Eros Crucified (Psychology and the Other)

Bringing contemporary philosophers, theologians, and psychoanalysts into dialogue with works of art and literature, this work provides a fresh perspective on how humans can make sense of suffering and finitude and how our existence as sexual beings shapes our relations to one another and the divine. It attempts to establish a connection between carnal, bodily love and humanity’s relation to the divine.

Relying on the works of philosophers such as Manoussakis, Kearney, and Marion and psychoanalysts such as Freud and Lacan, this book provides a possible answer to these fundamental questions and fosters further dialogue between thinkers and scholars of these different fields. The author analyzes why human sexuality implies both perversion and perfection and why it brings together humanity’s baseness and beatitude. Through it, the author taps once more into the dark mystery of Eros and Thanatos who, to paraphrase Dostoevsky, forever struggle with God on the battlefield of the human heart.

This book is written primarily for scholars interested in the fields of philosophical psychology, existential philosophy, and philosophy of religion

Matthew Clemente, PhD, is a Lecturer in the Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College specializing in existentialism, philosophy of religion, and contemporary Continental thought. He is the associate editor of the Journal of Continental Philosophy and Religion (Brill) and the co-editor of three philosophical volumes: The Art of Anatheism (2017), misReading Nietzsche (2018), and Richard Kearney’s Anatheistic Wager (2018).