Jean-Luc Nancy

Jean-Luc Nancy is one of the leading contemporary thinkers in France today. Through an inventive reappropriation of the major figures in the continental tradition, Nancy has developed an original ontology that impacts the way we think about religion, politics, community, embodiment, and art. Drawing from a wide range of his writing, Marie-Eve Morin provides the first comprehensive and systematic account of Nancys thinking, all the way up to his most recent work on the deconstruction of Christianity. Without losing sight of the heterogeneity of Nancys work, Morin presents a concise articulation of the organizing concepts, which structure Nancys body of work. The guiding thread is that of an essential rift at the heart of any self by which this self is exposed and relates to itself and other selves. Nancys ontology undercuts dichotomies between individual and community, interior and exterior, matter and spirit, thing and thought, not in the name of mere deconstruction, but in seeking to open a thinking of the limit or the edge as the locus of sense. While Nancys work has often been presented in relation to Heidegger or Derrida, Morin demonstrates the originality of Nancys work and argues that, despite the variety of its preoccupations and topics, it possesses its own rigorous internal logic. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of philosophy and related fields who seek a systematic and critical understanding of one of the most original contemporary thinkers.