Abstract
What makes this book so attractive is the conceit at the heart of its premise: ‘The Postmodern Saints of France’. Who would believe it? This collection of essays presents an open-handed invitation to some of the most insightful contributors to propose, equivocate, deny; to enter into a discussion which is irregular by its very nature. This conceptual irregularity is most welcome as a point of entry into an exploration of the lives and work of a generation of French thinkers. A generation whose significance is readily misunderstood, where the ‘postmodern’ label has become a source of alienation; a generation who unequally shared a Catholic educational system steeped in mediaeval traditions.
The structure of this collection provides a series of three way ‘conversations’ between a 20th century ‘philosopher’, a Saint, or Saints, or the conception of Saint, and the commentator who reads the Lives - the Vitae - onto the page.
Sainthood, as a resolutely pre-modern conception, provides interesting starting points for discussing the postmodern, beyond the conventional aggravated attrition with modernity.
One of these possibilities is the holy which (in the subtitle) is ‘refigured’ as a subject which can now be attended to in its own right. Holiness is exactly the kind of nebulous subject which troubles conventional (modernist) disciplinary boundaries between departments of philosophy and theology.
The contributors - Colby Dickinson, Elizabeth Bayley, Michael Purcell, Kevin Hart, Ward Blanton, Clayton Crockett, Robyn Horner, Charlie Blake Phillip Davis, Todd Mei, Grant Kaplan, Phyllis Kaminski, Neghan Helsel, W. Chris Hackett, Joseph Riviera, Petra Elaine Turner, Anthony Paul Smith - have, for the most part, responded to the brief in a paroxysm; an outpouring of insight and expertise made vital by the quirky challenge.
By drawing a comparison among individuals, cast across hundereds of years of European Christian culture, rather than systems of ideas, this collection presents an effective introduction to many of the foundational personalities of Continental Philosophy. Levinas, Foucault, Derrida, Blanchot, Deleuze, Bataille, Lyotard, Ricoeur, Lacoste, Girard, Irigaray, Badiou, Laurelle, Henry, Marion. the Postmodern Saints of France read like a 1st XV of contemporary French postmodern philosophy. The structure of the book allows readers to get to the individual’s formsheet without necessarily engaging the team. This focus on the individuals is particularly useful as a means of subverting thematic approaches to a style of philosophy which is less about settled abstract categories and more about the brands.