Books in the Perspectives in Continental Philosophy series

This book investigates the form of spirituality given shape in the intersection of poetics and theological-philosophical reflection, concerned especially with matters of representation and failure.

Benjamin's relationship to theological matters has been less observed than it should. Walter Benjamin and Theology brings together some of the world's most renowned experts to reassess the stake theology has in Benjamin's writings, aiming for nothing less than the beginning of a new phase in Anglophone Benjamin scholarship.

This book brings together five encounters. They include the date or signature and its singularity; the notion of the trace; structures of futurity and the "to come"; language and questions of translation; such speech acts as testimony and promising; the possibility of the impossible; and the poem as addressed and destined beyond knowledge.

Postmodern Apologetics provides an introduction to contemporary French thinkers who argue for the coherence and viability of Christian faith and religious experience with phenomenological and hermeneutical tools. It treats both French philosophers and appropriations of their thought in the North American context.

A selection of essays by notable phenomenologists and biblical scholars on scriptural texts and interpretive methodology.

The book offers the first systematic comparative treatment of the thoughts of Nietzsche and Merleau-Ponty. Through an account of each philosopher's thought as organized around their ambiguous relationship with the concept of truth, the book offers an elucidation of the concept of ambiguity and its dependence on the absolute as one of the determining features of modern thinking.

Explores the relation between religion, philosophy and literature.

The Trace of God treats Derrida's discussion and use of religious ideas. Examining his writings both early and late, it provides accounts of his engagement with the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, offering a variety of perspectives on the meaning of his work and its implications today.

How does one most profitably read the Bible? The answer, according to Chretien, must include allowing the Bible to read us. With the help of the great patristic writings as well as Protestant theologians and using his own poet's sensibility, he creatively explores such scriptural doctrines as joy, hope, and witness/testimony.

Nietzsche advocates the affirmation of earthly life as a way to counteract nihilism and asceticism. This volume takes stock of the complexities and wide-ranging perspectives that Nietzsche brings to bear on the problem of life's becoming on earth by engaging various interpretative paradigms reaching from existentialist to Darwinist readings of Nietzsche.

Discusses the moral and metaphysical philosophy of Vladimir Jankelevitch, his reflections on the conditions for forgiveness, especially in light of the Shoah, and the temporality of forgiveness in its relation to creation, history, and memory.

Responding to Loss: Heideggerian Reflections on Literature, Architecture, and Film provides detailed explications of The Crossing by Cormack McCarthy, the Jewish Museum Berlin by Daniel Libeskind, and Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire. The interpretations-thinking via Heidegger, Marion, Arendt, and Levinas-call for an adequate response to loss, violence, witnessing.

Negative Ecstasies discusses the contribution and significance of the work of Georges Bataille to the contemporary study of religion and theology, collecting essays that examine specific case studies and make connections to other significant scholars in the field.

This study of the contemporary French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas compares his thought with that of his contemporaries, most notably Jacques Derrida and Husserl. Included is a discussion of Levinas's relation to Judaism, such as his use of literature from the Torah and other religious writings.

An account of relations between deconstruction and theology. The author argues that deconstruction does not have an antitheological agenda, but instead, seeks to question the metaphysics of any theology. Emphasis is placed on mystical theology as nonmetaphysical theology.

What does it mean to give a "gift?" In this timely collection, distinguished anthropologists-Maurice Godelier, George Marcus, Stephen Tyler-and philosophers-Mark C. Taylor, John D. Caputo, Jean-Joseph Goux and Adriaan Peperzak, explore an enigma that has disturbed contemporary philosophers from Marcel Mauss to Jacques Derrida.

Features the essays that reconceive the place of religion for critical thought following the 'turn to religion' in Continental philosophy, framing issues for exploration, and including questions of justice, anxiety, and evil; the sublime, and of the soul haunting genetics; and, how reason may be reshaped.

Considers the many dimensions of prayer: how prayer relates us to the divine; prayer's ability to reveal what is essential about our humanity; the power of prayer to transform human desire and action; and the relation of prayer to cognition. It takes up the meaning of prayer from within a phenomenological point of view.

How are we to interpret Jacques Derrida's writings, after so much commentary has been devoted to his thought and his own astonishing productivity has come to an end? The author presents his earlier contextualizing of Derrida's work in relation to Husserl by arguing that we must begin from a frame different from that provided by Derrida himself.

Written in the wake of Jacques Derrida's death in 2004, this title attempts both to do justice to the memory of Derrida and to demonstrate the significance of his work for contemporary philosophy and literary theory. It presents an analysis of Derrida's attachment to the French language, to Europe, and to European secular thought.

What does such a way of life mean? How are we to understand the meaning of ethicality? What are the obstacles to ethical living? And should we assume that an ethical life is a better life? This book brings the insights of Continental philosophy to bear on some of the challenging difficulties of ethical life.

Negative Ecstasies discusses the contribution and significance of the work of Georges Bataille to the contemporary study of religion and theology, collecting essays that examine specific case studies and make connections to other significant scholars in the field.

Jacob Taubes radically changed our conceptions of Paul the apostle. Loland shows how we can approach Paul's letters with the distinctive perspective of this Jewish rabbi steeped in continental philosophy. The book emphasizes Paul's Jewishness as well as the political explosiveness of the apostle's revolutionary doctrine of the cross, which the author terms Pauline Ugliness.

Against traditional approaches that view German Idealism as a secularizing movement, this volume revisits it as the first fundamentally philosophical articulation of the political-theological problematic in the aftermath of the Enlightenment and the advent of secularity.

Against traditional approaches that view German Idealism as a secularizing movement, this volume revisits it as the first fundamentally philosophical articulation of the political-theological problematic in the aftermath of the Enlightenment and the advent of secularity.