Re-treating Religion: Deconstructing Christianity with Jean-Luc Nancy (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) - Hardcover

Devisch, Ignaas; Kate, Laurens Ten; Rooden, Aukje Van

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0823234649 ISBN 13: 9780823234646

Publisher: Fordham University Press, 2012

Synopsis

One of the most complicated and ambiguous tendencies in contemporary western societies is the phenomenon referred to as the "turn to religion." In philosophy, one of the most original thinkers critically questioning this "turn" is Jean-Luc Nancy. Re-treating Religion is the first volume to analyze his long-term project "The Deconstruction of Christianity," especially his major statement of it in Dis-Enclosure. Nancy conceives monotheistic religion and secularization not as opposite worldviews that succeed each other in time but rather as springing from the same history. This history consists in a paradoxical tendency to contest one's own foundations-whether God, truth, origin, humanity, or rationality-as well as to found itself on the void of this contestation. Nancy calls this unique combination of self-contestation and self-foundation the "self-deconstruction" of the Western world. The book includes discussion with Nancy himself, who contributes a substantial "Preamble" and a concluding dialogue with the volume editors. The contributions follow Nancy in tracing the complexities of Western culture back to the persistent legacy of monotheism, in order to illuminate the tensions and uncertainties we face in the twenty-first century.

About this title

Review

Features some of Nancy's clearest, most succinct formulations of his approach to the question of Christianity. A comprehensive and splendidly timely account of a debate of immense importance.----Martin Crowley "Queens' College "

About the Author

Alena Alexandrova is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. Ignaas Devisch is Professor in Social Philosophy, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine at University College Arteveldehogeschool and Ghent University, Belgium. Laurens ten Kate holds degrees in theology and philosophy. His dissertation on Bataille's modern theory of the "sacred" (1994) was presented to the Catholic Theological University, Utrecht, where he taught philosophy of culture for several years. He publishes in the fields of Christian history and theology, art and literary theory, philosophy of culture, and religious studies. In 2001 he published Flight of the Gods: Philosophical Perspectives on Negative Theology in collaboration with Ilse N. Bulhof. Recently, he published as coordinating editor Re-treating Religion: Deconstructing Christianity with Jean-Luc Nancy (2012). Ten Kate was acquiring editor of philosophy at Boom Publishers, Amsterdam, and senior researcher at the Faculty of Theology of the Free University of Amsterdam. He is currently an associate professor in the philosophy of religion and theology at the University of Humanities, Utrecht. He also teaches at the International School of Philosophy in Leusden, the Netherlands. Aukje van Rooden is a research associate at the University of Utrecht. Jean-Luc Nancy is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Universite Marc Bloch, Strasbourg. His wide-ranging thought is developed in many books, including Expectation: Philosophy, Literature; The Possibility of a World; The Banality of Heidegger; The Disavowed Community; and, with Adele Van Reeth, Coming (all Fordham).

Edition details

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0823234649
• ISBN 13: 9780823234646
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 404
• Editor: Alexandrova Alena