Ricoeur Across the Disciplines

"This is the best recent book on Ricoeur's work precisely because the contributors are all well respected and widely published experts in their disciplines who bring to bear on their work various aspects of Ricoeur's extensive philosophy. So, unlike other collective works on Ricoeur, this book is about various aspects in philosophy, theology, religion, history, political theory, law, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, education, women's studies, race studies, and musicology. What it shows is the pervasive influence of Ricoeur's insights and analyses on these disparate disciplines. While each essay is independent of the others, they have in common the use of some facet of Ricoeur's vast and varied oeuvre to elucidate one or more issues in that discipline. I applaud Scott Davidson for editing this collection of extraordinarily interesting essays from the very best scholars in a multitude of disciplines." -- Charles Reagan, Professor of Philosophy, Kansas State University, USA
"These essays expand on a most expansive philosopher and provide a remarkable treatment of the breadth of Paul Ricoeur's corpus at a timely moment. At this stage of assessing Ricoeur's legacy, what is often left out is the extent of his own cross-disciplinary approach. This book makes this aspect of Ricoeur impossible to miss. In so doing, it brings together noted Ricoeur scholars from many fields who offer creative readings both of Ricoeur's full corpus and extend Ricoeur's thought in new directions. For example, the chapters that note that Ricoeur hardly addressed feminist and racial issues nevertheless reveal how fruitful Ricoeur's hermeneutics of the self can be when applied in these areas. In chapter after chapter, one is impressed with the depth of engagement with Ricoeur's thought and application to diverse areas such as theology, law, education, psychoanalysis, and even music. Even in areas that Ricoeur plumbed fairly fully, there is fresh interaction with current discussions in biblical hermeneutics, political theory, rhetoric. Just a few of these would be worth the price of the book, including the early chapter by Adriaan Peperzak comparing Ricoeur with Levinas as an expert on both." -- Dan R. Stiver, Professor of Theology, Hardins-Simmons University, TX, USA
... of great value in the task of arguing for the enduring significance of Ricoeur for ongoing work in a wide variety of disciplines. For those already familiar with Ricoeur's work, this volume will provide a series of provocations that take the reader further into the still substantially unexplored reach of this multidisciplinary oeuvre. For those little acquainted with Ricoeur, this book does a good job of providing a sympathetic introduction to the man and his work and serves well as a base camp from which to explore further. -- Oxford Journals: French Studies, vol 65, no 3