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By interpreting both the account of Creation found in Genesis 3 and the related exegetical interpretations of the text, this article aims to focus on the figure of the serpent, which has always been laden with a negative, even ruthless, symbolic meaning traditionally approached as almost entirely irrevocable. Taking 'original nakedness' as the key perspective, this brief study seeks to bring out and highlight the moment or condition preceding the curse, in which the serpent is revealed to be at once extremely similar to and radically different from humans, an animal as well but profoundly different from other animals: ill-placed. Sharing its solitude and alienation in this slippery and uncomfortable boundary position, participating in its desire, its temptation to encounter the other and to change places, to blur the boundaries of creation, this article listens to the serpent's call to another story and follows it/him in an attempt to reimagine and rewrite another genesis, this time from its/his point of view, to displace and mix-up the established order and to find, in the end, a new dignity for itself/himself and for other animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Joseph Kosuth, one of Concept Art's influential practitioners, credited Marcel Duchamp in an important 1969 essay, "Art After Philosophy", with instigating the shift from the visual to the conceptual by means of indifference and dematerialization. Duchamp's approach to art was not limited, however, to the realm of artistic intention but also included the (re)contextualization provoked by his readymades. This (re)contextualization elucidated the embodied, dialogical encounters of the artist-artwork-audience, what I identify as an "aesthetics of difference". This designation sets forth a framework of meaning that draws upon a burgeoning subset of early-twentieth-century personalist philosophy called dialogical personalism in order to offer a more suitable plausibility structure than the usual explanations of Duchamp and his approach to art, which typically revolve around nihilism, absurdity, and a solipsistic understanding of freedom. In doing so, Duchamp's artistic approach retains not only a more viable ontology for continuing to question the nature of art, but also has important epistemological and ethical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trans-phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas has helped expose the totalising dynamic that has marked much of Western philosophy. The quest for a unity of knowledge in the truth assimilates any hint of otherness into more of the same. Plurality becomes a source of violence and dissent regarded as decay. Levinasian perspectives, however, and recent developments in magisterial teaching in the Roman Catholic Church point to a more ethical approach that can begin to escape the dialectic binary of the same and the other and so help avoid static conceptions of truth and unity. Religious truth and ecclesial unity, in other words, are explored in this paper for their ethical–dialogical quality. Indeed, the asymmetrical priority of dissent within this dialogical approach offers positive soteriological significance for the church rather than seeing dissent as a threat. Such an approach can enable the church to take plurality and diversity seriously in the current context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion is one of the central themes of the young Hegel. This is where intellectual problems arise, the treatment of which led him to discover his speculative way of thinking. Starting in the footsteps of Kant's ethicotheology, Hegel quickly realized that religion cannot be a vehicle for introducing autonomous morality. Under titles such as love and life, he then develops a kind of Spinozist thinking of unification of everything, including the finite and the infinite. However, it turns out that the quasi-divine performance of unity cannot be thought of as such, since thinking is bound to discursive forms of reflection that are always mediated through differences. As soon as the religious performance of unity is to be thought of, it slips away from the form of reflection. This problem can be solved if, on the one hand, the differential form of thinking is brought into a self-application and, on the other hand, difference itself is put into the performance of unity, even if it is named as absolute. The former becomes the nucleus of the figure of negation characteristic for Hegel's speculative thinking; the latter leads to an understanding of the absolute as spirit, which, according to its self-being, which encompasses difference, is always for the other and is known by the other. Religion brings this to mind in the form of imagination, according to Hegel's later concept of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the narrative contribution of visual images of nonhuman animals, particularly their contribution to the biblical themes of desire and relation, by considering the exemplum of the Naḥash, commonly known as a serpent or snake. The Biblical textual depiction of this creature indicates that it is not different in kind from humans but only different by degree. Later artists expand upon these possibilities in creative and provocative ways. By using a visual critical approach, the paper reviews the Garden of Eden story, and then examines an array of images that expand and challenge the text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to correct an historical error: the ancient claim, grounded in a flawed understanding of the reproductive act, that woman is inferior to man. I will show that the lineage of this can be traced as far back as the pre-Socratic philosophers, finally finding its earliest concrete expression in a claim most have either dismissed, forgotten, or never heard: Aristotle’s argument that women are merely “malformed males” and are therefore “inferior to man.” The theory found support in the first century with a historical interpretation of Genesis 2:18-23, traceable in particular to the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, Philo (BC 13-AD 54). Philo’s own theory about woman echoed that of Aristotle’s; his legacy includes the vague feeling that Scripture itself declares that, since woman is created after man, she is necessarily subservient to him. She becomes, as it were, the “second sex.” I dispute both these accounts and show that they can be defeated on their own terms. Through the lens of Hebraic and Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology, and building on the insights of St. John Paul II, I provide a robust, philosophically and theologically grounded account of man and woman from within the Catholic exegetical tradition.

Guided by the hopeful possibilities of birth, breath and beginning that Hannah Arendt and Luce Irigaray variously articulate, this paper examines the lullaby as an expressive form that emerges (in a variety of contexts as distinct as medieval Christendom and contemporary art) as narrative between natality and mortality. With narrative understood as praxis according to Arendt’s schema, and articulated in what Irigaray might designate as an interval between two different sexuate subjects, the lullaby (and the voice that sings it) is found to be a telling of what it is to be human, and a hopeful reminder of our capacity both for self-affection and -preservation, and for meeting and nurturing others in their difference.

This article considers the political and philosophical genealogies of the category “Israeli Jew” in terms of Israeli novelist Yoram Kaniuk’s Adam Resurrected, which I situate within the wider context of contemporary Israel. Israel is defined by some as a colonial and occupying state and by others as a liberal democracy founded on narratives of modern nationalism, but also on the Abrahamic narrative of 2000 years of Jewish exile. The category “Israeli Jew” thus brings together the figure of the diasporic Jew as not fully sovereign with Zionism’s figure of the “New Jew,” based on European modernity’s ideal of a sovereign, autonomous, citizen subject. I show how, by bringing these figures together, rather than replacing one with the other, the category “Israeli Jew” brings together the specificity of the different genealogies that these terms carry. In this regard, I argue, Israel can be understood as an instantiation of the historical legacy of the philosophical binary between the Athenian and the Hebraic, which, as Miriam Leonard, Jacques Derrida, and others have pointed out, informs the long durée of Western political philosophy.

Since the beginning of his mandate, Pope Francis has used the concept of periphery as a metaphor of social marginality. However, the notion of periphery also seems to target the asymmetries generated by the liberal version of globalization. Pope Francis’ narrative has to be read in the broader context of the relation between religions and globalization. That interaction is usually conceptualized in terms of religions capitalizing on global “vectors”, such as new information and communication technologies, processes of political and institutional integration, shared cultural patterns, transnational phenomena and organizations. An alternative way to analyze the role of religions consists in considering them as agencies defending the perspective of a universal community, putting into question the national political boundaries and contesting the existing global order. Understood in those terms, the concept of periphery reveals to be a powerful rhetoric device, insofar as it suggests that it is possible to get a wider perspective of the current state of the world looking form the edge rather than from the center.

Soma Morgenstern's three-part novel Sparks in the Abyss, written between 1930 and 1943, exudes a spirit of serenity and optimism at the same time that its narrative is structured by repeated scenes of conflict and violence. This paper seeks to account for the place of discord in the trilogy. Morgenstern uses the interwar Galician homeland as a site to articulate the possibility of traditional Jewish life in modern Europe. By inhabiting two homes--East and West, Galicia and Vienna, secularism and piety--Jews will be able to negotiate the inevitable discord and occasional brutality that they face in the world. The lessons learned by aWestern secular Jew in pluralist Galicia create hope for the negotiation of difference, if not for the complete overcoming of violence, on the eve of World War II. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates an analysis on the commonalities and ordinariness of Jewish and Muslim experiences vis-à-vis a critique on nationalism and belonging in the literature of Edeet Ravel and Mohsin Hamid, in addition to other writers. These literary writers are highlighted by an exploration of Eran Riklis’ film A Borrowed Identity amidst the critical perspectives of Ari Shavit, Leila Ahmed, Edward W. Said, and Justin Trudeau. The focus on Israel/Palestine is complemented by addressing sustained issues of nationalism and belonging in America that reverberate on global degrees of awareness as to how religious degrees of belonging can be reconsidered in light of understanding instantiations of cultural mise-en-scène from nuanced degrees of awareness. In turn, a multifaceted unsettling of identity, religion, and culture is posited that vividly collapses distinctions between East/West in revealing highly different ways of contemplating perceptions of Jews and Muslims in the world today.

Since the beginning of his mandate, Pope Francis has used the concept of periphery as a metaphor of social marginality. However, the notion of periphery also seems to target the asymmetries generated by the liberal version of globalization. Pope Francis' narrative has to be read in the broader context of the relation between religions and globalization. That interaction is usually conceptualized in terms of religions capitalizing on global "vectors", such as new information and communication technologies, processes of political and institutional integration, shared cultural patterns, transnational phenomena and organizations. An alternative way to analyze the role of religions consists in considering them as agencies defending the perspective of a universal community, putting into question the national political boundaries and contesting the existing global order. Understood in those terms, the concept of periphery reveals to be a powerful rhetoric device, insofar as it suggests that it is possible to get a wider perspective of the current state of the world looking form the edge rather than from the center. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to correct an historical error: the ancient claim, grounded in a flawed understanding of the reproductive act, that woman is inferior to man. I will show that the lineage of this can be traced as far back as the pre-Socratic philosophers, finally finding its earliest concrete expression in a claim most have either dismissed, forgotten, or never heard: Aristotle's argument that women are merely "malformed males" and are therefore "inferior to man." The theory found support in the first century with a historical interpretation of Genesis 2:18-23, traceable in particular to the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, Philo (BC 13-AD 54). Philo's own theory about woman echoed that of Aristotle's; his legacy includes the vague feeling that Scripture itself declares that, since woman is created after man, she is necessarily subservient to him. She becomes, as it were, the "second sex." I dispute both these accounts and show that they can be defeated on their own terms. Through the lens of Hebraic and Aristotelian-Thomistic anthropology, and building on the insights of St. John Paul II, I provide a robust, philosophically and theologically grounded account of man and woman from within the Catholic exegetical tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article takes up the biblical category of "headship," one of the "third rails" for Christians in a context dominated by the limited conceptions of equality, especially those assumed by "second wave" and "difference" feminism, viz., that of interchangeable sameness and unbridgeable difference. Headship is easily dismissed as an instance of (bad) cultural influence that spoiled Christianity's egalitarian beginnings. Less radically, headship is simply avoided, or glossed over with apologetic caveats. Headship is an embarrassment, because it suggests not only exclusive differences—the "head" is not the "body"—but an order between them. Head and body are "subject to each other" in distinct and coordinated ways. In what follows, the author claims that headship is not only not an affront to equality, but its very condition between subjects who belong to each other in a generous relation of reciprocal and fruitful unity and distinction. Moreover, it is the expression of the novelty of Christianity, regarding first of all the nature of God in whom there is an original Head, and a "positive other," without any hint of subordinationism (inequality). On the contrary, the Father is never absolute, but always already determined by the Son. This original headship then informs the Christian conception of the world, its positivity, even to the point that it can give something to God. Finally, it informs the this-worldly headships (Christ–Church and husband–wife). There, headship counters the status quo, by countering the "body's" default immanentistic "certainty" about her exclusive life-giving power, enjoining her to acknowledge a transcendent source. It restores equality to the head. For the "head," it counters the false absolutist image of God, while enjoining him to "radiate" something of which he is first "subject," to "be involved with," and determined by, the woman, as a positive other. It restores equality to the body. In sum, the article urges us to turn towards the deepest resources of Christianity, to find therein a more fruitful equality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the political and philosophical genealogies of the category "Israeli Jew" in terms of Israeli novelist Yoram Kaniuk's Adam Resurrected, which I situate within the wider context of contemporary Israel. Israel is defined by some as a colonial and occupying state and by others as a liberal democracy founded on narratives of modern nationalism, but also on the Abrahamic narrative of 2000 years of Jewish exile. The category "Israeli Jew" thus brings together the figure of the diasporic Jew as not fully sovereign with Zionism's figure of the "New Jew," based on European modernity's ideal of a sovereign, autonomous, citizen subject. I show how, by bringing these figures together, rather than replacing one with the other, the category "Israeli Jew" brings together the specificity of the different genealogies that these terms carry. In this regard, I argue, Israel can be understood as an instantiation of the historical legacy of the philosophical binary between the Athenian and the Hebraic, which, as Miriam Leonard, Jacques Derrida, and others have pointed out, informs the long durée of Western political philosophy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by the hopeful possibilities of birth, breath and beginning that Hannah Arendt and Luce Irigaray variously articulate, this paper examines the lullaby as an expressive form that emerges (in a variety of contexts as distinct as medieval Christendom and contemporary art) as narrative between natality and mortality. With narrative understood as praxis according to Arendt's schema, and articulated in what Irigaray might designate as an interval between two different sexuate subjects, the lullaby (and the voice that sings it) is found to be a telling of what it is to be human, and a hopeful reminder of our capacity both for self-affection and -preservation, and for meeting and nurturing others in their difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper situates an analysis on the commonalities and ordinariness of Jewish and Muslim experiences vis-à-vis a critique on nationalism and belonging in the literature of Edeet Ravel and Mohsin Hamid, in addition to other writers. These literary writers are highlighted by an exploration of Eran Riklis' film A Borrowed Identity amidst the critical perspectives of Ari Shavit, Leila Ahmed, Edward W. Said, and Justin Trudeau. The focus on Israel/Palestine is complemented by addressing sustained issues of nationalism and belonging in America that reverberate on global degrees of awareness as to how religious degrees of belonging can be reconsidered in light of understanding instantiations of cultural mise-en-scène from nuanced degrees of awareness. In turn, a multifaceted unsettling of identity, religion, and culture is posited that vividly collapses distinctions between East/West in revealing highly different ways of contemplating perceptions of Jews and Muslims in the world today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]