20.10.2020
Lectures/Events

CANCELLED: October Talks: Book Presentation
Radical Sacrifice by Terry Eagleton

BOOK PRESENTATION CANCELLED.

20 October 2020, 7pm
Radical Sacrifice. Book presentation by Terry Eagleton

In his new book, prolific English philosopher Terry Eagleton examines the meaning of “victim,” which for him is the basis of both modern and traditional social orders. While the current zeitgeist regards the victim as barbaric and backward (or knows him only as an individualistic means of self-optimization), for Eagleton it is of central importance for the history and emancipation of mankind.

Eagleton traces the discourse on the meaning and practice of sacrifice from the Old Testament through ancient Greece to the ultimate sacrifice of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, which is presented in his analysis as a signal of an alliance of the Son of God with the “damned of the earth.”

Eagleton deals with a variety of significant voices—from Freud to Lacan, Derrida, Heidegger and Nietzsche to Žižek, Marx and J.K. Rowling. In reflections and meditations on death and Eros, irony and (postmodern) arbitrariness, he explores the meaning of sacrifice and attempts to connect this radical idea with politics and revolution.

Terry Eagleton is currently Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University. Eagleton has published over fifty books spanning the fields of literary theory, postmodernism, politics, ideology and religion, including the seminal Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), which has sold over 750,000 copies. The work elucidated the emerging literary theory of the period. He has also been a prominent critic of postmodernism, publishing works such as The Illusions of Postmodernism (1996).
His most recent books, including Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (2009), On Evil (2010), Why Marx Was Right (2011), Culture and the Death of God (2014), Hope Without Optimism (2015), Materialism (2016), Culture (2016), and Radical Sacrifice (2018) are all printed by Yale University.

In Cooperation with Promedia Publishing.

October Talks is supported by Stadt Salzburg and the Blaue Gans Art Hotel.