The issue of debt and how it affects our lives is becoming more and more urgent. The "Austerity" model has been the prevalent European economic policies of recent years led by the "German model". Elettra Stimilli draws upon contemporary philosophy, psychology and theology to argue that austerity is built on the idea that we somehow deserve to be punished and need to experience guilt in order to take full account of our economic sins. Following thinkers such as Max Weber, Walter Benjamin and Michel Foucault, Debt and Guilt provides a startling examination of the relationship between contemporary politics and economics and how we structure our inner lives. The first English translation of Debito e Colpa, this book provokes new ways of thinking about how we experience both debt and guilt in contemporary society.
Elettra Stimilli is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is the author of
The Debt of the Living (2017),
Debt and Guilt (2018),
Philosophy of the Means for a New Politics of Bodies (2026) and the co-editor, with Dario Gentili and Glenda Garelli, of
Italian Critical Thought (2018).
Arthur Bradley is Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies at Lancaster University, UK.
He is the author of Negative Theology and Modern French Philosophy; Derrida's Of Grammatology: A Philosophical Guide and (with Andrew Tate) The New Atheist Novel: Fiction, Philosophy and Polemic after 9/11.
Stefania Porcelli is Associate Professor in Comparative Literature, The City University of New York, USA.
Antonio Cerella is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Nottingham Trent University in the UK. He works at the intersection of political theory, continental philosophy, and religious study. He is the author of
Genealogies of Political Modernity (2020) and the editor of
Heidegger and the Global Age (2017) and
The Sacred and the Political: Explorations on Mimesis, Violence and Religion (2015).