Kierkegaard and the Refusal of Transcendence

Kierkegaard and the Refusal of Transcendence challenges the standard view that Kierkegaard's God is infinitely other than the world. It argues that his work immerses us in the paradoxical nature of existence itself, and opposes any flight into another world. Shakespeare shows that Kierkegaard's texts cannot be contained within an orthodox Christian framework. In a daring series of readings, we find the paradox figured in ways which refuse the judgment of heaven, struggle against the established order and stand with the suffering victim. Engaging with thinkers from Butler to Deleuze to Laruelle, Shakespeare concludes that Kierkegaard offers us a truly dynamic ethics of immanence.

Steven Shakespeare is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Liverpool Hope University, UK. He is a co-facilitator of The Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion. Previous publications include Kierkegaard Language and the Reality of God, Radical Orthodoxy: A Critical Introduction and Derrida and Theology.