An impressive study that prompts the reader toward philosophical reflection on the hermeneutics of melancholy in its relation to maturing theological understanding and cultivation of a profound self-consciousness. Melancholy has been interpreted as a deadly sin or demonic temptation to non-being, yet its history of interpretation reveals a progressive coming to terms with the dark mood that ultimately unveils it as the self's own ground and a trace of the abysmal nature of God. The book advances two provocative claims: that far from being a contingent condition, melancholy has been progressively acknowledged as constitutive of subjectivity as such, a trace of divine otherness and pathos, and that the effort to transcend melancholy-like Perseus vanquishing Medusa-is a necessary labor of maturing self-consciousness. Reductive attempts to eliminate it, besides being dangerously utopian, risk overcoming the labor of the soul that makes us human. This study sets forth a rigorous scholarly argument that spans several disciplines, including philosophy, theology, psychology, and literary studies.

An impressive study that prompts the reader toward philosophical reflection on the hermeneutics of melancholy in its relation to maturing theological understanding and cultivation of a profound self-consciousness. Melancholy has been interpreted as a deadly sin or demonic temptation to non-being, yet its history of interpretation reveals a progressive coming to terms with the dark mood that ultimately unveils it as the self's own ground and a trace of the abysmal nature of God. The book advances two provocative claims: that far from being a contingent condition, melancholy has been progressively acknowledged as constitutive of subjectivity as such, a trace of divine otherness and pathos, and that the effort to transcend melancholy-like Perseus vanquishing Medusa-is a necessary labor of maturing self-consciousness. Reductive attempts to eliminate it, besides being dangerously utopian, risk overcoming the labor of the soul that makes us human. This study sets forth a rigorous scholarly argument that spans several disciplines, including philosophy, theology, psychology, and literary studies.

The Philosophy of Julia Kristeva is the latest addition to the highly acclaimed series, The Library of Living Philosophers. The book epitomizes the objectives of this acclaimed series; it contains critical interpretation of one of the greatest philosophers of our time, and pursues more creative regional and world dialogue on philosophical questions. The format provides a detailed interaction between those who interpret and critique Kristeva’s work and the seminal thinker herself, giving broad coverage, from diverse viewpoints, of all the major topics establishing her reputation. With questions directed to the philosopher while they are alive, the volumes in The Library of Living Philosophers have come to occupy a uniquely significant place in the realm of philosophy. The inclusion of Julia Kristeva constitutes a vital addition to an already robust list of thinkers. The Philosophy of Julia Kristeva exemplifies world-class intellectual work closely connected to the public sphere. Kristeva has been said to have “inherited the intellectual throne left vacant by Simone de Beauvoir,” and has won many awards, including the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought. Julia Kristeva’s autobiography provides an excellent introduction to her work, situating it in relation to major political, intellectual, and cultural movements of the time. Her upbringing in Soviet-dominated Bulgaria, her move to the French intellectual landscape of the 1960s, her visit to Mao’s China, her response to the fall of the Berlin Wall, her participation in a papal summit on humanism, her appointment by President Chirac as President of the National Council on Disability, and her setting up of the Simone de Beauvoir prize, honoring women in active and creative fields, are all major moments of this fascinating life. The major part of the book is comprised of thirty-six essays by Kristeva’s foremost interpreters and critics, together with her replies to the essays. These encounters cover an exceptionally wide range of theoretical and literary writing. The strong international and multidisciplinary focus includes authors from over ten countries, and spans the fields of philosophy, semiotics, literature, psychoanalysis, feminist thought, political theory, art, and religion. The comprehensive bibliography provides further access to Kristeva’s writings and thought. The preparation of this volume, the thirty-sixth in the series, was supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Strangers, Gods and Monsters is a fascinating look at how human identity is shaped by three powerful but enigmatic forces. Often overlooked in accounts of how we think about ourselves and others, Richard Kearney skil lfully shows, with the help of vivid examples and illustrations, how the human outlook on the world is formed by the mysterious triumvirate of strangers, gods and monsters. In the first part of the book, he shows how the figure of stranger - the "barbarian" for ancient Greece, the 'savage' for imperial Europe - defines our own identity by the very idea that it is the Other, not we, who is unknown. He then goes on to examine the image of the monster, and with the aid of powerful examples from ancient Minotaurs to medieval demons and post-modern enemies, argues that human selfhood itself frequently contains a monstrous element. In the final part of the book Richard Kearney shows how many gods are still alive for people today testifying to the human psyche's yearning to slip the shackles of our finitude and death. Throughout, Richard Kearney shows how strangers, gods and monsters do not merely reside in myths or fantasies but constitute a central part of our cultural unconscious. Above all, he argues that until we understand better that the Other resides deep within ourselves, we can have little hope of understanding how our most basic fears and desires manifest themselves in the external world and how we can learn to live with them.

Simon D. Podmore claims that becoming a self before God is both a divine gift and an anxious obligation. Before we can know God, or ourselves, we must come to a moment of recognition. How this comes to be, as well as the terms of such acknowledgment, are worked out in Podmore's powerful new reading of Kierkegaard. As he gives full consideration to Kierkegaard's writings, Podmore explores themes such as despair, anxiety, melancholy, and spiritual trial, and how they are broken by the triumph of faith, forgiveness, and the love of God. He confronts the abyss between the self and the divine in order to understand how we can come to know ourselves in relation to a God who is apparently so wholly Other.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

God and the Gothic: Romance and Reality in the English Literary Tradition provides a complete reimagining of the Gothic literary canon to examine its engagement with theological ideas, tracing its origins to the apocalyptic critique of the Reformation female martyrs, and to the Dissolution of the monasteries, now seen as usurping authorities. A double gesture of repudiation and regret is evident in the consequent search for political, aesthetic, and religious mediation, which characterizes the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution and Whig Providential discourse. Part one interprets eighteenth-century Gothic novels in terms of this Whig debate about the true heir, culminating in Ann Radcliffe's melancholic theology which uses distance and loss to enable a new mediation. Part two traces the origins of the doppelgänger in Calvinist anthropology and establishes that its employment by a range of Scottish writers offers a productive mode of subjectivity, necessary in a culture equally concerned with historical continuity. In part three, Irish Gothic is shown to be seeking ways to mediate between Catholic and Protestant identities through models of sacrifice and ecumenism, while in part four nineteenth-century Gothic is read as increasingly theological, responding to materialism by a project of re-enchantment. Ghost story writers assert the metaphysical priority of the supernatural to establish the material world. Arthur Machen and other Order of the Golden Dawn members explore the double and other Gothic tropes as modes of mystical ascent, while raising the physical to the spiritual through magical control, and the M. R. James circle restore the sacramental and psychical efficacy of objects.