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Morgan, “Levinas’s Ethical Politics”

In May, Indiana University Press will release “Levinas’s Ethical Politics” by Michael L. Morgan (Indiana University, Bloomington). The publisher’s description follows:

Emmanuel Levinas conceives of our lives as fundamentally interpersonal and ethical, claiming that our responsibilities to one another should shape all of our actions. While many scholars believe that Levinas failed to develop a robust view of political ethics, Michael L. Morgan argues against understandings of Levinas’s thought that find him politically wanting or even antipolitical. Morgan examines Levinas’s ethical critique of the political as well as his Jewish writings—including those on Zionism and the founding of the Jewish state—which are controversial reflections of Levinas’s political expression. Unlike others who dismiss Levinas as irrelevant or anarchical, Morgan is the first to give extensive treatment to Levinas as a serious social political thinker whose ethics must be understood in terms of its political implications. Morgan reveals Levinas’s political commitments to liberalism and democracy as well as his revolutionary conception of human life as deeply interconnected on philosophical, political, and religious grounds.

 

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Ali, “South Asian Islam and British Multiculturalism”

In May, Routledge will release “South Asian Islam and British Multiculturalism” by Amir Ali (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India). The publisher’s description follows:

This book analyses South Asian Islam’s engagement with the West, and routlogoBritain in particular. It traces the roots of British multiculturalism to South Asia and the Deobandi school of Islam. The work shows how the pattern of interaction that initially emerged between the Deobandi Muslims and the colonial British state in late-19th century replicated itself in the British society in the second half of 20th century. The monograph reflects upon Islam’s ‘compatibility’ with liberal democracy as well as explores how it contributed to its origins in the Enlightenment ethos.

A nuanced, sensitive and topical study, this book will be essential to understanding the world in the light of contemporary world events—Paris 13/11 and Charlie Hebdo attacks, the Danish cartoon controversy, and the Trojan Horse incident in certain British schools as well as the much earlier Rushdie affair. It will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of political science, religion, political Islam, British and South Asian Studies, and history.