Fragility and Transcendence : Essays on the Thought of Jean-Louis Chrétien

The thought of Jean-Louis Chrétien is most familiar to those who have taken up the theological turn in French phenomenology, yet it defies reduction to either phenomenology or theology, or for that matter spirituality, literature, or Greek thought. Written in beautiful French prose and argued with unsurpassed erudition, Chrétien's works defy easy interpretation. One nonetheless finds a center of gravity in attempts to define and then elaborate an original account of human being in terms of call and response, from which there follow penetrating studies of language and body, as well as illuminating approaches to a range of themes including temporality, prayer, and religious reading. This volume gathers original work from leading scholars in the fields of philosophy, theology and poetics, including Chrétien's collaborators, successors, and Anglophone interpreters. They engage his work along its main lines, at once presenting it in summary fashion and exploring its strengths and weaknesses for our understanding of some of the topics and problems that held his prolonged attention. Readers new to Chrétien will easily find a number of points of access, while more advanced readers will find that their understanding is both deepened and enriched. Contributors: Rudolf Bernet, Jeffrey Bloechl, Emmanuel Falque, Jérôme de Gramont, Crina Gshwandtner, Emmanuel Housset, Stephen E. Lewis, Jean-Luc Marion, Catherine Pickstock, Andrew Prevot Jean-Louis Chrtien was a philosopher, poet and theologian with an abiding intellectual wish to intervene in modern thought and culture in the name of a spiritual tradition. In his work, this becomes the ready source of much needed enrichment, improvement or even outright correction for modern thinking. Celebrated for his erudition, style and persistence with a limited number of key themes, Chrtien was close to, and often influenced, scholars including Jean-Luc Marion, Michel Henry, Remi Brague and Jean-Yves Lacoste. This volume contains leading scholars in the field of philosophy, theology and poetics, including Chrtien's collaborators, successors, and Anglophone interpreters. They engage his work along its main lines, at once presenting it in summary fashion and exploring its strengths and weaknesses for our understanding of some of the topics and problems that held his prolonged attention, particularly the themes of fragility or vulnerability and excess or the absolute which appear in most of Chrtien's works.