This multidisciplinary collective volume advances the scholarly discussion on the origins of Islam. It simultaneously focuses on three domains: texts, social contexts, and ideological developments relevant for the study of Islam's beginnings -- taking the latter expression in its broadest possible sense. The intersections of these domains need to be examined afresh in order to obtain a clear picture of the concurrent phenomena that collectively enabled both the gradual emergence of a new religious identity and the progressive delimitation of its initially fuzzy boundaries.

"Like most of his theatrical pieces, Felix Guattari's Parmenides is a brief but extremely suggestive dialogue that brings life to his concerns about psychoanalysis, semiotics, the history of philosophy, and contemporary post-theatre. Edited by Gary Genosko and Carlos A. Segovia, this volume includes the facsimile edition of the original manuscript followed by its transcription and its annotated translations into English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Polish and Russian. Accompanying commentaries, diagrams, and studies of the text give an incredibly in-depth analysis of Guattari's theatrical work and its significance to his wider body of thought. Among these, Gary Genosko highlights Guattari's engagement with dialogue and language; Carlos A. Segovia examines his elaboration on Greek mythology; and Flore Gacin-Marrou looks at Guattari's role as a playwright among his other literary work, which ranged from screenplays to novels. This volume also includes another of Guattari's short theatrical pieces, Socrates, which was the only one of his plays to reach the stage, and which expands on one of the book's central themes in his dialogue with classical philosophy." -- OCLC.