Our Mission & History

The Institut d'Études Lévinassiennes was founded in Jerusalem in 2000 by Benny Levy, Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut (as seen on the picture above).

The goal of the American Institute for Levinassian Studies, created in 2016, is to extend the activities of the French Institut d’Études Lévinassiennes to the American side of the Atlantic, under the leadership of its President, Christian Grusq.

Although the figure of the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), whom responsibility for the “Other” is the main tenant of his philosophical thought,  is the starting point of the Institute, the AILS is not meant to be a university institute devoted to the scholarly study of his theses and his work. The main interest of the Institute is that of a living thought, of an unfolding thought in the making. This thought production is made possible in America by an annual series of seminars on a theme, given by a variety of thinkers from highly different backgrounds. The intent is to avoid accepted readings, without sacrificing rigor. We work around Levinas and not on him - and the flexibility offered by this "around" is immense.

In addition to the annual series of seminars, AILS proposes to offer to an American public a forum of discussion, local events, and electronic access to a database of philosophical documentation.

The working themes are provided by a selection of readings by specialists of Levinas or by excerpts from Levinas. They can be treated with the greatest freedom, even in relation to the thematic context from which they arise. This is the meaning we give to the adjective "levinassian," which describes the kind of studies conducted within the Institute. All topics treated therefore assume a somewhat quirky character in relation to what one might expect to find even in a symposium on this thinker. We believe in this quirkiness.