Is this 39-year-old Irish author badass enough to continue the legacy of Foucault and Derrida?
Foucault was a badass. Lacan was a badass. Lyotard was a badass. Derrida was such a badass.
Zizek is a badass, but he’s also your crazy uncle slob badass.
John Caputo is a badass, but (not to be ageist) he’s an old badass.
Who is bringing sexy back to postmodern philosophy? That mantle appears to have fallen to Peter Rollins, the 39-year-old “a/theist” author from Northern Ireland who has written such non-sequitar titles as How (Not) to Speak of God, The Fidelity of Betrayal, and The Orthodox Heretic. Continuing in that same tradition, Rollins’ new book is titled The Idolatry of God, and in it he explains why “we must lay down our certainties and honestly admit our doubts to identify with Jesus.” Here’s a trailer for Rollins’ new book, see what you think:
Alastair,
If Zizek wrote about Caputo & Caputo wrote about Rollins, the degree of separation should place him in that group of philosophers just for referencing each others work, at least.
I think you are being too hard on Pete. I appreciated your thoughts on what the gospel is & isn’t. Perhaps Pete’s take on Apophatic Theology is a doorway where we can enter into a more serious approach at living out the beliefs you so eloquently espoused above.
As someone who has studied the postmodern philosophers mentioned above in the past and still occasionally reads Zizek as a guilty pleasure, I really don’t believe that Rollins is a serious philosopher of anything remotely like their calibre. What I have seen and read of him comes across as fairly vacuous pop postmodernism, which doesn’t attain to the level of substantial philosophy and – speaking as someone with plenty of background in the area – is fairly poor theology too, for that matter. Gnomic utterances about the aporiae of life on heavily filtered videos do not a great philosopher or… Read more »
I agree with Tez. Also, it should be said, at 39 he is not “old”
I’m SO bored by bad-asses. I’m an atheist but the angry atheist is a cliche. If god doesn’t matter what’s all the fuss about? yawn
Agreed – though not atheist. I’m done with badass getting all the media attention anymore. (that’s why i LOVED Les Miserables…) i understand the need to accept pain and imperfection, and denounce the false doctrinal securities. But I’m not willing to wallow there. I’ve gotta go somewhere toward fulfillment… like toward the magnificent character of God. How else could i become empowered to “Go and do likewise” ? Though, I still love ya, Pete!