Shakespeare, Abraham, and the "Abrahamic"

FAIN: FT-53173-05

Kenneth Samuel Jackson
Wayne State University (Detroit, MI 48201-1347)

I am completing a book length study that seeks to use Jacques Derrida's recent philosophical work on Abraham and the "Abrahamic" to illuminate Shakespeare's own religious fascination with the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. This interdisciplinary study seeks to use Derrida's work to reinvigorate the tired question of Shakespeare's religion in history while bringing Shakespeare to the current, heated philosophical discussion regarding the "turn to religion" and "ethics" in contemporary thought where Derrida's reading of Abraham already occupies center stage.