Saying Peace , livre ebook

SAYING PEACE
SUNY series in Theology and Continental Thought

Douglas L. Donkel, editor
SAYING PEACE

Levinas | Eurocentrism | Solidarity
JACK MARSH
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2021 State University of New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Name: Marsh, Jack, author.
Title: Saying peace : Levinas | Eurocentrism | Solidarity / Jack Marsh, author.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2021] | Series: SUNY series in Theology and Continental Thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: ISBN 9781438482651 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438482668 (ebook)
Further information is available at the Library of Congress.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of Jack E. Marsh Sr., an eternal friend to Israel
For Denise Miller McPherson, in Infinite gratitude
For Jenny Franco-Marsh, in Infinite promise
רוד ףלאל הוצ רבד ותירב םלועל רכז
—Psalm 105:8
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Key to Abbreviations of Works by Levinas
Introduction Chapter 1 Empty Hands: The Tragic Irony of Totality and Infinity Chapter 2 Of Form and Face in Totality and Infinity Chapter 3 “Flipping the Deck,” On Totality and Infinity ’s Transcendental/Empirical Puzzle Chapter 4 Ontology and Ethics in Otherwise than Being Chapter 5 Levinas, Eurocentrism, Justice Chapter 6 Levinas: A Life Chapter 7 Levinas Today Chapter 8 Conclusions and Beginnings
Notes
Bibliography
Name Index
Acknowledgments
A small group of persons has, in a quite singular sense, made this work possible. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my first philosophical mentor, Laura Duhan Kaplan. She identified and nurtured my intellectual potential and introduced me to phenomenology. Beyond her titanic influence on my philosophical trajectory, she was also a big sister, a rabbi, and a pastoral-philosophical guide at a time of great personal upheaval. Thanks, Laura. I owe an infinite debt to Richard A. Cohen. His kindness, friendship, generosity, and intellectual vivacity over the years were as decisive in my journey with Levinas as the power of Levinas’s texts. Whatever force the critical turn I perform herein has, it is rooted in my having sought to live and think Levinas’s truth radically. Without Richard A. Cohen, I might not have taken this journey. Thank you, Richard. I’d especially like to thank my advisor, Randy Friedman. His superlative patience, collegial warmth, and critical eye not only made this book better, but also wrought a decisive change in my style. Thanks, Randy.
Three individuals remain whose formative influence is pervasive herein: my father, Jack Marsh, who taught me to love with all my heart; my pastor, John Groblewski, who taught me to love with all my mind; and my mentor, Craig Osborne, who taught me to love with all my strength.
Near and far, so many other teachers, colleagues, friends, and cohorts mark this project professionally or personally, and often both at once. Of teachers, I express my deepest gratitude to Randy Friedman, Max Pensky, Bat-Ami Bar On, Anna Gotlib, and Lisa Tessman; David Rasmussen, Richard Kearney, David Hollenbach, John Sallis, and Axel Honneth; Laura Duhan Kaplan, Richard A. Cohen, William Gay, Reginald Raymer, Kari Coleman, Marvin Croy, Steven Fishman, Michael Eldridge, and Selman Halabi. Of senior colleagues, I’m deeply grateful to Michael Morgan for serving on my committee, to Kevin Houser, James McLachlan, John Drabinski, Richard Kearney, and Roger Burggraeve for their generosity in corresponding with me, and to Judith Wolfe, Bruce Ellis Benson, and N. T. Wright for their advice and support. I must single out Steven Crowell, Martin Kavka, and J. Aaron Simmons for special thanks. They went above and beyond the call of duty in reading, commenting on, and discussing my work. This book would not be what it is without them. Thanks also to my editors, anonymous reviewers, and technical workers at SUNY Press for their patience, good will, and professionalism. And to the many other colleagues and cohorts who so graciously participated in educating me over the years: thank you very much.
I thank Gareth Mathews-John for his generosity and keen eye in proofreading this text. Of friends, I express my deepest gratitude to Marlisa Moschella, Regan Rule, Alejandro Arango, Jess Kyle, Colin Brown, Matthew Klauber, Shoni Rancher, Jessie Payson, Sean Johnston, and Aaron Bell; Rowan Tepper, Yale Specht, Jason Phillips, Travis Holloway, Joshua Mousie, and Erin Tarver; Christopher Raymond Stapor, Robert Littlejohn, Michael Grady, Beth Blalock, Amanda Connolly, Greg Canning, Jason Matherly, Samuel Pinero, Caleb Stroup, Latoya Gardner, and Chris Vernarsky. Of cohorts, I thank Joice Bucceray, Audrey Morgan-Donnell, Nicholas Westgate, Christian Westgate, Victor Dodson, Waheed Abdulrahman, Mohammed Olaiq, Kimberly Al-Suffi, Hala Al-Najjar, Nicholas Scull, Moamoa Wu, Spencer Dunn, Amanda Young, Brian and Ruthie Gomez, Ron Pearson, Zach Adams, everyone at ICB, Leslie and Marco Napoletano, Zach and Megan Quinter, Renee and Bob Keiderling, Renee Draszkiewics, Dan Poppel, Michael and Lori Boll, James Richmond, David Allen, Gareth and Karen Mathews-John, Amanda Abel, Madi Boll, Fran and Cheri Molinari, William Easterday, William Henry, Michael Stauffer, John Moser, Marie and Lowell Hoffman, John and Diane Lexo, Kevin and Lisa Lexo, John and Tassia Schreiner, Hampton Morgan, Trese Strauss, Malcolm Stewart, Brett Young, Samantha Heaney, Jamie Easterday, Michael and Kelly Easterday, Kevin Hebdon, Filipe Johnson, Kathy and Fred Salcedo, Martha and Edgar Hernandez, Deborah Putri, Gina Franco, Jose Ayala Morales, Melissa Franco, Andrea Franco, Phillip and Patience Osborne, Roberto and Carmen Franco, Dan and Lou Ann Smoker, Amy Osborne, Leah Chichester, Kendra Dunstan, and everyone at NC4. Of Daniel Chichester, Michael Dunstan, Matthew Heaney, Robert Hoffman, Timothy Erickson, John Nester, and Will Salcedo, I can only say: truly friends closer than brothers. Thanks, guys.
I would commit an injustice if I failed to recognize the labor and kindness of strangers who have supported my philosophical endeavors. From before I entered university to the words I currently scrawl, my intellectual labor has been largely performed in cafés, diners, and assorted pubs and eateries. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the many servers and bartenders who brought me sustenance, emptied ashtrays, and warmly tolerated my strange presence during literally marathon research sessions in their establishments. I thank the staff and management of Tic Toc Family Restaurant in Easton, PA; Ripper’s Pub, Bethlehem, PA; Bob Evans Farms Restaurant of S. Tryon, Charlotte, NC; Shoney’s of north Charlotte, whose staff—for a one-month period in November 2002—risked inviting me to eat when I could not pay; and to Denny’s of Nashua, NH. I’m especially grateful to both Gertrude Gomez and my brother, Waheed Abdulraham, for respectively providing spaces to work when I first arrived in Kuwait; to the staff and management of the Holiday Inn, Salmiya, especially Salah Bakry at Sakura and Rajesh Padannakandy at L’Aroma Café; the staff and management of Circles Café, Ramada Hotel, Pudong, China, especially Zhang Zi Feng, Wen Long Wang, Luo Dan, and Guo Man Si. I owe an especially big thanks to the staff and management of Big Bamboo, Pudong, for inviting me into the family—and the occasional free whisky!—during a crucial period of writing, especially Li Jiao Jiao, Shen Fang, Ke Hai Feng, Li Song Jian, Su Lei Lei, Wu Li Hui, and Li Zhen Ni. I finally express my deepest gratitude to Airbnb and Myriam Marescq, for her superlative hospitality and charming home. I can imagine a no more enchanting accompaniment to the completion of this manuscript than the songs of the Firth of Forth, in vortal dance with the misty North.
Finally, I thank my family for their enduring love and support, especially Denise and Robert McPherson, Elizabeth and Jason Ackerman, Sarah and Scott McBride, Cody Bower, Deborah Graham, Janet Heller, Logie Heller, Jennifer Knecht, Devon Graham, Martin Graham, Elaine Marsh, Laura Lobo, Blanca Franco, Edgardo Ortiz, Leonardo Ortiz, Levy, Naphty, and Reuby, and the loving circle of rabbits, Francos, Millers, Marshs, and Hellers that have nurtured me on my way. Above all, I thank my partner in this adventure of a lifetime, Jenny Lorena Franco-Marsh. Her sacrificial love, patience, understanding, and support saw this project to completion.
Jack Marsh St. Monans, Fife November 2018
Preface
This book was born of crisis. In my own philosophical coming of age, three terms have come to inexorably matter to me: religion, democracy, and socialism. My first encounter with Levinas’s philosophy was formative precisely because it seemed to provide a critical and constructive framework that empowered me to integrate these concerns, and in such a way that might inform my other disparate interests in art and activism. While quite early on I of course noted points of tension, or moments in Levinas’s work that elicited my dissent, I largely set them aside on the assumption that they were of merely peripheral import. My academic career has largely proceeded as exploring other philosophical perspectives collaboratively with my Levinasian framework in an attempt to construct a relatively holistic and integrative position for justifying my own critical and constructive practices. After a long per