Theology after Lacan: The Passion for the Real

by Creston Davis (Editor), Marcus Pound (Editor), Clayton Crockett (Editor)

This groundbreaking volume highlights the contemporary relevance of Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), whose linguistic reworking of Freudian analysis radicalized both psychoanalysis and its approach to theology. Part Lacan, Religion, and Others explores the application of Lacan's thought to the phenomena of religion. Part Theology and the Other Lacan explores and develops theology in light of Lacan. In both cases, a central place is given to Lacan's exposition of the real, thereby reflecting the impact of his later work. Contributors include some of the most renowned readers and influential academics in their respective Tina Beattie, Lorenzo Chiesa, Clayton Crockett, Creston Davis, Adrian Johnston, Katerina Kolozova, Thomas Lynch, Marcus Pound, Carl Raschke, Kenneth Reinhard, Mario D'Amato, Noelle Vahanian, and Slavoj Zizek. Topics traverse culture, art, philosophy, and politics, as well as providing critical exegesis of Lacan's most gnomic utterances on theology, including "The Triumph of Religion"

294 pages, Paperback

First published October 9, 2014

Reviews

[Peter Mathews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Given that Lacan was an atheist, it may seem surprising to hold in my hands a book called Theology After Lacan, but it must be remembered that these days a lack of belief in a god or gods is not a bar to studying theology. Theology, after all, is something that goes beyond gods and religion in order to touch, like philosophy, on humanity's meaning and existence in this world.

The chapters in this book approach this question in a number of different ways. One approach, for instance, is to compare Lacan to other religious thinkers and movements. The weaker chapters were those that looked at Lacan "with" Luther, Buddha, and liberation theology. I can understand the impetus between these comparisons, but I wasn't convinced: if you're not already into, say, Buddhism, these essays aren't going to convince you either.

There were other chapters in this book that were unsatisfactory for other reasons. Slavoj Žižek's opening piece on the debate over the Cogito doesn't go anywhere, as far as I could see. Adrian Johnston's long critique of Martin Hägglund's "radical atheism" was beyond my understanding, not having read Hägglund's original text. Katerina Kolozova's chapter draws extensively from Judith Butler without critical addressing some of the obvious shortcomings of her ethical approach.

For me, though, there were some fantastic essays that made this collection worth reading. The obvious stand-out was Tina Beattie's idiosyncratic analysis of the influence of Thomas Aquinas on Lacan, with constant references to "Bohemian Rhapsody." Beattie's performance is eccentric but brilliant - rather like the Queen song - although I did feel that she should have also talked a bit about the influence of Spinoza as well.

Kenneth Reinhard's essay on Lacan and political theology is also excellent. It forms a worthy piece to his contribution to The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology. Reinhard's emphasis on Lacan's theory of the neighbor is one to watch.

There were other essays with glimpses of potential (Lorenzo Chiesa on the not-all, Marcus Pound on grace, Clayton Crockett on the triumph of the ideology of religion), but Beattie's and Reinhard's chapters were the genuine highlights for me in a generally strong collection.