Emmanuel Levinas: From the Interwar to the Cold War

FAIN: FT-51603-03

Samuel Moyn
Columbia University (New York, NY 10027-7922)

Emmanuel Levinas (1905-95) is now recognized as one of the most significant Continental philosophers of the twentieth century. However, the origins of his thought have never been seriously examined in the textual and contextual detail their study demands. The summer project for which funding is sought is the composition of a chapter in a book-length history of the genesis of Levinas’s thought. The chapter covers Levinas’s trajectory between the late interwar period and the postwar period (roughly 1938-1958). Aside from explaining the historical origins of an important philosophy, the chapter will illuminate significant issues about modern Jewish identity and the connection between morality and politics, topics which are debated to this day.