Borders and Debordering

Reviews / Votes

It is the edges and borders of the world that tell us most about the world. The essays collected here thus shed important critical light, not only on specific border sites, but also on a range of key contemporary issues of world-wide significance. Including essays from many different disciplinary perspectives, this is a volume that demonstrates the true breadth of the horizons that the study of borders opens up. -- Jeff Malpas, Emeritus Distinguished Professor, University of Tasmania This stunning collection of essays reflects on the philosophical, political, ethical, and practical status of borders, and not only reminds us that borders are contingent, historically shifting constructs, but also challenges us to rethink borders in ways that are less lethal and more life affirming. Spanning disciplines and nations, this timely volume is itself a border-crossing that opens up new approaches to the question of national and, perhaps more importantly, conceptual borders. -- Kelly Oliver, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Vanderbilt University In an age where borders have emerged once again as the central excuse to separate us from others, it is vital to think again what these divisions entail. This collection does not simply unmask our border's political, social, and geographical function, but also demands we take a stance against them. Although this stance is interpreted differently by each contributor, they all request to take seriously into consideration its existential implications-in other words, how borders are meant to annihilate us. This annihilation, as the editors point out in the introduction, does not only refer to physical, epistemological, and spiritual borders, but also existential ones which are the first that request our attention. An attention this book provides from an interdisciplinary, hermeneutical, and transnational perspective. -- Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University and author of 'Why Only Art can Save Us' and 'Being at Large'