The Trace of God ─ Derrida and Religion

The question of religion was a major preoccupation for Jacques Derrida especially during the last years of his life. His writings on this theme have continued to inspire and provoke, and they have played a crucial role in the transformation of scholarly debate across the globe. The Trace of God: Derrida and Religion provides a compact introduction to this debate, bringing together contributions by some of the best-known voices in the field, as well as work by younger scholars. It considers Derrida's fraught relationship to Judaism and his Jewish identity; it broaches the question of Derrida's relation to the Western Christian tradition; and it examines both the points of contact and the silences in Derrida's treatment of Islam. The volume concludes with a debate between John Caputo and Martin Hagglund about the meaning of Derrida's use of religious themes and concepts, and poses the question of whether deconstruction can be valuable resource for religious philosophy or whether it is radically atheistic. The discussion gets to the heart of controversies about deconstruction its ethical implications and its political ambitions. It shows how religious ideas were both adopted and re-worked by Derrida in ways that had a profound impact on both his own intellectual development and on the history of philosophy in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Treating Derrida's thought from his earliest engagement with religious philosophy to the writings of his last years The Trace of God will be an indispensable volume for anyone interested in the intersection between modern philosophy and religion.

Edward Baring is Assistant Professor of Modern European Intellectual and Cultural History at Drew University. He is the author of The Young Derrida (Cambridge, 2011).

Peter E. Gordon is Amabel B. James Professor of History at Harvard University. Among his most recent books are: Continental Divide: Heidegger, Cassirer, Davos (2010) and Adorno and Existence (forthcoming).