Love and Forgiveness for a More Just World

Love and Forgiveness for a More Just World

In: Religion, Culture, and Public Life, 24

Edited by: Hent de Vries and Nils Schott

Columbia University Press | 2015

https://doi.org/10.7312/de-v17022

Overview
Contents

About this book

By reorienting our perception of these enduring phenomena, the contributors to this volume inspire new applications for love and forgiveness in an increasingly globalized and no longer quite secular world. By examining how we have used—and misused—these concepts, the authors advance a better understanding of their ability to unite different individuals and emerging groups around a shared engagement for freedom and equality, peace and solidarity.

One can love and not forgive or out of love decide not to forgive. Or one can forgive but not love, or choose to forgive but not love the ones forgiven. Love and forgiveness follow parallel and largely independent paths, a truth we fail to acknowledge when we pressure others to both love and forgive. Individuals in conflict, sparring social and ethnic groups, warring religious communities, and insecure nations often do not need to pursue love and forgiveness to achieve peace of mind and heart. They need to remain attentive to the needs of others, an alertness that prompts either love or forgiveness to respond.

By reorienting our perception of these enduring phenomena, the contributors to this volume inspire new applications for love and forgiveness in an increasingly globalized and no longer quite secular world. With contributions by the renowned French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, the poet Haleh Liza Gafori, and scholars of religion (Leora Batnitzky, Nils F. Schott, Hent de Vries), psychoanalysis (Albert Mason, Orna Ophir), Islamic and political philosophy (Sari Nusseibeh), and the Bible and literature (Regina Schwartz), this anthology reconstructs the historical and conceptual lineage of love and forgiveness and their fraught relationship over time. By examining how we have used—and misused—these concepts, the authors advance a better understanding of their ability to unite different individuals and emerging groups around a shared engagement for freedom and equality, peace and solidarity.

Author information

Hent de Vries is director of the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds the Russ Family Chair in the Humanities and Philosophy. He is also director of the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University. He is the author of Minimal Theologies: Critiques of Secular Reason in Theodor W. Adorno and Emmanuel Levinas; Religion and Violence: Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida; and Philosophy and the Turn to Religion and the editor of Religion Beyond a Concept.

Nils F. Schott is James M. Motley Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. The author of The Conversion of Knowledge: Enlightenment and Religion in Eighteenth-Century Catechisms, he has also translated several works, most recently Vladimir Jankélévitch's Henri Bergson, which he coedited with Alexandre Lefebvre.

Reviews

Sarah Beckwith, Duke University:
This timely and highly stimulating set of essays examines the theological, historical, literary, dramatic, political, and theological resources of love and forgiveness in the world today. The authors find love and forgiveness to be centrally related to questions of justice and recognition, to the alert and attentive desire to see the world and each other aright. I highly recommend this bracing and thought-provoking book.

Willemien Otten, University of Chicago:
Engaging scholars in a debate that is situated on the cutting edge of critical theory and contemporary philosophy, Hent de Vries and Nils F. Schott have succeeded beautifully in shifting perspective toward a more totalizing philosophy in conversation with ethics, religion, theology, and literature.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
Preface and acknowledgments Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	vii
HUMAN ALERT. Concepts and Practices of Love and Forgiveness Hent de Vries and Nils F. Schott Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
1. ORANGE ALERT Haleh Liza Gafori Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	24
2. WHAT LOVE KNOWS Jean-Luc Marion Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	27
3. UNPOWER. An Interview with Hugues Choplin Jean-Luc Marion Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	36
4. REVENGE, FORGIVENESS, AND LOVE Regina M. Schwartz Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	43
5. LOVE AND LAW. Some Th oughts on Judaism and Calvinism Leora Batnitzky Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	72
6. “A MOTHER TO ALL”. Love and the Institution of Community in Augustine Nils F. Schott Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	88
7. LOOKING EVIL IN THE EYE/I. The Interminable Work of Forgiveness Orna Ophir Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	110
8. BEYOND RIGHT AND WRONG. An Exploration of Justice and Forgiveness Albert Mason Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	128
9. REMARKS ON LOVE Jacques Derrida Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	141
10. TO FORGIVE. The Unforgivable and the Imprescriptible Jacques Derrida Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	144
11. THOUGHTS ON LOVE Sari Nusseibeh Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	182
12. THE PASSIONATE UTTERANCE OF LOVE Hent de Vries Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	191
Suggested Reading Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	235
Contributors Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	237
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	241
Backmatter Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	245

Love and Forgiveness for a More Just World

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