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Book SynopsisFrom Descartes to Dostoevsky, the debate concerning the relationship between religion and morality has raged for centuries. Can there be a solid foundation for ethics without God? Or would we be consigned to a relativist morality, where “the good” is just a product of societal values or natural selection? In this landmark work, acclaimed philosopher and theologian, Keith Ward, presents a revolutionary new contribution to this discussion. Reflecting on the work of philosophers old and new – including Hume, Mill, Murdoch and Moore – he argues that our conception of morality intrinsically depends on our model of reality. And if we want a meaningful, objective ethics, then only God can provide the solid metaphysical foundations. Carefully structured and written in Ward’s famously clear prose, Morality, Autonomy and God will be an invaluable primer for students of theology or philosophy of religion. But more than that, this strident and controversial book is guaranteed to shape philosophical opinion for years to come.Trade Review‘Masterful… each position is set out briefly and clearly… Ward is totally in command of his subject in a way that enables him to touch on the most difficult problems of moral philosophy in an accessible manner… this book offers as good an argument as there is likely to be for the grounding of our ethics in the purpose of a good God.’ * Church Times *'This is a fine and comprehensive review of the relationship between theism and morality; clear and well argued. I would wish that all philosophers and theologians were equally nuanced and rigorous.' -- Lord Stewart Sutherland, President, Royal Institute of Philosophy'Ward’s book is informed by a grasp of moral philosophy spanning Plato and Dworkin, and a rare understanding of theism across religious traditions. It offers an impressive answer to a vitally important question.' -- Nigel Biggar, Professor of Moral Theology, Christ Church, Oxford'How are God and goodness related? What kind of ethics makes sense for reflective theists today? In this bold, wise, and wide-ranging book, Keith Ward presents an original meditation on these key questions which combines the virtues of learning and accessibility.' -- Tim Chappell, Professor of Philosophy, Open University

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Book SynopsisRudolf Otto (1869-1937) is widely recognized as one of the most important contributors to the study of religions at the beginning of the 20th century. His book, The Idea of the Holy, became something of a sensation in its time, and his account of numinous experience as a mysterium tremendum et fascinans had an effect that few other ideas in the study of religions have had. His vocabulary broke through narrow disciplinary bounds and was taken up by people in a variety of disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. However, since the 1960s, Otto has been increasingly overlooked and neglected. As thinkers and scholars have turned in many other intellectual directions, they have tended to see Otto as representative of a past to be rejected. This volume gathers together essays by scholars from a variety of perspectives - theology, religious studies, intellectual history, and various cultural studies - to address the question of what Otto's legacy for the 21st century might be. The first section of the volume addresses Otto's ideas and their contexts. Part Two turns to the area that Otto, more than any other German theologian or philosopher of religion, opened up: an engagement with the world of religions. Otto's influence, however, has never been confined to systematic religious thought and the study of religions. His ideas have resonated much more widely. Although it is impossible to treat this range of application completely, the essays in Part Three aim to provide a hint of this wider impact, in architecture (Britton), poetry (Furey), politics (Jerryson), and the contemporary world more generally (Lauster). This volume is not an attempt to revivify Otto, nor is it intended as a magisterial statement about Otto's significance today. Rather, it issues an invitation to those with an interest not just in religions but also in cultural phenomena more broadly to take another look at Rudolf Otto and his ideas. Perhaps they will find more than they expect, and something that they can use.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Transporting Rudolf Otto into the 21st Century Ulrich Rosenhagen and Gregory D. Alles Theological, Philosophical, and Contextual Considerations 1. Rudolf Otto’s Post-Kantian Platonism Todd Gooch, Eastern Kentucky University 2. Liberal Piety: Rudolf Otto and the Protestant Liberal Theology of His Age Peter Schüz, Ludwig Maximilians University 3. Religious League of Humanity and Universal Protestant Senate: Rudolf Otto’s Interreligious Critique of Nathan Söderblom and the Ecumenical Movement Ulrich Rosenhagen 4. Rudolf Otto and the Theory of Religion Robert Cummings Neville, Boston University Rudolf Otto and “The Religions” 5. Rudolf Otto and the Problem of Categories Gregory D. Alles 6. Nostalgia, Trauma, and the Numinous: Twentieth-Century Jewish Readings of Rudolf Otto’s Das Heilige Melissa Raphael, University of Gloucestershire 7. Wonderstruck: Otto, Vision, and Modern Hinduism Tulasi Srinivas, Emerson College, Massachusetts 8. Looking Bodhidharma in the Eye: The Beginnings of Otto’s Interreligious Encounters with Japanese Buddhists Katja Triplett, University of Leopzig 9. The Idea of the Holy in African Religions Robert M. Baum, Dartmouth College Contemporary Applications 10. The Numinous in Theologies of Modern Architecture Karla Cavarra Britton, Diné College, Arizona 11. Devotional Poetry’s Mysterium Tremendum Constance M. Furey, Indiana University 12. Rudolf Otto and the Study of Religion and Violence: Preserving the Numinous Michael Jerryson, Youngstown University 13. The Continuing Relevance of Rudolf Otto for Theology and Religious Studies Jörg Lauster, Ludwig Maximilians University

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Book SynopsisThe Middle Way was first taught explicitly by the Buddha. It is the first teaching offered by the Buddha in his first address, and the basis of his practical method in meditation, ethics, and wisdom. It is often mentioned in connection with Buddhist teachings, yet the full case for its importance has not yet been made. This book aims to make that case. The Middle Way can be understood from the Buddha's life as well as his teachings. His early life follows a symbolic quest through the extremes of the Palace and the Forest, followed by the discovery of the Middle Way. His similes, such as the raft, the lute-strings, the arrow, and the blind people with the elephant are not just allegories of Buddhist teachings, but relate closely to the universal human experience of balanced judgement. This book also has a critical case. Although it has transmitted the Middle Way, the Buddhist tradition has also often ignored or distorted it. The Middle Way is experiential, authentic and creative, and thus threatening to the power of a tradition that has instead emphasised the Buddha's authority as a source of abstract, absolute revelation. The Buddha's Middle Waya aims to differentiate the universal Middle Way from Buddhist tradition.Trade Review"In The Buddha's Middle Way, Robert M. Ellis re-issues the Buddha's teachings as a practical philosophy in the classical sense - a guide to sane and optimal living, rather than a religious doctrine or mere armchair musings. His middle way is a present-day life well lived, and his book is a convincing and valuable aid to finding and cultivating it. Though his erudition is striking, he writes clearly and accessibly. This is a book for both practising Buddhists and anyone who seeks to live an examined life." Winton Higgins, senior teacher, Sydney Insight Meditators and associate, School of International Studies, University of Technology Sydney "I hope this provocative book will encourage Buddhists to reconsider the Middle Way that lies at the core of their tradition and to appreciate how this principle links their tradition to many others, both ancient and modern, secular and religious. The Buddha's Middle Way will at the same time provide an excellent critical introduction to the Buddha's life and teaching for those less familiar with Buddhism. As a result of Ellis's groundbreaking work, the Middle Way may cease to be thought of as an exclusively Buddhist idea but a universal legacy of being human." From the Foreword by Stephen Batchelor, author of Buddhism without Beliefs

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Book SynopsisOn the Verge of a Planetary Civilization presents a philosophical contribution to integral ecology—an emerging approach to the field that crosses disciplinary boundaries of the humanities and sciences. In this original book, Sam Mickey argues for the transdisciplinary significance of philosophical concepts that facilitate understandings of and responses to the boundaries involved in ecological issues. Mickey demonstrates how much the provocative French philosopher Gilles Deleuze contributes to the development of such concepts, situating his work in dialogue with that of his colleagues Felix Guattari and Jacques Derrida, and with theorists who are adapting his concepts in contemporary contexts such as Isabelle Stengers, Catherine Keller, and the speculative realist movement of object-oriented ontology. The book focuses on the overlapping existential, social and environmental aspects of the ecological problems pervading our increasingly interconnected planet. It explores the boundaries between ·self and other, ·humans and nonhumans, ·sciences and humanities, ·monism and pluralism, ·sacred and secular, ·fact and fiction, ·the beginning and end of the world, and much more. Trade ReviewReading major postmodern theorists in the light of integral theory, Sam Mickey's path-breaking book points the way to environmentalism of the future. He has made an important contribution toward our understanding of the emergent, subtle, and complex entwining of humankind and nature. Highly recommended for those who want to understand the cutting edge of contemporary environmental theory. -- Michael E. Zimmerman, professor of philosophy, University of Colorado at BoulderThis book is much needed. The book skilfully and articulately brings together difficult concepts from the philosophies of event-oriented ontology, object-oriented ontology, and speculative realism to bear on our contemporary ecological crises. Furthermore, the book does not merely think about ecology, but begins to ask how ecological thinking changes our ways of thinking, doing ethics, and philosophizing in general. -- Whitney Bauman, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Florida International UniversityThe ongoing reinvention of our thought tradition is soaring into the task of developing a new philosophy of Earth, a philosophy of Gaia, a philosophy powerful enough to effect a fundamental transformation of humanity's functioning within the enveloping community of life. For anyone interested in joining this historic venture, there is no better pathway in than Sam Mickey's book. -- Brian Thomas Swimme, California Institute of Integral Studies.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction 1.1 Becoming Ecological 1.2 Becoming Integral 1.3 Becoming Humorous 1.4 Becoming Speculative 2. Beginning 2.1 Opening 2.2 Decisions 2.3 Examples 2.4 Chorology 2.5 Chaosmos 3. Middle 3.1 Sense 3.2 Rhizomes 3.3 Nomads 3.4 Omnicentric 3.5 Anthropocosmic 4. Ending 4.1 Apocalypse 4.2 From Globes to Planets 4.3 Planetary Love 4.4 Cosmopolitics 5. Conclusion 5.1 Refrain 5.2 Compost 5.3 The SF Mode 5.4 On the Verge Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisOn the Verge of a Planetary Civilization presents a philosophical contribution to integral ecology—an emerging approach to the field that crosses disciplinary boundaries of the humanities and sciences. In this original book, Sam Mickey argues for the transdisciplinary significance of philosophical concepts that facilitate understandings of and responses to the boundaries involved in ecological issues. Mickey demonstrates how much the provocative French philosopher Gilles Deleuze contributes to the development of such concepts, situating his work in dialogue with that of his colleagues Felix Guattari and Jacques Derrida, and with theorists who are adapting his concepts in contemporary contexts such as Isabelle Stengers, Catherine Keller, and the speculative realist movement of object-oriented ontology. The book focuses on the overlapping existential, social and environmental aspects of the ecological problems pervading our increasingly interconnected planet. It explores the boundaries between ·self and other, ·humans and nonhumans, ·sciences and humanities, ·monism and pluralism, ·sacred and secular, ·fact and fiction, ·the beginning and end of the world, and much more. Trade ReviewThis book is much needed. The book skilfully and articulately brings together difficult concepts from the philosophies of event-oriented ontology, object-oriented ontology, and speculative realism to bear on our contemporary ecological crises. Furthermore, the book does not merely think about ecology, but begins to ask how ecological thinking changes our ways of thinking, doing ethics, and philosophizing in general. -- Whitney Bauman, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Florida International UniversityReading major postmodern theorists in the light of integral theory, Sam Mickey's path-breaking book points the way to environmentalism of the future. He has made an important contribution toward our understanding of the emergent, subtle, and complex entwining of humankind and nature. Highly recommended for those who want to understand the cutting edge of contemporary environmental theory. -- Michael E. Zimmerman, professor of philosophy, University of Colorado at BoulderThe ongoing reinvention of our thought tradition is soaring into the task of developing a new philosophy of Earth, a philosophy of Gaia, a philosophy powerful enough to effect a fundamental transformation of humanity's functioning within the enveloping community of life. For anyone interested in joining this historic venture, there is no better pathway in than Sam Mickey's book. -- Brian Thomas Swimme, California Institute of Integral Studies.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction 1.1 Becoming Ecological 1.2 Becoming Integral 1.3 Becoming Humorous 1.4 Becoming Speculative 2. Beginning 2.1 Opening 2.2 Decisions 2.3 Examples 2.4 Chorology 2.5 Chaosmos 3. Middle 3.1 Sense 3.2 Rhizomes 3.3 Nomads 3.4 Omnicentric 3.5 Anthropocosmic 4. Ending 4.1 Apocalypse 4.2 From Globes to Planets 4.3 Planetary Love 4.4 Cosmopolitics 5. Conclusion 5.1 Refrain 5.2 Compost 5.3 The SF Mode 5.4 On the Verge Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisSøren Kierkegaard is often cast as the forefather of existentialism and an anti-Hegelian proponent of the single individual. Yet this book calls these traditional characterizations into question by arguing that Kierkegaard offers not only a systematic critique of idealist philosophy, but more surprisingly, a political ontology that is paradoxically at home in the context of twenty-first-century philosophical and political thought. Through a close consideration of his authorship in the context of nineteenth-century German idealism, Michael O'Neill Burns argues that Kierkegaard develops an ontology, anthropology and theory of the political that are outcomes of his critical appropriation of the philosophical projects of Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte. While starting out in the philosophical concerns of the nineteenth century, the book offers an interpretation of Kierkegaard that shows his relevance to philosophers and political theorists in the twenty-first century.Trade ReviewBurns presents us with a radical, political, materialist Kierkegaard. His argument is bold, counter-intuitive - and utterly persuasive. This book deserves to set the agenda for Kierkegaard studies for years to come. -- Steven Shakespeare, Liverpool Hope UniversityMichael Burns, in his magisterial Kierkegaard and the Matter of Philosophy, achieves nothing less than doing for Kierkegaard what Slavoj Žižek has done for Hegel. While remaining faithful to core components of Kierkegaard’s philosophy, Burns sweeps aside accumulated received readings of him and constructs in their place the figure of a Kierkegaard deeply and undeniably relevant to today’s philosophical landscape as colored by innovative revivals of the legacies of German idealism and Marxism. Burns's transcendental materialist Kierkegaard promises fundamentally to transform our understandings both of the past two centuries of European philosophy as well as of contemporary Continental metaphysics. -- Adrian Johnston, Professor of Philosophy, University of New MexicoBurns’ book is a seminal contribution to Kierkegaard scholarship. He convincingly shows against some widespread misconceptions that Kierkegaard’s thought implies a powerful contribution to ontology and to social and political thought. In addition to this novel approach to Kierkegaard, Burns defends the most relevant aspects of Kierkegaard in the context of contemporary philosophy. A very good book! -- Markus Gabriel, Professor of Philosophy, University of Bonn“[I]t is excellently written, well sculpted, and […] makes Kierkegaard relevant in today’s philosophical landscape by offering contemporary philosophers a “materialist Kierkegaard” that goes beyond our traditional readings of one of the pillars of existentialism. [T]his book is a must read” * APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments / Notes on Sources / Introduction / 1. Idealism Before Kierkegaard / 2. Anxiety and Ontology / 3. Spirit and Society / 4. Anxious Politics / 5. The Fractured Dialectic in Recent European Materialism / Conclusion: Kierkegaard and 21st Century Philosophy / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisSøren Kierkegaard is often cast as the forefather of existentialism and an anti-Hegelian proponent of the single individual. Yet this book calls these traditional characterizations into question by arguing that Kierkegaard offers not only a systematic critique of idealist philosophy, but more surprisingly, a political ontology that is paradoxically at home in the context of twenty-first-century philosophical and political thought. Through a close consideration of his authorship in the context of nineteenth-century German idealism, Michael O'Neill Burns argues that Kierkegaard develops an ontology, anthropology and theory of the political that are outcomes of his critical appropriation of the philosophical projects of Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte. While starting out in the philosophical concerns of the nineteenth century, the book offers an interpretation of Kierkegaard that shows his relevance to philosophers and political theorists in the twenty-first century.Trade ReviewBurns presents us with a radical, political, materialist Kierkegaard. His argument is bold, counter-intuitive - and utterly persuasive. This book deserves to set the agenda for Kierkegaard studies for years to come. -- Steven Shakespeare, Liverpool Hope UniversityMichael Burns, in his magisterial Kierkegaard and the Matter of Philosophy, achieves nothing less than doing for Kierkegaard what Slavoj Žižek has done for Hegel. While remaining faithful to core components of Kierkegaard’s philosophy, Burns sweeps aside accumulated received readings of him and constructs in their place the figure of a Kierkegaard deeply and undeniably relevant to today’s philosophical landscape as colored by innovative revivals of the legacies of German idealism and Marxism. Burns's transcendental materialist Kierkegaard promises fundamentally to transform our understandings both of the past two centuries of European philosophy as well as of contemporary Continental metaphysics. -- Adrian Johnston, Professor of Philosophy, University of New MexicoBurns’ book is a seminal contribution to Kierkegaard scholarship. He convincingly shows against some widespread misconceptions that Kierkegaard’s thought implies a powerful contribution to ontology and to social and political thought. In addition to this novel approach to Kierkegaard, Burns defends the most relevant aspects of Kierkegaard in the context of contemporary philosophy. A very good book! -- Markus Gabriel, Professor of Philosophy, University of Bonn“[I]t is excellently written, well sculpted, and […] makes Kierkegaard relevant in today’s philosophical landscape by offering contemporary philosophers a “materialist Kierkegaard” that goes beyond our traditional readings of one of the pillars of existentialism. [T]his book is a must read” * APA Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments / Notes on Sources / Introduction / 1. Idealism Before Kierkegaard / 2. Anxiety and Ontology / 3. Spirit and Society / 4. Anxious Politics / 5. The Fractured Dialectic in Recent European Materialism / Conclusion: Kierkegaard and 21st Century Philosophy / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisThis wide-ranging and inspiring volume of essays explores Nietzsche's philosophy of the free spirit. Nietzsche begins to articulate his philosophy of the free spirit in 1878 and it results in his most congenial books, including Human, all too Human, Dawn (or Daybreak), and The Gay Science. It is one of the most neglected aspects of Nietzsche's corpus, yet crucially important to an understanding of his work. Written by leading Nietzsche scholars from Europe and North America, the essays in this book explore topics such as: the kind of freedom practiced by the free spirit; the free spirit's relation to truth; the play between laughter and seriousness in the free spirit period texts; integrity and the free spirit; health and the free spirit; the free spirit and cosmopolitanism; and the figure of the free spirit in Nietzsche's later writings. This book fills a significant gap in the available literature and will set the agenda for future research in Nietzsche Studies.Trade ReviewThis impressive volume gathers the work of many notable Nietzsche scholars on a figural notion that has not received sustained attention in the literature. The complex character of the free spirit is duly articulated in a multi-layered and comprehensive manner, with attention to both chronological and substantive questions in Nietzsche’s texts. Highly recommended. -- Lawrence J. Hatab, Louis I. Jaffe Professor of Philosophy, Old Dominion UniversityThe figure of the “free spirit” plays a central role in Nietzsche’s ‘middle period’ texts but its significance and relationship to the evolving arc of his philosophy has been largely neglected. This collection provides an important exploration of the origins, constructions and implications of the figure of the ‘free spirit’ in Nietzsche’s thought and in doing so sheds new light on the character and development of his philosophical project. -- David Owen, Professor of Social and Political Philosophy, University of SouthamptonTable of ContentsNotes on Abbreviations / Acknowledgements / Introduction, Rebecca Bamford / Part I: Origins / 1. Skilled Marksman and Strict Self-Examination: Nietzsche on La Rochefoucauld, Ruth Abbey / 2. The Ethical Ideal of the Free Spirit in Human, All Too Human, Christine Daigle / 3. Beyond Selfishness: Epicurean Ethics in Nietzsche and Guyau, Keith Ansell-Pearson / 4. The Free Spirit and Aesthetic Self-Re-Education, Duncan Large / 5. Health and Self-Cultivation in Dawn, Rebecca Bamford / 6. Ridendo Dicere Severum: On Probity, Laughter and Self-Critique in Nietzsche’s Figure of the Free Spirit, Herman Siemens and Katia Hay / Part II: Developments, Applications, and Extensions / 7. The Experiment of Incorporating Unbounded Truth, Katrina Mitcheson / 8. Perspectives on a Philosophy of the Future in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Marcus Andreas Born / 9. Nietzsche’s “Free Spirit”, Richard Schacht / 10. Being Unattached: Freedom and Nietzsche’s Free Spirits, Christa Davis Acampora / 11. Free the Spirit!: Kantian, Jungian, and Neoplatonic Resonances in Nietzsche, Paul Bishop / 12. Almost Everything is Permitted: Nietzsche’s Not-So-Free Spirits, Daniel Conway / 13. Is There a Free Spirit in Nietzsche’s Late Writings?, Andreas Urs Sommer / Notes on Contributors / Index

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Book SynopsisThis wide-ranging and inspiring volume of essays explores Nietzsche's philosophy of the free spirit. Nietzsche begins to articulate his philosophy of the free spirit in 1878 and it results in his most congenial books, including Human, all too Human, Dawn (or Daybreak), and The Gay Science. It is one of the most neglected aspects of Nietzsche's corpus, yet crucially important to an understanding of his work. Written by leading Nietzsche scholars from Europe and North America, the essays in this book explore topics such as: the kind of freedom practiced by the free spirit; the free spirit's relation to truth; the play between laughter and seriousness in the free spirit period texts; integrity and the free spirit; health and the free spirit; the free spirit and cosmopolitanism; and the figure of the free spirit in Nietzsche's later writings. This book fills a significant gap in the available literature and will set the agenda for future research in Nietzsche Studies.Trade ReviewThis impressive volume gathers the work of many notable Nietzsche scholars on a figural notion that has not received sustained attention in the literature. The complex character of the free spirit is duly articulated in a multi-layered and comprehensive manner, with attention to both chronological and substantive questions in Nietzsche’s texts. Highly recommended. -- Lawrence J. Hatab, Louis I. Jaffe Professor of Philosophy, Old Dominion UniversityThe figure of the “free spirit” plays a central role in Nietzsche’s ‘middle period’ texts but its significance and relationship to the evolving arc of his philosophy has been largely neglected. This collection provides an important exploration of the origins, constructions and implications of the figure of the ‘free spirit’ in Nietzsche’s thought and in doing so sheds new light on the character and development of his philosophical project. -- David Owen, Professor of Social and Political Philosophy, University of SouthamptonTable of ContentsNotes on Abbreviations / Acknowledgements / Introduction, Rebecca Bamford / Part I: Origins / 1. Skilled Marksman and Strict Self-Examination: Nietzsche on La Rochefoucauld, Ruth Abbey / 2. The Ethical Ideal of the Free Spirit in Human, All Too Human, Christine Daigle / 3. Beyond Selfishness: Epicurean Ethics in Nietzsche and Guyau, Keith Ansell-Pearson / 4. The Free Spirit and Aesthetic Self-Re-Education, Duncan Large / 5. Health and Self-Cultivation in Dawn, Rebecca Bamford / 6. Ridendo Dicere Severum: On Probity, Laughter and Self-Critique in Nietzsche’s Figure of the Free Spirit, Herman Siemens and Katia Hay / Part II: Developments, Applications, and Extensions / 7. The Experiment of Incorporating Unbounded Truth, Katrina Mitcheson / 8. Perspectives on a Philosophy of the Future in Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Marcus Andreas Born / 9. Nietzsche’s “Free Spirit”, Richard Schacht / 10. Being Unattached: Freedom and Nietzsche’s Free Spirits, Christa Davis Acampora / 11. Free the Spirit!: Kantian, Jungian, and Neoplatonic Resonances in Nietzsche, Paul Bishop / 12. Almost Everything is Permitted: Nietzsche’s Not-So-Free Spirits, Daniel Conway / 13. Is There a Free Spirit in Nietzsche’s Late Writings?, Andreas Urs Sommer / Notes on Contributors / Index

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Book SynopsisThere has been a recent revival of interest in reading Kierkegaard as an ontologist, as a thinker who engages with questions about the kinds of entity or process that constitute ultimate reality. This new way of reading Kierkegaard stands alongside a revival of interest in ontology and metaphysics more generally. This highly original book concentrates on the claim that Kierkegaard focuses in part on ontological questions and on issues pertaining to the nature of being as a whole. Alison Assiter asserts that Being, for Kierkegaard, following Schelling, can be read in terms of conceptions of birthing—the capacity to give birth as well as the notion of a birthing body. She goes on to argue that the story offered by Kierkegaard in The Concept of Anxiety about the origin of freedom connects with a birthing body, and that Kierkegaard offers a speculative hypothesis, in terms of metaphors of birthing, about the nature of Being.Trade ReviewIn a brilliant, richly contextualized ‘speculative’ naturalist (re-)reading of Kierkegaard, Alison Assiter makes out a powerful case that – as Indigenous peoples have known from time immemorial and most other moderns have all but forgotten – nature is our mother, and evil is most fundamentally losing sight of this. Kierkegaard, Eve and Metaphors of Birth is philosophy at its best, addressing the really big issues of our time. -- Mervyn Hartwig, Journal of Critical RealismKierkegaard, Eve and Metaphors of Birth is a passionately written and challenging text which engages with an important and neglected topic in the history of philosophy, namely natality and its links with an ontology of becoming. Focusing on biological reproduction as well as the treatment of women in Kierkegaard's texts, it develops further and deepens the arguments of Assiter's Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory (2009). -- Christine Battersby, Reader Emerita in Philosophy, Univeristy of WarwickA startling and original book. Assiter's profound engagement with Kierkegaard's ontology results in a compelling ecological and feminist reinterpretation of his work. This is required reading for those wishing to move beyond the clichés of Kierkegaard's heroic individualism. -- Steven Shakespeare, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Liverpool Hope University.The best of this book comes when the philosophy spills over into other areas: the tangle between ecology, ontology and feminism; the bold repurposing of 21st-century realisms; the ethical rejection of a metaphysics of chaos; the whiff of a link between the fiercely religious Kierkegaard and a new vision of the political. Although these sections are all too short, it is here that Assiter’s book is fearless and arresting. Here, she offers a challenge to philosophy’s tendency to recycle old readings and preoccupations, and a timely reminder that philosophy may once again have something to say about the world. * Times Higher Education *Alison Assiter’s fine monograph is one of several recent attempts in the philosophical literature to challenge contemporary orthodoxy and to revive a picture of nature according to which purposive behaviour belongs to things themselves … Assiter is to be applauded for daring to talk seriously about ‘Being-with-a-capital-B’. She poses a challenge to those whose (scientistic) faith forbids such a move, and exposes the shortcomings of ‘arguments’ which purport to show that reality is, at its deepest core, contingent or chaotic … [She] leaves the reader with a wealth of fascinating questions. * Philosophy *[A] book that itself marks a rupture with the orthodoxy of existing Kierkegaard studies, drawing out its resonances for contemporary feminisms and new materialisms, and giving birth to the possibility of a new Kierkegaard, born from a contemporary yearning. * Radical Philosophy *Table of ContentsAbbreviations / Introduction / 1. Contingent and Chaotic Reality / 2. A Challenge to Chaos / 3. Kant, Freedom and Evil / 4. Kierkegaard and Schelling on Process / 5. The Concept of Anxiety and Kant / 6. Kierkegaard on Women / 7. Metaphors of Birth in Kierkegaard / 8. More on Birthing / 9. Nature as a Body that can Birth / 10. The Age of Revolution and the Present Age / Conclusion / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisThere has been a recent revival of interest in reading Kierkegaard as an ontologist, as a thinker who engages with questions about the kinds of entity or process that constitute ultimate reality. This new way of reading Kierkegaard stands alongside a revival of interest in ontology and metaphysics more generally. This highly original book concentrates on the claim that Kierkegaard focuses in part on ontological questions and on issues pertaining to the nature of being as a whole. Alison Assiter asserts that Being, for Kierkegaard, following Schelling, can be read in terms of conceptions of birthing—the capacity to give birth as well as the notion of a birthing body. She goes on to argue that the story offered by Kierkegaard in The Concept of Anxiety about the origin of freedom connects with a birthing body, and that Kierkegaard offers a speculative hypothesis, in terms of metaphors of birthing, about the nature of Being.Trade ReviewIn a brilliant, richly contextualized ‘speculative’ naturalist (re-)reading of Kierkegaard, Alison Assiter makes out a powerful case that – as Indigenous peoples have known from time immemorial and most other moderns have all but forgotten – nature is our mother, and evil is most fundamentally losing sight of this. Kierkegaard, Eve and Metaphors of Birth is philosophy at its best, addressing the really big issues of our time. -- Mervyn Hartwig, Journal of Critical RealismKierkegaard, Eve and Metaphors of Birth is a passionately written and challenging text which engages with an important & neglected topic in the history of philosophy, namely natality and its links with an ontology of becoming. Focusing on biological reproduction as well as the treatment of women in Kierkegaard's texts, it develops further and deepens the arguments of Assiter's Kierkegaard, Metaphysics and Political Theory (2009). -- Christine Battersby, Reader Emerita in Philosophy, Univeristy of WarwickA startling and original book. Assiter's profound engagement with Kierkegaard's ontology results in a compelling ecological and feminist reinterpretation of his work. This is required reading for those wishing to move beyond the clichés of Kierkegaard's heroic individualism. -- Steven Shakespeare, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Liverpool Hope University.The best of this book comes when the philosophy spills over into other areas: the tangle between ecology, ontology and feminism; the bold repurposing of 21st-century realisms; the ethical rejection of a metaphysics of chaos; the whiff of a link between the fiercely religious Kierkegaard and a new vision of the political. Although these sections are all too short, it is here that Assiter’s book is fearless and arresting. Here, she offers a challenge to philosophy’s tendency to recycle old readings and preoccupations, and a timely reminder that philosophy may once again have something to say about the world. * Times Higher Education *Alison Assiter’s fine monograph is one of several recent attempts in the philosophical literature to challenge contemporary orthodoxy and to revive a picture of nature according to which purposive behaviour belongs to things themselves … Assiter is to be applauded for daring to talk seriously about ‘Being-with-a-capital-B’. She poses a challenge to those whose (scientistic) faith forbids such a move, and exposes the shortcomings of ‘arguments’ which purport to show that reality is, at its deepest core, contingent or chaotic … [She] leaves the reader with a wealth of fascinating questions. * Philosophy *[A] book that itself marks a rupture with the orthodoxy of existing Kierkegaard studies, drawing out its resonances for contemporary feminisms and new materialisms, and giving birth to the possibility of a new Kierkegaard, born from a contemporary yearning. * Radical Philosophy *Table of ContentsAbbreviations / Introduction / 1. Contingent and Chaotic Reality / 2. A Challenge to Chaos / 3. Kant, Freedom and Evil / 4. Kierkegaard and Schelling on Process / 5. The Concept of Anxiety and Kant / 6. Kierkegaard on Women / 7. Metaphors of Birth in Kierkegaard / 8. More on Birthing / 9. Nature as a Body that can Birth / 10. The Age of Revolution and the Present Age / Conclusion / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisMoney facilitates the rites and rituals we perform in everyday life. More than a mere medium of exchange or a measure of value, it is the primary means by which we manifest a faith unique to our secular age. But what happens when individual belief (credo, ‘I’ believe) and the systems into which it is bound (credit, ‘it’ believes) enter into crisis? Where did the sacredness of money come from, and does it have a future? Why do we talk about debt and repayment in overtly moral terms? How should a theological critique of capitalism proceed today? With the effects of the 2008 economic crises continuing to be felt across the world, this volume brings together some of the most important contemporary voices in philosophy, literature, theology, and critical and cultural theory together in one volume to assert the need to interrogate and broaden the terms of the theological critique of capitalism.Trade ReviewCredo Credit Crisis provides a timely reminder that concepts such as debt, credit, interest, speculation and money are never just strictly economic phenomenon but abound in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. This brilliant volume shows how the dimension of religion is indispensable to understand as well to overcome our current economic crisis. -- Ole Bjerg, Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business SchoolCredo Credit Crisis is an important intervention in the wake of the 2008 global recession. We desperately need a better understanding of the deep connections between money and faith, or religion and political economy. The editors have assembled an excellent group of contributors to tackle this urgent topic — highly recommended! -- Clayton Crockett, Professor and Director of Religious Studies, University of Central ArkansasMining this rich semantic seam, these essays offer profound insights into the fiduciary logics that drive - and sometimes disrupt - the movements of money and markets. The authors bring the humanities’ best traditions of speculative thought into contact with speculative times past, present, and future, reimagining political economy through bold experiments in politico-economic theology. -- Paul Crosthwaite, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of EdinburghTable of ContentsIntroduction ,Christopher John Müller and Aidan Tynan / Part I: Modernity and the Trajectories of Sovereignty / 1. Towards a Concept of Seignorial Power, Joseph Vogl / 2. Hobbes, Sovereign Power and Money, Peter Sedgwick / 3. Accelerator despite Itself: Credo, Crisis, Katechon, Arthur Bradley / Part II: The Living Soul of Money / 4. The Bank of England in Ruins: Photography, Money and the Law of Equivalence, Christopher John Müller and Ian Wiblin / 5. Seeing is Believing: A visual history of the end of the gold standard, Nicky Marsh / 6. ‘Universal Shylockery: Money and Morality in The Merchant of Venice’ , Simon Critchley and Tom McCarthy / 7. ‘We are All Prostitutes’: Crisis and Libidinal Economy, Benjamin Noys / 8. The Materiality of Belief: On the Real Death of Mammon, Hollis Phelps / Part III: Speculation and Critique / 9. Impotent Signs: Money, Speculative Subjectivity, and the Ontological Proof, Aidan Tynan / 10. Speculation upon Speculation; or, a Contribution to the Critique of Philosophical Economy, Josh Robinson / 11. Believing in Deconstruction, Laurent Milesi / Section IV: Future Revelations / 12. Credit and Investment: A Matter of Faith, Philip Goodchild / 13. How Do We Know We Have a Future?, Richard Dienst / Acknowledgments / Notes on Contributors / Index

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Book SynopsisMoney facilitates the rites and rituals we perform in everyday life. More than a mere medium of exchange or a measure of value, it is the primary means by which we manifest a faith unique to our secular age. But what happens when individual belief (credo, ‘I’ believe) and the systems into which it is bound (credit, ‘it’ believes) enter into crisis? Where did the sacredness of money come from, and does it have a future? Why do we talk about debt and repayment in overtly moral terms? How should a theological critique of capitalism proceed today? With the effects of the 2008 economic crises continuing to be felt across the world, this volume brings together some of the most important contemporary voices in philosophy, literature, theology, and critical and cultural theory together in one volume to assert the need to interrogate and broaden the terms of the theological critique of capitalism.Trade ReviewCredo Credit Crisis provides a timely reminder that concepts such as debt, credit, interest, speculation and money are never just strictly economic phenomenon but abound in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. This brilliant volume shows how the dimension of religion is indispensable to understand as well to overcome our current economic crisis. -- Ole Bjerg, Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business SchoolCredo Credit Crisis is an important intervention in the wake of the 2008 global recession. We desperately need a better understanding of the deep connections between money and faith, or religion and political economy. The editors have assembled an excellent group of contributors to tackle this urgent topic — highly recommended! -- Clayton Crockett, Professor and Director of Religious Studies, University of Central ArkansasMining this rich semantic seam, these essays offer profound insights into the fiduciary logics that drive - and sometimes disrupt - the movements of money and markets. The authors bring the humanities’ best traditions of speculative thought into contact with speculative times past, present, and future, reimagining political economy through bold experiments in politico-economic theology. -- Paul Crosthwaite, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, University of EdinburghTable of ContentsIntroduction ,Christopher John Müller and Aidan Tynan / Part I: Modernity and the Trajectories of Sovereignty / 1. Towards a Concept of Seignorial Power, Joseph Vogl / 2. Hobbes, Sovereign Power and Money, Peter Sedgwick / 3. Accelerator despite Itself: Credo, Crisis, Katechon, Arthur Bradley / Part II: The Living Soul of Money / 4. The Bank of England in Ruins: Photography, Money and the Law of Equivalence, Christopher John Müller and Ian Wiblin / 5. Seeing is Believing: A visual history of the end of the gold standard, Nicky Marsh / 6. ‘Universal Shylockery: Money and Morality in The Merchant of Venice’ , Simon Critchley and Tom McCarthy / 7. ‘We are All Prostitutes’: Crisis and Libidinal Economy, Benjamin Noys / 8. The Materiality of Belief: On the Real Death of Mammon, Hollis Phelps / Part III: Speculation and Critique / 9. Impotent Signs: Money, Speculative Subjectivity, and the Ontological Proof, Aidan Tynan / 10. Speculation upon Speculation; or, a Contribution to the Critique of Philosophical Economy, Josh Robinson / 11. Believing in Deconstruction, Laurent Milesi / Section IV: Future Revelations / 12. Credit and Investment: A Matter of Faith, Philip Goodchild / 13. How Do We Know We Have a Future?, Richard Dienst / Acknowledgments / Notes on Contributors / Index

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Book SynopsisOne of the many challenges for readers of Agamben’s sprawling and heterogeneous body of work is what to make of his increasingly insistent focus on theology. Agamben’s Coming Philosophy brings together Colby Dickinson, the author of Agamben and Theology, and Adam Kotsko, the translator of several of Agamben’s more recent theologically-oriented books, to discuss Agamben’s unique approach to theology—and its profound implications for understanding Agamben’s philosophical project and the deepest political and ethical problems of our time. The book covers the whole range of Agamben’s work, from his earliest reflections to his forthcoming magnum opus, The Use of Bodies. Along the way, the authors provide an overview of Agamben’s project as a whole, as well as incisive reflections on individual works and isolated themes. This volume is essential reading for anyone grappling with Agamben’s work. The theological starting point leads to a thorough examination of Agamben’s methodology, his relationship with his primary sources (most notably Walter Benjamin), and his relevance for questions of politics, ethics, and philosophy.Trade ReviewIt is only through [the] theological dimension that we can discern the radical emancipatory project which sustains Agamben’s work. For this reason, Dickinson’s and Kotsko’s book is indispensable for everyone who wants not only to understand where we are today, but also to discern the possibilities for breaking out of our impasses. In short, their book is simply a book for everyone – for everyone who is ready to think. -- Slavoj ŽižekI read Colby Dickinson and Adam Kotsko’s unprecedented book as a masterly constructed musical fugue, in which two different voices dialogue and alternate, not only throwing an entirely new light on my work, but also exploring in their adagios and crescendos a new possible use for both philosophy and theology. -- Giorgio AgambenTable of ContentsAcknowledgments / Abbreviations / Introduction, Adam Kotsko and Colby Dickinson / / Part I: Agamben as a Reader of Benjamin / 1. On the ‘Coming Philosophy’, Colby Dickinson / 2. Reading the ‘Critique of Violence’, Adam Kotsko / 3. Gestures of Text and Violence, Colby Dickinson / 4. Citing ‘Whatever’ Authority, Colby Dickinson / Part II: Futures of Political Theology / 5. Immanence as Revelation, Colby Dickinson / 6. Agamben’s Messianic Nihilism, Colby Dickinson / 7. The Divisions of Sovereignty, Colby Dickinson / 8. Perhaps Psychoanalysis?, Adam Kotsko / Part III: Methods, Economies, Theologies / 9. Genealogy and Political Theology, Adam Kotsko / 10. The ‘Absence’ of Gender, Colby Dickinson / 11. The Theology of Neoliberalism, Adam Kotsko / 12. Cur Deus Homo Sacer?, Colby Dickinson / 13. Paul and the Jewish Alternative, Adam Kotsko / 14. What is to be Done? The Endgame of the Homo Sacer Series, Adam Kotsko / 15. Conclusion: Finding a New Use for Theology, Colby Dickinson and Adam Kotsko / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisOne of the many challenges for readers of Agamben’s sprawling and heterogeneous body of work is what to make of his increasingly insistent focus on theology. Agamben’s Coming Philosophy brings together Colby Dickinson, the author of Agamben and Theology, and Adam Kotsko, the translator of several of Agamben’s more recent theologically-oriented books, to discuss Agamben’s unique approach to theology—and its profound implications for understanding Agamben’s philosophical project and the deepest political and ethical problems of our time. The book covers the whole range of Agamben’s work, from his earliest reflections to his forthcoming magnum opus, The Use of Bodies. Along the way, the authors provide an overview of Agamben’s project as a whole, as well as incisive reflections on individual works and isolated themes. This volume is essential reading for anyone grappling with Agamben’s work. The theological starting point leads to a thorough examination of Agamben’s methodology, his relationship with his primary sources (most notably Walter Benjamin), and his relevance for questions of politics, ethics, and philosophy.Trade ReviewIt is only through [the] theological dimension that we can discern the radical emancipatory project which sustains Agamben’s work. For this reason, Dickinson’s and Kotsko’s book is indispensable for everyone who wants not only to understand where we are today, but also to discern the possibilities for breaking out of our impasses. In short, their book is simply a book for everyone – for everyone who is ready to think. -- Slavoj ŽižekI read Colby Dickinson and Adam Kotsko’s unprecedented book as a masterly constructed musical fugue, in which two different voices dialogue and alternate, not only throwing an entirely new light on my work, but also exploring in their adagios and crescendos a new possible use for both philosophy and theology. -- Giorgio AgambenTable of ContentsAcknowledgments / Abbreviations / Introduction, Adam Kotsko and Colby Dickinson / / Part I: Agamben as a Reader of Benjamin / 1. On the ‘Coming Philosophy’, Colby Dickinson / 2. Reading the ‘Critique of Violence’, Adam Kotsko / 3. Gestures of Text and Violence, Colby Dickinson / 4. Citing ‘Whatever’ Authority, Colby Dickinson / Part II: Futures of Political Theology / 5. Immanence as Revelation, Colby Dickinson / 6. Agamben’s Messianic Nihilism, Colby Dickinson / 7. The Divisions of Sovereignty, Colby Dickinson / 8. Perhaps Psychoanalysis?, Adam Kotsko / Part III: Methods, Economies, Theologies / 9. Genealogy and Political Theology, Adam Kotsko / 10. The ‘Absence’ of Gender, Colby Dickinson / 11. The Theology of Neoliberalism, Adam Kotsko / 12. Cur Deus Homo Sacer?, Colby Dickinson / 13. Paul and the Jewish Alternative, Adam Kotsko / 14. What is to be Done? The Endgame of the Homo Sacer Series, Adam Kotsko / 15. Conclusion: Finding a New Use for Theology, Colby Dickinson and Adam Kotsko / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisSince the 2008 financial crisis, the neoliberal ideas that arguably caused the damage have been triumphant in presenting themselves as the only possible solution for it. How can we account for the persistence of neoliberal hegemony, in spite of its obviously disastrous effects upon labor, capital, ecology, and society? The argument pursued in this book is that part of the persistence of neoliberalism has to do with the archaic and obscure political theology upon which of much of its discourse trades. This is a political theology of chance that both underwrites and obscures sacrificial devotion to market outcomes. Joshua Ramey structures this political theology around hidden homologies between modern markets, as non-rational randomizing ‘meta-information processors’, and archaic divination tools, which are used in public acts of tradition-bound attempts to interpret the deliverances of chance. Ramey argues that only by recognizing the persistently sacred character of chance within putatively secularized discourses of risk and randomness can the investments of neoliberal power be exposed at their sacred source, and an alternative political theology be constructed.Trade ReviewRamey is an authority on the relations between philosophy and the hermetic traditions. Hermeticists devised techniques of divination in response to a world pervaded by chance and risk, and Ramey, in this compelling and fascinating book, makes the argument that neoliberalism resorts to analogous techniques in its quest to understand an economic world shot-through with contingency and undecidability. -- Kenneth Surin, Professor of Literature and Professor of Religion and Critical Theory, Duke UniversityIn this very contemporary book, Ramey offers a twist on the classic dialectic of enlightenment: markets are divination tools, ways of dealing with contingency, chance and uncertainty. Yet, with disastrous effects, they restrict the outcome of chance to profit and loss. Ramey offers a highly original critique of neoliberalism, and an impassioned plea to recover a politics beyond individualism. -- Philip Goodchild, Professor of Religion and Philosophy, University of NottinghamJoshua Ramey breaks new ground with this account of how our current mania of financial speculation relates to the ways that human beings have long sought to interrogate the uncertain future, and to deal with chance and change. Politics of Divination takes a long view of human potentiality, and suggests how we might escape from the nightmare of what he calls our "neoliberal endgame". -- Steven Shaviro, Wayne State UniversityPolitics of Divination clearly does not aspire to be a definitive treatise, but rather to open up a new and unforeseen path for research. … Overall it is undeniably successful in its core aims. Ramey has discovered a research project that could be a genuine life’s work. We should all hope that he is able to continue down the path he has traced out here. * Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy *Table of ContentsPreface / 1. Introduction: Within the Endgame / 2. We Have Always Been Giants / 3. Divining Neoliberal Order / 4. Random Chance Providential / 5. Risking Derivatives Politics / 6. Decolonizing Divination / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisSince the 2008 financial crisis, the neoliberal ideas that arguably caused the damage have been triumphant in presenting themselves as the only possible solution for it. How can we account for the persistence of neoliberal hegemony, in spite of its obviously disastrous effects upon labor, capital, ecology, and society? The argument pursued in this book is that part of the persistence of neoliberalism has to do with the archaic and obscure political theology upon which of much of its discourse trades. This is a political theology of chance that both underwrites and obscures sacrificial devotion to market outcomes. Joshua Ramey structures this political theology around hidden homologies between modern markets, as non-rational randomizing ‘meta-information processors’, and archaic divination tools, which are used in public acts of tradition-bound attempts to interpret the deliverances of chance. Ramey argues that only by recognizing the persistently sacred character of chance within putatively secularized discourses of risk and randomness can the investments of neoliberal power be exposed at their sacred source, and an alternative political theology be constructed.Trade ReviewRamey is an authority on the relations between philosophy and the hermetic traditions. Hermeticists devised techniques of divination in response to a world pervaded by chance and risk, and Ramey, in this compelling and fascinating book, makes the argument that neoliberalism resorts to analogous techniques in its quest to understand an economic world shot-through with contingency and undecidability. -- Kenneth Surin, Professor of Literature and Professor of Religion and Critical Theory, Duke UniversityIn this very contemporary book, Ramey offers a twist on the classic dialectic of enlightenment: markets are divination tools, ways of dealing with contingency, chance and uncertainty. Yet, with disastrous effects, they restrict the outcome of chance to profit and loss. Ramey offers a highly original critique of neoliberalism, and an impassioned plea to recover a politics beyond individualism. -- Philip Goodchild, Professor of Religion and Philosophy, University of NottinghamJoshua Ramey breaks new ground with this account of how our current mania of financial speculation relates to the ways that human beings have long sought to interrogate the uncertain future, and to deal with chance and change. Politics of Divination takes a long view of human potentiality, and suggests how we might escape from the nightmare of what he calls our "neoliberal endgame". -- Steven Shaviro, Wayne State UniversityPolitics of Divination clearly does not aspire to be a definitive treatise, but rather to open up a new and unforeseen path for research. … Overall it is undeniably successful in its core aims. Ramey has discovered a research project that could be a genuine life’s work. We should all hope that he is able to continue down the path he has traced out here. * Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy *Table of ContentsPreface / 1. Introduction: Within the Endgame / 2. We Have Always Been Giants / 3. Divining Neoliberal Order / 4. Random Chance Providential / 5. Risking Derivatives Politics / 6. Decolonizing Divination / Bibliography / Index

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Book SynopsisA provocative history of race, empire and myth, told through the stories of men who have been worshipped as gods - from Columbus to Prince Philip Spanning the globe and five centuries, Accidental Gods introduces us to a new pantheon: of man-gods, deified politicians and imperialists, militants, mystics and explorers. From the conquistadors setting foot in the New World to Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, elevated by a National Geographic article from emperor to messiah for the Rastafari faith, to the unlikely officers hailed as gods during the British Raj, this endlessly curious and revelatory account chronicles an impulse towards deification that persists even in a secular age, as show of defiance or assertion of power. In her bravura final part, Subin traces the colonial desire for divinity through to the creation of 'race' and the white power movement today, and argues that it is time we rid ourselves of the white gods among us.Trade ReviewOften colourful and bizarre, Accidental Gods opens new perspectives, shines light on overlooked corners of our global history, and conveys its powerful messages at first quietly, in subtext, and then more and more explicitly... Always enlightening and engrossing -- Lydia Davis, author of Essays One and TwoRich, witty, acerbic and often astonishing, Accidental Gods reveals how terror and divinity are intertwined - in the colonial enterprise, in present-day strong leader cults and nationalist statecraft. A highly original, revelatory study, entertaining and sobering at once as it identifies a persistent danger: the mythopolitics that fails to distinguish between men and gods. -- Dame Marina Warner, author of Stranger Magic and Fellow of All Souls', OxfordAccidental Gods relates, with tremendous intellectual ingenuity and resourcefulness, a new history of the modern world: how the quest for divine sanction and spiritual transcendence remain at the center of our ostensibly rational and secular political and economic struggles. -- Pankaj MishraWhy do some people become gods? This is the question that Subin asks in an impressive study that travels from the Caribbean to the British Raj and back to the New World. This is no summary analysis, but rather a provocative and innovative study of imperialism, race, and decolonisation. -- Ruth HarrisA bravura performance... a searching study of the relation between the political and the divine written with great panache. Subin returns us to fundamental questions about human beings, their capacity for tyranny and violence, and their desire for transcendence... A book to relish and to argue with, and a writer to watch. -- Alison Light, author of Mrs Woolf and the ServantsThe best new non-fiction book I read this year... A stylish, playfully rigorous intellectual performance worthy of Marina Warner or Roberto Calasso -- Mark O'Connell, Books of the year * Irish Times *Anna Della Subin has lit upon a startling strand in the history of the sacred... The book's strength lies in the sensitivity of her analysis, which homes in on the inter-relations of power and powerlessness, colonialism and nationalism: worship as a response to terror, and a desire to propitiate -- Books of the year * TLS *Phenomenal - erudite, provocative, scandalous, and comic and tragic by turns * Sunday Times *A fascinating slice of history * The Times *Accidental Gods is a playful, ironic and ambiguous book about religion, at a time when religion - outside of Dealey Plaza - has grown as solemn as an owl ... [it] leaves us hankering, like QAnon's unlovely faithful, for a wider, wilder pantheon * Telegraph *A fascinating tour through the endless diversity of the divine... * Spectator *Engaging * The Times *A beautifully written, subtly crafted history... [An] inspiring book * TLS *Fascinating... thoughtful and subtle * The Irish Times *A subversive history * Guardian *Remarkable... exceptional... -- James Hamilton-Paterson * Literary Review *[Subin writes] with a poise and lucidity that allow full play to the comic aspects of her subject, while considering the frequently disastrous consequences... -- Rosemary Hill * London Review of Books *Inventive... Subinexpertly brings out the nuance and ambivalence of deification -- Lola Seaton * New Statesman *So eloquently portrayed... With her sense of the uncanny, the ironic, the profane and the weird, Subin is a charming guide... What Subin helps us to see is that at the very core of modernity lies the white god, sweating in his pith helmet -- James Robins * New Humanist *

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Book Synopsis"Textuality, Culture, and Scripture", a study of the necessary and close relations between the three concepts, describes the prominent role of texts and textuality in Western modernity and the exchange of textual for material understandings of culture that becomes apparent in the middle of the twentieth century. Taking its starting point in the turn or return in cultural studies to textuality, the argument addresses the necessary role of texts and textuality in cultural, group, and personal identities. Central to the argument is the thesis that “scripture,” rather than an occasional or optional textual category, should be seen as playing a necessary role in an adequate textual theory.Trade Review“Textuality, Culture, and Scripture integrates and extends Wesley Kort’s scholarly project of formulating a program in the literary study of religion that is at once resonant with and critical of late modernity. On display per usual are Kort’s special combination of theoretical sophistication and close textual reading, in the service here of what is his most impressive statement to date of the innate multivalence of the idea of the ‘text’ and the consequent intersectionality of ‘the sacred’ and ‘the secular.’” —Richard A. Rosengarten, Associate Professor of Religion and Literature, University of Chicago Divinity School, USATable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The Rise of a Materialist Culture; 2. Culture and Textuality; 3. “Scripture” as a Necessary Category in an Adequate Textual Theory; 4. “Scripture” and the Bible; 5. Reading the Bible as “Scripture”; Conclusion; Index.

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Book Synopsis"Religion, Supernaturalism, the Paranormal, and Pseudoscience" provides a comprehensive rejoinder to the challenges posed to science, scientific anthropology, evolutionary theory and rationality by the advocates of supernatural, paranormal, and pseudoscientific perspectives and modes of thought associated with the current rise of irrationalism, antiintellectualism, and emboldened religious fundamentalism and violence. Drawing upon H. Sidky’s scientific anthropological background and ethnographic field research of supernatural and paranormal beliefs and practices in several cultures over three decades, the book answers several important questions: Why do humans have a proclivity for the supernatural and paranormal thinking? Why has humanity remained shackled to sets of ideas inherited from a violent past that have no basis in reality and which bestow an illusionary solace, promote bloodshed, endless cruelties and fervent hatreds, and have come at a high cost? Why have ancient superstitions been held as sacred, inviolate truths while other aspects of the archaic belief systems of which they were a part have long been discarded? Why have not humans outgrown religion and paranormal beliefs?Trade Review“I highly recommend this book for its excellent psychological and sociological analysis of virtually the entire range of supernatural and paranormal beliefs that continue to have a profound and deleterious influence in the modern world.” —James Alcock, Professor of Psychology, York University, Canada, and Author of Belief: What It Means to Believe and Why Our Convictions Are So Compelling“The book is valuable and timely, not just as a rebuke to irrational thinking and bad arguments, but as an antidote to ideologies that justify violence by appeal to dogma and supernatural fantasies.” —Keith M. Parsons, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, University of Houston-Clear Lake, USA“In this trenchant critique, Homayun Sidky treats traditional world religions on par with all other forms of supernatural nonsense and pseudoscience. And Sidky provides an excellent demolition job. It is time that we recognize that there is no such thing as religion as opposed to superstition. There is only ‘my superstition’ versus ‘your superstition.’” —Maarten Boudry, Etienne Vermeersch Chair, and Postdoctoral Fellow, Flemish Fund for Scientific Research, Ghent University, BelgiumTable of ContentsAcknowledgements; Introduction; 1. The Problem with Religion: Preliminary Issues; 2. The Unreal Real: The Supernatural, Religion and the Paranormal; 3. Can Science Say Anything about Religion and the Supernatural?; 4. Ghostly Rappings, the Science of the Soul and the Religious Nature of the Paranormal; 5. Ghostly Encounters in the Field: Anthropology of the Paranormal or Paranormal Anthropology?; 6. Why People Think the World Is Haunted; 7. Cognitive Biases and Why People Think Eerie Thoughts; 8. Miracles as Evidence of God’s Actions in the World; 9. When God Talks to People: Religious Experiences as Evidence of the Supernatural; 10. Books Authored by God? Sacred Texts as Evidence of the Supernatural; 11. God’s Fingerprints in the Natural World: Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity and Cosmic Fine-Tuning; 12.The Miracles of the Bible: Quintessential Sources for Paranormal Phenomena in Western Culture; 13. Jesus the Miracle Worker, Magician and Sorcerer; 14. Jesus’s Empty Tomb, the Missing Body, and His Return from the Dead: Sources for the Tale; 15. The Post-Resurrection Appearances in the New Testament; 16. Coping with Failed Prophesy: A Socio-Psychological Explanation for the Rise of Christianity; 17. Conclusions: Why Religious and Paranormal Beliefs Persist and Their Dangers; References; Index.

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Book Synopsis"Textuality, Culture, and Scripture", a study of the necessary and close relations between the three concepts, describes the prominent role of texts and textuality in Western modernity and the exchange of textual for material understandings of culture that becomes apparent in the middle of the twentieth century. Taking its starting point in the turn or return in cultural studies to textuality, the argument addresses the necessary role of texts and textuality in cultural, group, and personal identities. Central to the argument is the thesis that “scripture,” rather than an occasional or optional textual category, should be seen as playing a necessary role in an adequate textual theory.Trade Review“Textuality, Culture, and Scripture integrates and extends Wesley Kort’s scholarly project of formulating a program in the literary study of religion that is at once resonant with and critical of late modernity. On display per usual are Kort’s special combination of theoretical sophistication and close textual reading, in the service here of what is his most impressive statement to date of the innate multivalence of the idea of the ‘text’ and the consequent intersectionality of ‘the sacred’ and ‘the secular.’” —Richard A. Rosengarten, Associate Professor of Religion and Literature, University of Chicago Divinity School, USATable of ContentsIntroduction; 1. The Rise of a Materialist Culture; 2. Culture and Textuality; 3. “Scripture” as a Necessary Category in an Adequate Textual Theory; 4. “Scripture” and the Bible; 5. Reading the Bible as “Scripture”; Conclusion; Index.

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Book SynopsisTodos los libros son un viaje, y al comienzo de cualquier viaje se necesita una cantidad minima y necesaria de bagaje e informacion para poder emprenderlo con confianza hacia la direccion correcta. En este caso, esa minima informacion consiste en dos elementos en particular. El primero es que he sido periodista de temas cientificos durante mas de 30 anos, y he disfrutado inmensamente al tratar de desenredar teorias cientificas que son dificiles y a menudo complicadas e inextricables, y al intentar no solo explicarlas sino ademas volverlas interesantes, accesibles y entretenidas incluso para un publico mas amplio. El segundo es que durante los ultimos 20 anos o mas he sido practicante del budismo Nichiren, y he tratado de llevar a la practica una serie de valores y principios que han enriquecido mi vida y, estoy seguro, las vidas de las personas que me rodean, en todos los aspectos.Todo lo que sigue en este libro fluye desde estas dos piezas de bagaje. Sin embargo, y para ser sincero, creo que esta informacion no es suficiente para permitir que fluyamos comodamente hacia adelante. 'Por que lo digo? Porque el hecho es que tan pronto se menciona la palabra budismo eso da pie a mas preguntas que respuestas. Quizas en parte por mis antecedentes como periodista arduo y riguroso, a menudo las personas me preguntan: 'Un practicante del budismo? 'Que quiere decir exactamente eso? Lo que quiere decir exactamente es lo que se explica en este libro.

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Book SynopsisSimone Weil is an often-overlooked thinker whose insights could radically reshape contemporary discourses on religion, nature, art, ethics, work, politics, and education. This collection of essays situates Simone Weil’s thought alongside prominent Continental thinkers and their philosophical concerns to show the ways in which she belongs to—but also stands outside—some of the major streams of 'Continental discourse', including phenomenology, ethics of embodied disposition and difference, and post-Marxian political thought. For the first time in a major work, intersections between the ideas of Weil and figures such as Nietzsche, Berdyaev, Foucault, Blanchot, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Chrétien, Agamben, Fanon, and Rancière are closely examined. The volume is authored by an international team of leading scholars in Weil studies and in contemporary Continental philosophy of religion more broadly. Simone Weil and Continental Philosophy is not only an unprecedented resource for Weil scholars who seek to read her in broader (and more current) philosophical terms, but also an important addition to the libraries of scholars and students of Continental philosophy and theology engaged in thinking about some of the most pressing questions of our time.Trade ReviewRozelle-Stone (Univ. of North Dakota) set out to address a gap in the scholarship regarding Simone Weil (1909–43), and she succeeds admirably. The work of both well-known scholars and rising stars, the 12 essays in this remarkable volume consider Weil’s thought alongside Continental philosophy. Readers will appreciate the ways in which Weil is put in conversation with some of the 20th-century’s key thinkers—Blanchot, Agamben, Merlau-Ponty, et al. Interest in Weil’s thought has increased in recent years, and this volume will be warmly welcomed not only by Weil scholars but also by those interested in Continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, political theory, ethics, and religious studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *For the first time in English, here is a commentary which, like Maurice Blanchot’s, refuses the consolation of hagiography and reads Weil as she read her contemporaries: with the unforgiving ‘indifference to ideas’ which is the true sign of fidelity. -- Simone Kotva, Research Fellow and Affiliated Lecturer, University of CambridgeThis volume does much more than place Weil in conversation with prominent ‘continental philosophers’. Thanks to Rozelle-Stone’s superb framing of the task, each author offers a timely intervention that tests the limits and possibilities of Weil’s complex thought. Students of Weil will certainly benefit, but so will (future) students of philosophy wherever their starting point. -- Ian Clausen, Arthur J. Ennis Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, Villanova UniversityRozelle-Stone is a gifted Weil scholar who has put together a beautiful collection of essays linking Simone Weil to several generations of continental philosophers. The volume’s contributors share a deep familiarity with thinkers and movements that belong in any serious conversation about Weil. They remedy a neglected area of scholarship and draw productive contrasts between Weil and her continental counterparts. -- Ann Pirruccello, Professor of Philosophy at The University of San DiegoTable of ContentsIntroduction: Attending to the Outlaw A. Rebecca Rozelle-Stone / Part I: Transcendental and Embodied Crossings / 1. Weil’s Boat: On Becoming and Being Philip Goodchild / 2.“Strangely Surprised”: Maurice Blanchot on Simone Weil Kevin Hart / 3. Decreation and the Creative Act: Simone Weil and Nikolai Berdyaev Lisa Radakovich Holsberg / 4. Recreating the Creature: Weil, Agamben, Animality & the Unsaveable Beatrice Marovich / Part II: Attentive Ethics / 5. Attention and Expression: Prescriptive and Descriptive Philosophy in Weil and Merleau-Ponty Kascha Semonovitch Snavely / 6. Levinas and Weil: Ethics after Auschwitz Robert Reed / 7. Compassion, Consolation, and the Sharing of Attention Stuart Jesson / 8: Simone Weil and the Problem of Fatigue A. Rebecca Rozelle-Stone / Part III: Emancipatory Politics / 9: Simone Weil’s Analysis of Oppression: From La Boétie to the Neoliberal Present Lissa McCullough / 10. The Training of the Soul: Simone Weil’s Dialectical Disciplinary Paradigm, a reading alongside Michel Foucault Scott B. Ritner / 11. “To love human beings in so far as they are nothing”: Deracination and Pessimism in Weil Anthony Paul Smith / 12. Weil and Rancière on Attention and Emancipation Sophie Bourgault

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Book SynopsisSimone Weil is an often-overlooked thinker whose insights could radically reshape contemporary discourses on religion, nature, art, ethics, work, politics, and education. This collection of essays situates Simone Weil’s thought alongside prominent Continental thinkers and their philosophical concerns to show the ways in which she belongs to—but also stands outside—some of the major streams of 'Continental discourse', including phenomenology, ethics of embodied disposition and difference, and post-Marxian political thought. For the first time in a major work, intersections between the ideas of Weil and figures such as Nietzsche, Berdyaev, Foucault, Blanchot, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, Chrétien, Agamben, Fanon, and Rancière are closely examined. The volume is authored by an international team of leading scholars in Weil studies and in contemporary Continental philosophy of religion more broadly. Simone Weil and Continental Philosophy is not only an unprecedented resource for Weil scholars who seek to read her in broader (and more current) philosophical terms, but also an important addition to the libraries of scholars and students of Continental philosophy and theology engaged in thinking about some of the most pressing questions of our time.Trade ReviewRozelle-Stone (Univ. of North Dakota) set out to address a gap in the scholarship regarding Simone Weil (1909–43), and she succeeds admirably. The work of both well-known scholars and rising stars, the 12 essays in this remarkable volume consider Weil’s thought alongside Continental philosophy. Readers will appreciate the ways in which Weil is put in conversation with some of the 20th-century’s key thinkers—Blanchot, Agamben, Merlau-Ponty, et al. Interest in Weil’s thought has increased in recent years, and this volume will be warmly welcomed not only by Weil scholars but also by those interested in Continental philosophy, philosophy of religion, political theory, ethics, and religious studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *For the first time in English, here is a commentary which, like Maurice Blanchot’s, refuses the consolation of hagiography and reads Weil as she read her contemporaries: with the unforgiving ‘indifference to ideas’ which is the true sign of fidelity. -- Simone Kotva, Research Fellow and Affiliated Lecturer, University of CambridgeThis volume does much more than place Weil in conversation with prominent ‘continental philosophers’. Thanks to Rozelle-Stone’s superb framing of the task, each author offers a timely intervention that tests the limits and possibilities of Weil’s complex thought. Students of Weil will certainly benefit, but so will (future) students of philosophy wherever their starting point. -- Ian Clausen, Arthur J. Ennis Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, Villanova UniversityThis volume does much more than place Weil in conversation with prominent ‘continental philosophers’. Thanks to Rozelle-Stone’s superb framing of the task, each author offers a timely intervention that tests the limits and possibilities of Weil’s complex thought. Students of Weil will certainly benefit, but so will (future) students of philosophy wherever their starting point. -- Ian Clausen, Arthur J. Ennis Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities, Villanova UniversityRozelle-Stone is a gifted Weil scholar who has put together a beautiful collection of essays linking Simone Weil to several generations of continental philosophers. The volume’s contributors share a deep familiarity with thinkers and movements that belong in any serious conversation about Weil. They remedy a neglected area of scholarship and draw productive contrasts between Weil and her continental counterparts. -- Ann Pirruccello, Professor of Philosophy at The University of San DiegoTable of ContentsIntroduction: Attending to the Outlaw A. Rebecca Rozelle-Stone / Part I: Transcendental and Embodied Crossings / 1. Weil’s Boat: On Becoming and Being Philip Goodchild / 2.“Strangely Surprised”: Maurice Blanchot on Simone Weil Kevin Hart / 3. Decreation and the Creative Act: Simone Weil and Nikolai Berdyaev Lisa Radakovich Holsberg / 4. Recreating the Creature: Weil, Agamben, Animality & the Unsaveable Beatrice Marovich / Part II: Attentive Ethics / 5. Attention and Expression: Prescriptive and Descriptive Philosophy in Weil and Merleau-Ponty Kascha Semonovitch Snavely / 6. Levinas and Weil: Ethics after Auschwitz Robert Reed / 7. Compassion, Consolation, and the Sharing of Attention Stuart Jesson / 8: Simone Weil and the Problem of Fatigue A. Rebecca Rozelle-Stone / Part III: Emancipatory Politics / 9: Simone Weil’s Analysis of Oppression: From La Boétie to the Neoliberal Present Lissa McCullough / 10. The Training of the Soul: Simone Weil’s Dialectical Disciplinary Paradigm, a reading alongside Michel Foucault Scott B. Ritner / 11. “To love human beings in so far as they are nothing”: Deracination and Pessimism in Weil Anthony Paul Smith / 12. Weil and Rancière on Attention and Emancipation Sophie Bourgault

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Book SynopsisMany in continental philosophy of religion aver that we are in a new moment, one where the intellectually marginalized and religiously bastardized traditions of mystical, intuitive, and esoteric apprehensions must be re-articulated and appreciated anew. In an era marked by catastrophic events and atrophied cultural institutions, what seems to be needed is an affirmation of the human potential to truck with non-human or even inhuman forces and intentions, at scales of speed, slowness, or intensity that break with consensual conceptions of human limitations. The essays in this volume outline patterns of mind and mortality, existence and ecstasy, creativity and expression, political possibility and religious matrix from a position that takes quite seriously possible relations with the absolute, however enigmatic, that modernity has denied and postmodernity has obscured in the name of academic skepticism and humanist reservations. Beyond post-modernist pastiche and post-secular nostalgia, these essays explore the potencies of archaic spiritual disciplines as well as the passions driving the mystical, heretical, and Gnostic intimations riddling contemporary relations with the absolute.Trade ReviewRamey and Harris have expertly orchestrated a colloquy of diversely placed voices in praise of “the enigmatic absolute.” The end result is certainly a “reframing” of continental philosophy of religion and so an offer of a reflective space within that academic niche that is less beholden to an anti-Enlightenment polemic. But even more basically, what readers get from this unusual gathering of avant-garde essayists is remarkably intelligent encouragement to explore neglected forms of reverence that have nevertheless retained their capacity to seed the stony soil of dogmatic skepticism and bear new fruit. -- James Wetzel, Professor of Philosophy and Augustinian Endowed Chair, Villanova UniversityDaring, provocative, experimental, and occasionally very strange, these essays gather the efforts of a new generation to think beyond the limits of modern reason. Speculation, heresy, gnosis . . . it can all be found here. -- Philip Goodchild, Professor of Religion and Philosophy, University of NottinghamContemplating enigma and chaos, amidst the nebulous rigours of the indeterminate and the animal, this collection offers the reader a brilliant adventure along the outer edges of thought—where mysticism and philosophy can’t keep their hands off each other. -- Catherine Keller, Drew University, Author of Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary EntanglementThought as theurgy. That is what this book is about: scholarship as collaboration with the Absolute that changes the Absolute. The claim is as outrageous as the possibilities are endless. Here, in these pages, the reader is treated to a broad array of thought experiments on everything from astute reflections on the contemporary doyens of Continental philosophy (Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, in particular), through acts of intellectual heresy and claims of academic gnosis, to the Salem witch trials, Sexmagic, the philosophy of pessimism and (perhaps my favorite) the mysticism of stupidity. To sum up this book is impossible. That’s the point. -- Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religion, Rice University, and author of The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of ReligionTable of ContentsIntroduction, Joshua Ramey and Matthew Haar Farris / Part I: Speculations (I): Futures of the Absolute / 1. First Reflections on the Idea of a Speculative Pragmatics Daniel Whistler / 2. Sorcery, Thought, and the ‘Ghosts of Departed Quantities Matt Lee / 3. Mark Mason & Michael O’Rourke, Meillassoux’s Messianicity Mark Mason & Michael O’Rourke / 4. A Broken Line: Lucretian Lineage in Logic of Sense” Jessie Hock / Part II Speculations (II): Visionary Conditions / 5. The Nebular Experience: Towards a Politics of Perception Juan Salzano / 6. Spectral Bodies of Evidence Erin Yerby / 7. The Inner Flesh: Michel Henry’s Mystic Phenomenology Erik Davis / 8. Some Admittedly Bold Interdisciplinary ‘Participatory Turn’ Hypotheses for Scholarly Collaboration with the Divine Matthew Haar Farris / 9. The gods are dead. Long live the gods. Kierkegaard, Chaos, and Hermes Steven Shakespeare Part III. Heresy: Experiments / 10. More Than Human Sam Webster / 11. Red, White, and Pig: On Sexmagic, Christ, & Chthonic America Clark Roth / 12. Genericity, Convexity: Instructions Rocco Gangle / 13. Life in the Absolute’: 20 Secular Philosophical Spiritual Exercises Jason Smick / 14., The Undulating Unknown Ná Khar Eliff-ce Part IV. Gnosis: Creatures of Saying and Unsaying / 15. Wishbone: Animals, Absolutes, and the Connective Distinction Beatrice Marovich / 16. Unpossessed Knowledge Daniel Colucciello Barber / 17. Humiliated in Language: On Taquiyya and Translation Anthony Paul Smith / 18. Freeing Immanence from the Grip of Philosophy: On Univocity and Experimentalism in Meister Eckhart Alex Dubilet / 19. / Cosmic Pessimism Eugene Thacker / 20. Absolute Secrecy: On the Infinity of Individuation Nicola Masciandaro Notes on Contributors

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Book SynopsisMany in continental philosophy of religion aver that we are in a new moment, one where the intellectually marginalized and religiously bastardized traditions of mystical, intuitive, and esoteric apprehensions must be re-articulated and appreciated anew. In an era marked by catastrophic events and atrophied cultural institutions, what seems to be needed is an affirmation of the human potential to truck with non-human or even inhuman forces and intentions, at scales of speed, slowness, or intensity that break with consensual conceptions of human limitations. The essays in this volume outline patterns of mind and mortality, existence and ecstasy, creativity and expression, political possibility and religious matrix from a position that takes quite seriously possible relations with the absolute, however enigmatic, that modernity has denied and postmodernity has obscured in the name of academic skepticism and humanist reservations. Beyond post-modernist pastiche and post-secular nostalgia, these essays explore the potencies of archaic spiritual disciplines as well as the passions driving the mystical, heretical, and Gnostic intimations riddling contemporary relations with the absolute.Trade ReviewRamey and Harris have expertly orchestrated a colloquy of diversely placed voices in praise of “the enigmatic absolute.” The end result is certainly a “reframing” of continental philosophy of religion and so an offer of a reflective space within that academic niche that is less beholden to an anti-Enlightenment polemic. But even more basically, what readers get from this unusual gathering of avant-garde essayists is remarkably intelligent encouragement to explore neglected forms of reverence that have nevertheless retained their capacity to seed the stony soil of dogmatic skepticism and bear new fruit. -- James Wetzel, Professor of Philosophy and Augustinian Endowed Chair, Villanova UniversityDaring, provocative, experimental, and occasionally very strange, these essays gather the efforts of a new generation to think beyond the limits of modern reason. Speculation, heresy, gnosis . . . it can all be found here. -- Philip Goodchild, Professor of Religion and Philosophy, University of NottinghamContemplating enigma and chaos, amidst the nebulous rigours of the indeterminate and the animal, this collection offers the reader a brilliant adventure along the outer edges of thought—where mysticism and philosophy can’t keep their hands off each other. -- Catherine Keller, Drew University, Author of Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary EntanglementThought as theurgy. That is what this book is about: scholarship as collaboration with the Absolute that changes the Absolute. The claim is as outrageous as the possibilities are endless. Here, in these pages, the reader is treated to a broad array of thought experiments on everything from astute reflections on the contemporary doyens of Continental philosophy (Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, in particular), through acts of intellectual heresy and claims of academic gnosis, to the Salem witch trials, Sexmagic, the philosophy of pessimism and (perhaps my favorite) the mysticism of stupidity. To sum up this book is impossible. That’s the point. -- Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Religion, Rice University, and author of The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of ReligionTable of ContentsIntroduction, Joshua Ramey and Matthew Haar Farris / Part I: Speculations (I): Futures of the Absolute / 1. First Reflections on the Idea of a Speculative Pragmatics Daniel Whistler / 2. Sorcery, Thought, and the ‘Ghosts of Departed Quantities Matt Lee / 3. Mark Mason & Michael O’Rourke, Meillassoux’s Messianicity Mark Mason & Michael O’Rourke / 4. A Broken Line: Lucretian Lineage in Logic of Sense” Jessie Hock / Part II Speculations (II): Visionary Conditions / 5. The Nebular Experience: Towards a Politics of Perception Juan Salzano / 6. Spectral Bodies of Evidence Erin Yerby / 7. The Inner Flesh: Michel Henry’s Mystic Phenomenology Erik Davis / 8. Some Admittedly Bold Interdisciplinary ‘Participatory Turn’ Hypotheses for Scholarly Collaboration with the Divine Matthew Haar Farris / 9. The gods are dead. Long live the gods. Kierkegaard, Chaos, and Hermes Steven Shakespeare Part III Heresy: Experiments / 10. More Than Human Sam Webster / 11. Red, White, and Pig: On Sexmagic, Christ, & Chthonic America Clark Roth / 12. Genericity, Convexity: Instructions Rocco Gangle / 13. Life in the Absolute’: 20 Secular Philosophical Spiritual Exercises Jason Smick / 14., The Undulating Unknown Ná Khar Eliff-ce Part IV Gnosis: Creatures of Saying and Unsaying / 15. Wishbone: Animals, Absolutes, and the Connective Distinction Beatrice Marovich / 16. Unpossessed Knowledge Daniel Colucciello Barber / 17. Humiliated in Language: On Taquiyya and Translation Anthony Paul Smith / 18. Freeing Immanence from the Grip of Philosophy: On Univocity and Experimentalism in Meister Eckhart Alex Dubilet / 19. / Cosmic Pessimism Eugene Thacker / 20. Absolute Secrecy: On the Infinity of Individuation Nicola Masciandaro Notes on Contributors

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