The Politics of Exodus: Soren Kierkegaard's Ethics of Responsibility

In The Politics of Exodus, Mark Dooley offers a lively interpretation of Kierkegaard as a precursor of the ethical and political insights of Jacques Derrida. While many connections have been forged in recent years between these two quintessentially Continental figures, Dooley's book argues that these affiliations run much deeper than any previous commentators have suggested. Indeed, his most controversial claim is that Kierkegaard is anything but a proponent of asocial individualism, but is one whose writings bear witness to the notion of an open quasi-community which has driven much of Derrida's work over the past decade. In vigorously challenging conventional wisdom surrounding the place of Kierkegaard in contemporary thought and political theory, Dooley shows how powerfully postmodern and politically charged the latter's specifically 'religious' ideas are. As such, Kierkegaard ought to be read as someone who anticipated Derrida's claim that genuine responsibility in the political sphere depends upon a phophetic call for justice on behalf of the least among us. will appeal to anyone interested in the intersection of religion and postmodernism, as well as to those with interests in ethics and politics from a Continental perspective. It will undoubtedly change the way we read Kierkegaard in the new millennium.

Author: Mark Dooley
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Published: 07/01/2001
Pages: 285
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.92lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.65d
ISBN: 9780823221257

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2001 pg. 5

About the Author

Mark Dooley is Newman Scholar in Theology at the University College Dublin.