This Incredible Need to Believe

Julia Kristeva

October, 2009
Cloth, 136 pages,
ISBN: 978-0-231-14784-2
$19.95 / £13.95

"A focused and insightful discussion of religious belief . . . compelling and remarkable." — Publishers Weekly

"Nowhere else does Julia Kristeva provide such a sustained treatment of her views on religion. Kristeva scholars and students will find this book an indispensable text." — Noelle McAfee, George Mason University

"In this book, Julia Kristeva analyzes various pressing issues of our time, including the crisis in the Middle East, terrorism, depression, anorexia, and addiction, along with a general crisis of meaning. With her customary brilliance, she argues that belief and faith make it possible to speak but also to question. Provocatively, she describes a vein of Christianity and Catholicism that open up rather than close down that infinite questioning, which she maintains is necessary to delay the death drive. Here, Kristeva uses her incisive psychoanalytic acumen to diagnose the 'culture wars' and the 'clash of religions' that threaten world peace." — Kelly Oliver, Vanderbilt University, and editor of The Portable Kristeva

Related Subjects

• Continental/Feminist Philosophy
• Philosophy of Religion

Series

• European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism

About the Author

Julia Kristeva is professor of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII and the author of many acclaimed works and novels, including Murder in Byzantium, Strangers to Ourselves, New Maladies of the Soul, Time and Sense, Hannah Arendt, and Melanie Klein. She is the recipient of the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought and the Holberg International Memorial Prize. Beverley Bie Brahic is a translator and poet living in Paris and Stanford, California. In addition to the writing of Kristeva, she has translated the works of Hélène Cixous, Jacques Derrida, and Francis Ponge.

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