and frank analysis of the perverse trends that undermine morality today and calls for a revolutio.
This volume principally deals with perceptions on Jews dating from the beginnings of their emancipation to the Dreyfus Affair. The title in French, and the original title of the colloquium in Hebrew, ‘Enlightened Antisemitism’ not only reflects the overall anti-religious (anti-Christian and, hence, by necessity, anti-Jewish) sentiments of an Enlightenment figure such as Voltaire, but also refers to those who justified either their philosemitism or antisemitism with erudition: Johann David Michaelis, Antoine Guénée, Charles Maurras, etc. With France as its focal point, the volume also contains essays that treat various perceptions of Jews during the same period in England, Germany, and Italy. Interdisciplinary in nature, this collection of essays treats the Jewish question from historical, literary, and sociological angles.
Based on a connected, relational and multidisciplinary approach (history, ethnography, political science, and theology), Mission and Preaching tackles the notion of mission through the analysis of preaching activities and religious dynamics across Christianity, Islam and Judaism, in the Middle East and North Africa, from the late 19th century until today. The 13 chapters reveal points of contact, exchange, and circulation, considering the MENA region as a central observatory. The volume offers a new chronology of the missionary phenomenon and calls for further cross-cutting approaches to decompartmentalise it, arguing that these approaches constitute useful entry points to shed new light on religious dynamics and social transformations in the MENA region. Contributors Necati Alkan, Federico Alpi, Gabrielle Angey, Armand Aupiais, Katia Boissevain, Naima Bouras, Philippe Bourmaud, Gaetan du Roy, Séverine Gabry-Thienpont, Maria-Chiara Giorda, Bernard Heyberger, Emir Mahieddin, Michael Marten, Norig Neveu, Maria Chiara Rioli, Karène Sanchez Summerer, Heather Sharkey, Ester Sigillò, Sébastien Tank Storper, Emanuela Trevisan Semi, Annalaura Turiano and Vincent Vilmain.