Emmanuel Levinas

Emily Brooker Langston (St. John's College, Annapolis)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

Born 12 Jan 1906
Died 25 Dec 1995
Activity 1930-1995

Places

Born in France
Active in France

Cultural Identities

Jewish European

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Philosopher
Teacher/ Professor

Resources

Levinas' Works

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Emmanuel Levinas, a Lithuanian Jewish philosopher whose adoptive homeland was France, formed a critique of the philosophical tradition of the West for its suppression of alterity and proclaimed the priority of ethics over ontology. He was also active throughout his life in the Jewish community, and produced a rich body of work arising out of this commitment.

Levinas was born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, on December 30th, 1905, by the Julian calendar used in the Russian empire at the time – January 12, 1906 by our calendar. However it is December 30th that he always considered to be his birthday. He was immersed from an early age both in Torah and in the greatest Russian writers. His boyhood was marked by the European upheavals of the early twentieth century: in September 1915 the

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2345 words

Citation: Langston, Emily Brooker. "Emmanuel Levinas". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 August 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2711, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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