Slavoj Žižek, On Belief

Kelsey Wood (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

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Cultural Studies

Dates

First circulation or publication 2001

Places

England (Country of Origin)

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Commentary / criticism

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In Slavoj Žižek’s

On Belief

, he further develops ideas which he introduced in his previous book on religion,

The Fragile Absolute

. Žižek begins, in his Introduction, by indicating that

On Belief

will show why leftists today should endorse a materialist version of Christianity. This reinscription of Christianity will displace the “original” and put it to work, fulfilling its unrealized, radical-emancipatory potential. Žižek shows how St Paul already performed such a displacement and reinscription, just as Lenin did with Marxism, and Jacques Lacan did with Freudian psychoanalysis (

On Belief

p. 2f.). Thus the first, most basic idea to grasp in order to understand this book, is that Žižek is not talking about Christianity as it is, but as it might be. He evokes the subversive…

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2239 words

Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "On Belief". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 June 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23500, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Slavoj Žižek, On Belief

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