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This Incredible Need to Believe
Contributor(s): Kristeva, Julia (Author), Brahic, Beverley Bie (Translator)
ISBN: 0231147856     ISBN-13: 9780231147859
Publisher: Columbia University Press
OUR PRICE:   $13.46  
Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats
Published: October 2011
Qty:
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Movements - Deconstruction
- Religion | Philosophy
- Philosophy | Religious
Dewey: 200
Series: European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought & Cultural Criticism (Paperback)
Physical Information: 0.4" H x 5.5" W x 8" (0.26 lbs) 136 pages
 
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Publisher Description:
"Unlike Freud, I do not claim that religion is just an illusion and a source of neurosis. The time has come to recognize, without being afraid of 'frightening' either the faithful or the agnostics, that the history of Christianity prepared the world for humanism."

So writes Julia Kristeva in this provocative work, which skillfully upends our entrenched ideas about religion, belief, and the thought and work of a renowned psychoanalyst and critic. With dialogue and essay, Kristeva analyzes our "incredible need to believe"--the inexorable push toward faith that, for Kristeva, lies at the heart of the psyche and the history of society. Examining the lives, theories, and convictions of Saint Teresa of Avila, Sigmund Freud, Donald Winnicott, Hannah Arendt, and other individuals, she investigates the intersection between the desire for God and the shadowy zone in which belief resides.

Kristeva suggests that human beings are formed by their need to believe, beginning with our first attempts at speech and following through to our adolescent search for identity and meaning. Kristeva then applies her insight to contemporary religious clashes and the plight of immigrant populations, especially those of Islamic origin. Even if we no longer have faith in God, Kristeva argues, we must believe in human destiny and creative possibility. Reclaiming Christianity's openness to self-questioning and the search for knowledge, Kristeva urges a "new kind of politics," one that restores the integrity of the human community.

Contributor Bio(s): Kristeva, Julia: - Julia Kristeva is professor of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII and author of many acclaimed works and novels, including The Severed Head: Capital Visions, This Incredible Need to Believe, Hatred and Forgiveness, and Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila, all published by Columbia. She is the recipient of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought and the Holberg International Memorial Prize.