A Hermeneutics of Violence

The book follows violence into the complex and hidden dimensions in and through which it eludes the collective comprehension and understanding of all who attempt to make sense of it.

Mark M. Ayyash is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and Director of the John de Chastelain Peace Studies Initiative at Mount Royal University.

"At a very young age Mark Ayyash witnessed an act of violence in his native Palestine in the immediate vicinity of the Noble Sanctuary. Armed Israeli soldiers were on one side, defiant young Palestinians on the other. He stood still somewhere in between the asymmetrical warring factions and wondered. Decades later and matured in his bold and brilliant moral imagination he has written a detailed philosophical treatise unpacking that bewildering moment. The result is a meticulous hermeneutics of awe and wonder as to why and wherefore violence is the genetic engineering of our political life. This is a work of profound philosophical urgency aimed at unpacking the passing ephemerality of the political."