What if our world were considered a gift? Extending postmodern gift theory to ecological and ecotheological concerns, Mark Manolopoulos explores how "creation"--the what-is--can be seen as a gift. Creation, when viewed in a radically egalitarian way, is the matrix of all material things--human, otherwise-than-human, or humanly manufactured. Utilizing and critiquing the work of Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion, Manolopoulos argues that the gift is an irresolvable paradox marked by the contradictory elements of excess (gratuity, linearity) and exchange (gratitude, return). Philosophical and...