Nothing Sacred

If, as Adorno contended, history does intrude on every word, if it withholds each word from the recovery of some alleged original meaning, it is incumbent upon us to attend to each and every word we use with exacting attention. No one I read these days foregrounds, indeed, rethinks words, the most demanding words, with the unflinching attention, with the capacious erudition and the poetic creation, demanded and exemplified by Stathis Gourgouris. Thus, with human-being, Gourgouris attends to the intrusive and withholding history of animality, race, and technology; with democracy, to that of anarchy and finitude, of violence and tragedy, of capitalism; and with the sacred—Gourgouris tarries for effect—nothing. This is a formidable book. -- Gil Anidjar, Columbia University
Nothing Sacred shows the virtue and necessity of secular criticism and the substantial gifts it can provide. In elegant prose that is profoundly reflective on the constituents of life and thought, Stathis Gourgouris investigates the most complex problems of our time and how they came to be. This book stands out for its display of the innovative critical thinking that is essential to escape epistemological and practical political impasse. -- Paul A. Bové, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Pittsburgh
At once nuanced, profoundly learned, and passionate, Gourgouris deftly extends his dazzling local analyses across the disciplines of politics and theology, literary and art criticism, psychoanalysis and feminism, anthropology and cybernetics. His rethinking of the basic assumptions underpinning settled conceptualizations will set the understanding of humanism and democracy on an entirely new basis. -- Donald E. Pease, Ted and Helen Geisel Third Century Professor in the Humanities, Dartmouth College