Emmanuel Levinas, Anwar Sadat's Speech in Jerusalem, and the Camp David Peace Process
Wed, 28 March, 2018
5:00pm
Prof. Michael L. Morgan, Chancellor's Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Jewish Studies, Indiana University
In 1979 the French Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas wrote a short essay praising Anwar Sadat for his speech to the Israeli Knesset in November of 1977. This talk examines the peace-talks that led to the Camp David Accords in 1978, the place of Sadat’s visit, various assessments of Sadat’s motives and the meaning of his trip, and the content of his remarks in Jerusalem. It then looks at Levinas’s remarks within this context, clarifying Levinas’s understanding of Sadat’s visit in order to elucidate how Levinas conceived of the relation between ethics and politics.