First published in 1998, this volume deals with the legacy of Sartre and functions as a way of going beyond Sartre by means of Sartre, aiming to understand how we are to understand what we ourselves do and how we are to understand human being and human reality. Kristian Klockars' main aim is intended to communicate three questions: how close Sartre's later anthropology comes to hermeneutics, whether the idea of a hermeneutics of praxis could be seen as a possible solution to the internal tensions of Sartre's conception, thinking with Sartre beyond Sartre, and whether a hermeneutics of praxis can constitute a living challenge to contemporary thought.

First published in 1998, this volume deals with the legacy of Sartre and functions as a way of going beyond Sartre by means of Sartre, aiming to understand how we are to understand what we ourselves do and how we are to understand human being and human reality. Kristian Klockars' main aim is intended to communicate three questions: how close Sartre's later anthropology comes to hermeneutics, whether the idea of a hermeneutics of praxis could be seen as a possible solution to the internal tensions of Sartre's conception, thinking with Sartre beyond Sartre, and whether a hermeneutics of praxis can constitute a living challenge to contemporary thought.

The concept of chiasm has played major role in continental philosophy, where it has referred to various phenomenological and hermeneutic structures of reversibility, intertwining, and encounter. In Chiasmatic Encounters: Art, Ethics, Politics, fourteen international contributors representing various fields of expertise analyze this central concept and its significance for contemporary cultural theory. The authors discuss the work of major philosophers like Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, Habermas, Levinas, Derrida, and Deleuze, adapting their ideas of chiasmatic relations to cultural analysis. As the internal and external horizons of perception and experience are intertwined and reversed, various cultural texts, like a Vermeer painting, a symphony of Sibelius, a David Lynch movie, or a young girl walking in her summer dress, are seen from new and unexpected angles. The book also addresses the chiasmatic crossing between ethics and politics-- between unconditional ethical responsibility and always conditional political choices. Representing the cutting edge of contemporary cultural theory and interdisciplinary thinking, Chiasmatic Encounters is essential reading for anyone working in continental philosophy, aesthetics, or political theory.