Writing Religion and Politics after Derrida

Danielle Sands offers a unique new understanding of the relationship between religion and politics through the work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

In Writing Religion and Politics after Derrida, Danielle Sands challenges the allegations - made by thinkers from Badiou to Žižek - that Derrida's work is old-fashioned and needs to be stripped of its religious and literary content to possess any contemporary relevance.

She does so by arguing that this relevance, or indeed the work’s political aspect can only be understood alongside Derrida’s interest in ethics and religion and that the medium of writing allows those studying him to examine the relationship between religion and politics from novel and less anthropocentric perspectives. With each chapter focusing on a key mode of discourse in Derrida’s work, Sands highlights how religion and politics intersect to raise vital questions about modern notions of subjectivity, responsibility, otherness, and public space. Her interdisciplinary approach responds to Derrida’s own experimentations with genre and is informed by philosophy, theology and literary studies, so that students in all those disciplines can benefit from this highly original and thought-provoking book.