Acts of Religion

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by Jacques Derrida,

Edited by Gil Anidjar

Routledge

Due/Published November 2001, 416 pages, paper

ISBN 0415924014

ģIs there, today," asks Derrida, "another 'question of religion'?" Derrida's writings on religion situate and raise anew questions of tradition, faith, and sacredness and their relation to philosophy and political culture. He has previously testified to his growing up in an Algerian Jewish, French-speaking family, to the complex impact of a certain Christianity on his surroundings and himself, and to his being deeply affected by religious persecution. Acts of Religion brings together for the Derrida's key writings on religion, along with two new essays translated by Gil Anidjar that appear here for the first time in any language. In these texts which link the personal, the political, and the theological, Derrida's reflections on religion span from negative theology to the limits of reason and to hospitality.

Contents

Introduction: "Once More, Once More": Derrida, the Arab, the Jew,"--Gil Anidjar
1 Faith and Knowledge
2 Des Tours de Babel
3 Interpretations at War: Kant, the Jew, the German
4 The Eyes of Language: The Abyss and the Volcano
5 Force of Law
6 Taking a Stand for Algeria
7 A Silkworm of One's Own (Points of View Stitched on the Other Veil)
8 HostipitalityThese eight texts are organized around the secret holding of links between the personal, the political, and the theological.