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Lost Expectations: On Derrida's Abraham, Mary-Jane V. Rubenstein
Lost Expectations: On Derrida's Abraham, Mary-Jane V. Rubenstein
Mary-Jane Rubenstein
This chapter undertakes a critical analysis of Jacques Derrida’s reading of Fear and Trembling (Frygt og Bæven) in The Gift of Death (Donner la mort). In a gesture that might be called a faithful betrayal, Derrida seeks in this text to “go further” than de Silentio, pushing Abraham’s singular near-sacrifice of Isaac into “the most common” experience of decision, his absolute relation to the Absolute into every relation to any other. Composed largely of anonymous fragments, the essay at hand evaluates the theo-ethico-political stakes of this deconstruction, seeking to re-read Derrida’s tout autre in light of …