On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life : Reflections on Freud and Rosenzweig

In __On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life,__ Eric Santner puts Sigmund Freud in dialogue with his contemporary Franz Rosenzweig in the service of reimagining ethical and political life. By exploring the theological dimensions of Freud's writings and revealing unexpected psychoanalytic implications in the religious philosophy of Rosenzweig's masterwork, __The Star of Redemption,__ Santner makes an original argument for understanding religions of revelation in therapeutic terms, and offers a penetrating look at how this understanding suggests fruitful ways of reconceiving political community. Santner's crucial innovation in this new study is to bring the theological notion of revelation into a broadly psychoanalytic field, where it can be understood as a force that opens the self to everyday life and encourages accountability within the larger world. Revelation itself becomes redefined as an openness toward what is singular, enigmatic, even uncanny about the Other, whether neighbor or stranger, thereby linking a theory of drives and desire to a critical account of sociality. Santner illuminates what it means to be genuinely open to another human being or culture and to share and take responsibility for one's implication in the dilemmas of difference. By bringing Freud and Rosenzweig together, Santner not only clarifies in new and surprising ways the profound connections between psychoanalysis and the Judeo-Christian tradition, he makes the resources of both available to contemporary efforts to rethink concepts of community and cross-cultural communication.

In On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life, Eric Santner puts Sigmund Freud in dialogue with his contemporary Franz Rosenzweig in the service of reimagining ethical and political life. By exploring the theological dimensions of Freud's writings and revealing unexpected psychoanalytic implications in the religious philosophy of Rosenzweig's masterwork, The Star of Redemption, Santner makes an original argument for understanding religions of revelation in therapeutic terms, and offers a penetrating look at how this understanding suggests fruitful ways of reconceiving political community.

Santner's crucial innovation in this new study is to bring the theological notion of revelation into a broadly psychoanalytic field, where it can be understood as a force that opens the self to everyday life and encourages accountability within the larger world. Revelation itself becomes redefined as an openness toward what is singular, enigmatic, even uncanny about the Other, whether neighbor or stranger, thereby linking a theory of drives and desire to a critical account of sociality. Santner illuminates what it means to be genuinely open to another human being or culture and to share and take responsibility for one's implication in the dilemmas of difference.

By bringing Freud and Rosenzweig together, Santner not only clarifies in new and surprising ways the profound connections between psychoanalysis and the Judeo-Christian tradition, he makes the resources of both available to contemporary efforts to rethink concepts of community and cross-cultural communication.

In On the Psychotheology of Everyday Life, Eric Santner puts Sigmund Freud in dialogue with his contemporary Franz Rosenzweig in the service of reimagining ethical and political life. By exploring the theological dimensions of Freud's writings and revealing unexpected psychoanalytic implications in the religious philosophy of Rosenzweig's masterwork, The Star of Redemption, Santner makes an original argument for understanding religions of revelation in therapeutic terms, and offers a penetrating look at how this understanding suggests fruitful ways of reconceiving political community.

Booknews

A study of the relationship between the work of Sigmund Freud and Franz Rosenzweig, one of the crucial figures in the renaissance of German-Jewish culture in the early 20th century. Rosenzweig's is of interest because it challenges the vision of cultural and religious pluralism in recent philosophical writing on globalization. Santer (Germanic Studies, Committee on Jewish Studies, University of Chicago) argues that both Freud and Rosenzweig offer a radically different vision of Old Testament cultural distinction. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

This study puts Sigmund Freud in dialogue with his contemporary Franz Rosenzweig in the service of reimagining ethical and political life. By exploring the theological dimensions of Freud's writings and revealing unexpected psychoanalytic implications in the religious philosophy of Rosenzweig's masterwork 'The Star of Redemption', the book makes an original argument for understanding religions of revelation in therapeutic terms, and offers a look at how this understanding suggests fruitful ways of reconceiving political community Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction......Page 10 CHAPTER ONE In the Midst of Life......Page 20 CHAPTER TWO Fromt he Reign of the Undead to the Blessings of More Life......Page 34 CHAPTER THREE Toward an Ethics of Singularity......Page 55 CHAPTER FOUR Responsibility beyond the Superego......Page 95 Epilogue: What Remains......Page 139 Index......Page 156 In his short story, "The End of the World," Robert Walser tells of a child's search for the outer limits of the space of human habitation we call the world: "A child who had neither father and mother nor brother and sister, was member of no family and utterly homeless, hit on the idea of running off, all the way to the end of the world." This text puts Sigmund Freud in dialogue with Franz Rosenzwig in the service of re-imagining ethical and political life. Santner makes an argument for understanding revelation in theraputic terms and offers a look at how this understanding suggests ways of re-conceiving political community.