Jean-Luc Nancy and the Deconstruction of Christianity

Ashok Collins is Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the Australian National University. He has published his research in journals such as Research in Phenomenology, French Cultural Studies, Educational Philosophy and Theory and International Journal for Philosophy of Religion.

Jean-Luc Nancy’s project for the deconstruction of Christianity is one of recent philosophy’s most challenging and controversial tasks. In this remarkable and lucidly argued study, Ashok Collins explores Nancy’s thinking in scrupulous detail, throwing new light in particular on its relationship with Derridean deconstruction. This is a work all readers concerned with reassessing the philosophical stakes of Christianity today will consult with enormous profit.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction – Christianity and the OriginCaputo vs. HägglundJean-Luc Nancy’s Deconstruction of ChristianityLuther and HeideggerDoes ‘Christianity’ Exist?S’il y en a, or il n’y a pas?FigurationOutlineChapter 1 – Creation Ex Nihilo: The Figurative SubjectGod Without BeingOnto-theologyA Spinozan Rewriting of Being and TimeInventionWho Comes After the Subject?Ego SumDardichtungThe Figurative SubjectAreality, or the ‘There’The Fiction of CreationChapter 2 – Trinity: An Ontology of RelationAlterity and FraternityInterior intimo meoSingular PluralityGod as the Otherness of the WorldThe Renvoi and Resonance of SenseRevelation and the CallCaritas and CommunityAdoration and the WithChapter 3 – Incarnation: Writing the Tactile BodyChrétien’s Spiritual TouchKenosisThe Body and SenseFiguration, or ExscriptionThe Tactile BodyEucharistic TouchChapter 4 – Resurrection: The Truth of ChristianityHegelian AufhebungSalvationAnastasis: Sight and TouchSalutation and RelationTestimony: Truth and SenseParousia: The Self-Overcoming of RevelationThe (Re)Birth of ChristianityConclusion – The Future of Philosophy and ReligionBibliographyIndex