Simone Weil and the Specter of Self-Perpetuating Force

Reviews / Votes

"Simone Weil and the Specter of Self-Perpetuating Force is a practice in attention that, in revealing so painstakingly the nuances of a person's thought in contact with a violent world, unveils and illuminates our own present crises and asks us not to look away." -Ars Disputandi

"Simone Weil's earliest published essays from the 1930s advocate an uncompromising pacifism she gradually abandoned in the aftermath of Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia. E. Jane Doering takes these writings as a starting point for a compelling account of the development of Weil's thought. The result is a valuable study of a central preoccupation of Weil's, and also an admirable and illuminating introduction to her thought as a whole." -Journal for Peace and Justice Studies

". . . readers can appreciate the work of a notably eclectic, experimental and perplexing person who lived and died in one of the most shameful periods of Europe in the twentieth century. . . . Weil's insights are crucial to our self-understanding and our capacity to confront our self-made miseries, not least that of war." -Theology

"Doering counters that the most compelling explanatory account for continued interest in Weil's life and work is (or ought to be acknowledged to be) the profundity of her thinking. Weil had a gift for expressing universal truths in an aphoristic form that invites continued meditation. This is especially true with respect to the focus on Doering's meticulous study: the development, expression, and, ultimately, the tragic relevance of Weil's insights on the nature of force." -Theological Studies

"The idea of force underpins much of Simone Weil's thinking . . . . E. Jane Doering gives a nuanced account of the way in which this concept is fundamental to an understanding of Weil's life and thought." -French Studies

"This book, at once carefully organized and explanatory, makes lucid Simone Weil's relevance to studies of the problem of violence and the sources of peace. . . . Probing questions of gravity and grace, Doering illuminates Weil's deep interest in 'the mystery of transferring energy toward good ends' posing a counterforce to the Empire of Force." -Choice

"E. Jane Doering's book provides us a new, more penetrating focus on the central message of Simone Weil. The 'mine of pure gold' that Weil referred to in her last days is sharply delineated here: the possibility of grace as the countervailing power that may efficaciously oppose oppressive force. Doering's research is impeccable and opens new perspectives for Weil scholars for years to come." -John Marson Dunaway, Mercer University

In Simone Weil and the Specter of Self-perpetuating Force, Jane Doering deftly examines some of the most difficult ethical issues that peace researchers ever face, particularly the need to confront perpetrators of ruthless violence without engaging in immoral acts oneself. Doering skillfully portrays Weil's analysis of how the abuse of force arises and how the exercise of military force contaminates victor and victim. Readers will find an original perspective on just war thinking, one that highlights the obligation to respect human dignity at all times." -Robert C. Johansen, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame

"Jane Doering has done a great service in bringing to light many of Weil's writings that have received scant attention. These especially include numerous untranslated early works on the degenerating political situation in Europe in the 1930s, works that have been left aside as having narrow historical interest. But Prof. Doering in bringing them to light has done us all in our present situation an even greater service in using these work to expose Weil's eternally valid insights into the empire of force, and its alternatives to it." -The Rev. Dr. Eric O. Springsted, President of the American Weil Society

"Jane Doering's seminal and meticulously researched work may well bring Simone Weil into the central currents of intellectual discourse-a voice from the mid-twentieth century that speaks to our increasingly fraught planet. Weil is presented in her full complexity: not only a relentless, rigorous mind with an abiding faith in reason, but a person of incarnational spirituality." -Peter Walshe, University of Notre Dame