Books by Jeffrey Robbins
An Insurrectionist Manifesto: Four New Gospels for a Radical Politics (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
by Ward Blanton, Clayton Crockett, Jeffrey Robbins, Noëlle Vahanian
Product Description An Insurrectionist Manifesto contains four insurrectionary gospels based on Martin Heidegger's philosophical model of the fourfold: earth and sky, gods and mortals. Challenging religious dogma and dominant philosophical theories, they offer a cooperative, world-affirming political theology that promotes new life through not resurrection but insurrection. The insurrection in these gospels unfolds as a series of miraculous yet worldly practices of vital affirmation. Since these routines do not rely on fantasies of escape, they engender intimate transformations of the self along the very coordinates from which they emerge. Enacting a comparative and contagious postsecular sensibility, these gospels draw on the work of Slavoj iek, Giorgio Agamben, Catherine Malabou, François Laruelle, Peter Sloterdijk, and Gilles Deleuze yet rejuvenate scholarship in continental philosophy, critical race theory, the new materialisms, speculative realism, and nonphilosophy. They think beyond the sovereign force of the one to initiate a radical politics "after" God. Review Each gospel-like contribution to The Insurrectionist Manifesto can be read separately, but when they are read in tandem, a particular disturbing power is occasioned. I found myself stimulated and conceptually shaken in equal fashion. The call of these gospels has the potential to disturb the ground of our being. Those who hear it will be positively afflicted by a series of challenges that are exciting and demanding in equal measure. -- Mike Grimshaw, University of CanterburyAttempts to break the age-old grip of the transcendent on theological thought have multiplied in recent years. In this indispensable provocation to thought, these wonderfully intrepid and scholarly philosophers of religion have pushed the accompanying turn toward immanence in the direction of the political in all its hugely varied insurrectionist forms. -- Kenneth Surin, Duke UniversityIn these unapologetic, interlocking essays, we find a radical theology that finally lives up to its name. Here theology tumbles kenotically, inexorably, into political economy, literature, climate science, postcoloniality, critical race theory, and nonequilibrium thermodynamics, forcing us to face the earth, sky, mortals, and gods as they are―and in all that they're not―and only then as they might yet be. -- Mary-Jane Rubenstein, author of Worlds Without End: The Many Lives of the MultiverseNew concepts are very rare, but when philosophers manage to create them, everything changes. This manifesto thrust us into an 'insurrectionist' theology where Nietzsche's death of God, Zizek's ontology of the Real, and Malabou's plastic materiality come together to overcome those metaphysical frames that still condition our lives. Anyone interested in radical theology, philosophy, and politics in the 21st century must read this book carefully since he might find himself also to be an insurrectionist. -- Santiago Zabala, ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at Pompeu Fabra University About the Author Ward Blanton is a reader in biblical cultures and European thought at the University of Kent.Clayton Crockett is professor and director of religious studies at the University of Central Arkansas.Jeffrey W. Robbins is professor and chair of religion and philosophy at Lebanon Valley College.Noelle Vahanian is professor of philosophy at Lebanon Valley College.
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Radical Democracy and Political Theology (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote that "the people reign over the American political world like God over the universe," unwittingly casting democracy as the political instantiation of the death of God. According to Jeffrey W. Robbins, Tocqueville's assessment remains an apt observation of modern democratic power, which does not rest with a sovereign authority but operates as a diffuse social force. By linking radical democratic theory to a contemporary fascination with political theology, Robbins envisions the modern experience of democracy as a social, cultural, and political force transforming the nature of sovereign power and political authority.
Robbins joins his work with Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's radical conception of "network power," as well as Sheldon Wolin's notion of "fugitive democracy," to fashion a political theology that captures modern democracy's social and cultural torment. This approach has profound implications not only for the nature of contemporary religious belief and practice but also for the reconceptualization of the proper relationship between religion and politics. Challenging the modern, liberal, and secular assumption of a neutral public space, Robbins conceives of a postsecular politics for contemporary society that inextricably links religion to the political.
While effectively recasting the tradition of radical theology as a political theology, this book also develops a comprehensive critique of the political theology bequeathed by Carl Schmitt. It marks an original and visionary achievement by the scholar the Journal of the American Academy of Religion hailed "one of the best commentators on religion and postmodernism."
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