Series: Religion and Postmodernism Series

“The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by ‘the disenchantment of the world.’” Max Weber’s statement remains a dominant interpretation of the modern condition: the increasing capabilities of knowledge and science have banished mysteries, leaving a world that can be mastered technically and intellectually. And though this idea seems empowering, many people have...

How can one think and name an inconceivable and ineffable God? Christian mystics have approached the problem by speaking of God using "negative" language—devices such as grammatical negation and the rhetoric of "darkness" or "unknowing"—and their efforts have fascinated contemporary scholars. In this strikingly original work, Thomas A. Carlson reinterprets premodern approaches to God's ineffability and postmodern approaches to the...

In Archive Fever, Jacques Derrida deftly guides us through an extended meditation on remembrance, religion, time, and technology—fruitfully occasioned by a deconstructive analysis of the notion of archiving. Intrigued by the evocative relationship between technologies of inscription and psychic processes, Derrida offers for the first time a major statement on the pervasive impact of electronic media, particularly e-mail, which threaten...

The Gift of Death, Jacques Derrida’s most sustained consideration of religion, explores questions first introduced in his book Given Time about the limits of the rational and responsible that one reaches in granting or accepting death, whether by sacrifice, murder, execution, or suicide. Derrida analyzes Czech philosopher Jan Patocka’s Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History and develops and compares...