Lexington Books
Pages: 220
•
978-0-7391-2629-5 • Hardback • December 2011 • $102.00 • (£78.00)
978-0-7391-7189-9 • eBook • December 2011 • $96.50 • (£74.00)
Geneviève Souillac is currently Senior Associate Professor of Philosophy and Peace Studies at the International Christian University of Japan.
Introduction
Part I: Justice
Chapter 1: The Burden of Difference: Pluralist Justice and the Public Sphere
Chapter 2: Moral Conversations and Democratic Hermeneutics
Chapter 3: Particularism versus Universalism: A False Debate?
Part II: Memory
Chapter 4: Secularism, Culture, and Critique
Chapter 5: Laicité and the Memory of Public Culture
Chapter 6: The Ties that Bind: Public Culture and the Debt to the Past
Part III: Encounter
Chapter 7: Normative Solidarity and Public Hermeneutics
Chapter 8: From Intersubjectivity to Encounter
Chapter 9: Exit of Religion, Debt of Meaning
Conclusion
This book is important because it weaves together both Anglophone and Continental thinking in political philosophy. Examining the role of historical memory in the debate on democratic ethics not only constitutes an original theoretical contribution—ultimately, it can further support the democratic pluralism the book defends.
— Marcel Gauchet, Professor Emeritus, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
This is a very important book. It gives us a comprehensive conceptual framework for the creation of the inclusive spaces for public deliberation and mediation necessary in order for "post-colonial," "post-national" and "post-totalitarian" democracies to function. Such spaces are ones in which we can all be ourselves together, not only as individual persons, but also as members of our various communities of belonging. It is only in such inclusive spaces that, together, we can create a common future we can all enter together as full human beings.
— Jacqueline Wasilewski, Professor (Retired), International Christian University (ICU), Senior Fellow, Society for Intercultural Education, Training & Research (SIETAR), Adviser, Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO)
Text without context is pretext! In Burden of Democracy, Souillac powerfully reveals how the public sphere contextualizes and contains the politics of difference, pluralism and democratic justice as individuals and groups search for meaning and identity in a globalized world.
— Kevin P. Clements, University of Otago, New Zealand
The volume is wide-ranging, thorough, and penetrating in the author’s elucidation of the “burden of democracy” today. This is a stimulating work of original and reliable scholarship that sheds light on the current democracy of France as well as on the current tasks of democratic theorizing.
— Shin Chiba, International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan