ABSTRACT
Responding to an Other which challenges, seduces, persecutes-this is the common theme of the essays put together in this volume. Most of the texts are revised versions of papers presented at the conference “Anthropology and Otherness,” held at Carleton University, Ottawa, from November 1 to November 3, 2013. 1 The general objective of this meeting had been to bring recent developments in the philosophical discourse on otherness and anthropological approaches to the Other in communication with each other. Over the last three decades, the so-called “question of the Other” was one of the most intensely debated topics in continental philosophy, in particular phenomenology. A key contributor in the discussion about the philosophical status of the Other was the German phenomenologist Bernhard Waldenfels, whose concept of responsivity has provided the present collection with its guiding idea. Indeed, it was the specifi c intention behind the organization of the conference to introduce Waldenfels’ work to a broader anthropological audience. Waldenfels’ oeuvre consists of more than 25 books written in German and hundreds of essays in several languages; up to now, however, only three of his books have appeared in English (Waldenfels 1996, 2007, 2011) and his philosophical approach to otherness has, in marked contrast to that of his colleagues Derrida and Levinas, not been taken note of widely in anthropology. Edited with the conviction that Waldenfels’ phenomenology of the alien and his concept of responsivity harbors great potential for all aspects of anthropology, the present volume intends to change this situation.
