The Pulse of Sense: Encounters with Jean-Luc Nancy

This volume stages a series of encounters between the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy and leading scholars of his work along four major themes of Nancy’s thought: sense, experience, existence, and Christianity.

In doing so, the volume seeks to remind readers that Nancy’s sens has many meanings in French: aside from those that easily carry over into English, i.e., everything to do with "meaning" and "the senses"; it also includes the "way" they are "conducted," the "direction" they take, the "thrust" or "pulse" in which the circulation of sense exists. Faithful to this plural understanding of sens, the writings collected here aim to join Jean-Luc Nancy in the process of "making-sense" that animates his thinking, rather than to deliver a definitive summary of his position on any given issue. They are conceived of as notes "along the way," documenting "encounters" as moments of "(re)direction" and recording the "pulse" of sense that animates them. In that spirit, Nancy himself has provided each contribution with an "echo" in which he, in turn, responds to each author and thereby continues their mutual encounter. Aside from these echoes, this volume includes an original essay in which Nancy reflects upon the international trajectory of his thinking; a trajectory that is to be and undoubtedly will be continued, in many different directions, across and around the world.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Angelaki.

Marie Chabbert is Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s St John’s College. Her research interrogates how contemporary French thinkers inaugurate new perspectives for thinking faith in the postsecular age. Her first monograph, Faithful Deicides: Modern French Thought and the Eternal Return of Religion, is forthcoming.

Nikolaas Deketelaere is a researcher at the Catholic University of Paris, France, and the Australian Catholic University. His research considers questions of experience and embodiment in contemporary phenomenology and philosophy of religion. He has published articles in Literature and Theology, Open Theology, and Angelaki.