Phenomenology and the Theological Turnbrings together the debate over Janicaud's critique of the theological turnrepresented by the works of Emmanuel Levinas, Paul Ricour, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Franois Courtine, Jean-Louis Chrtien, and Michel Henry.

Slavoj Zizek has been called "an academic rock star" and "the wild man of theory"; his writing mixes astonishing erudition and references to pop culture in order to dissect current intellectual pieties. In The Puppet and the Dwarf he offers a close reading of today's religious constellation from the viewpoint of Lacanian psychoanalysis. He critically confronts both predominant versions of today's spirituality--New Age gnosticism and deconstructionist-Levinasian Judaism--and then tries to redeem the "materialist" kernel of Christianity. His reading of Christianity is (...) explicitly political, discerning in the Pauline community of believers the first version of a revolutionary collective. Since today even advocates of Enlightenment like Jurgen Habermas acknowledge that a religious vision is needed to ground our ethical and political stance in a "postsecular" age, this book--with a stance that is clearly materialist and at the same time indebted to the core of the Christian legacy--is certain to stir controversy. (shrink)

With his characteristic wit, Zizek addresses the burning question of how to reformulate a leftist project in an era of global capitalism and liberal-democratic ...

Peter Hallward is lecturer in the French Department at King's College, London. His previous publications include Absolutely Postcolonial: Writing between the Singular and the Specific (2002) and a translation of Alain Badiou's Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil (2001).

"What roles do biblical scholars play in contexts where the Bible is a significant text within poor and marginalized communities? Gerald West reflects on what their role is by drawing on liberation hermeneutics (with a focus on race, class and gender), inculturation hermeneutics (with a focus on culture), and postmodernism (with a decentred 'focus'!). He argues that recent trends in the field of biblical studies open up space for serious dialogue (and perhaps even collaboration) between readers of the Bible in (...) the academy and readers of the Bible in poor and marginalized communities." --Book Jacket. (shrink)