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Derrida's writings on the question of religion have played a crucial role in the transformation of scholarly debate across the globe. The Trace of God provides a compact introduction to this debate. It considers Derrida's fraught relationship to Judaism and his Jewish identity, broaches the question of Derrida's relation to the Western Christian tradition, and examines both the points of contact and the silences in Derrida's treatment of Islam.
List of contents
Introduction "Et Iterum de Deo": Jacques Derrida and the Tradition of Divine Names Hent de Vries N ot Yet Marrano: Levinas, Derrida, and the Ontology of Being Jewish Ethan Kleinberg Poetics of the Broken Tablet Sarah Hammerschlag Theism and Atheism at Play: Jacques Derrida and Christian Heideggerianism Edward Baring Called to Bear Witness: Derrida, Muslims, and Islam Anne Norton H abermas, Derrida, and the Question of Religion Peter E. Gordon A braham, the Settling Foreigner Joseph Cohen and Raphael Zagury-Orly Unprotected Religion: Radical Theology, Radical Atheism, and the Return of Anti-Religion John D. Caputo The Autoimmunity of Religion Martin Hagglund Derrida and Messianic Atheism Richard Kearney Notes List of Contributors Index
About the author
Edward Baring (Author) Edward Baring is Assistant Professor in Modern Europe an Intellectual and Cultural History at Drew University. He is the author of The Young Derrida and French Philosophy, 1945- 1968 (Cambridge University Press, 2011), which won the Morris D. Forkosch Prize from the Journal of the History of Ideas for Best Book in Intellectual History. He has written articles on Derrida and Sartre, which have appeared in Critical Inquiry, Modern Intellectual History, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a Europe- wide history of phenomenology in the period before 1950.
Peter E. Gordon (Author) Peter E. Gordon is Amabel B. James Professor of History and Harvard College Professor at Harvard University, where he teaches modern Europe an intellectual history from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century, focusing chiefly on themes in continental philosophy and social thought in Germany and France since the 1920s. His books include: Rosenzweig and Heidegger: Between Judaism and German Philosophy (University of California Press, 2003), which received three separate awards: the Salo W. Baron Prize from the Academy for Jewish Research, the Goldstein- Goren Prize for Best Book in Jewish Philosophy, and the Morris D. Forkosch Prize from the Journal of the History of Ideas for Best Book in Intellectual History. He has coedited several scholarly volumes, including The Modernist Imagination: Essays in Intellectual History and Critical Theory in Honor of Martin Jay (Berghahn, 2008); The Cambridge Companion to Modern Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Weimar Thought: A Contested Legacy (Princeton University Press, 2013). His most recent book was Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos (Harvard University Press, 2010), which received the Jacques Barzun Prize from the American Philosophical Society. Gordon is founder and co- chair of the Harvard Colloquium for Intellectual History.
Summary
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.
