Inquiétantes singularités is a collection of studies on several aspects of the question of singularity which, since the Protestant Reformation, remains one of the most powerful aporias of contemporary societies. Following indications of certain writings of Walter Benjamin, mainly his study of German baroque drama and of the short fragment on “Capitalism as religion,” these essays try to understand how the Christian promise of individual salvation is called into question by the historical experience of the singularity and irreducible finitude of the living. Poetics and politics, in theory and practice, are interpreted as efforts to resolve what Benjamin describes as religious problems that lack a religious solution. The contemporary financial crisis is also interpreted as a “theologico-economical” effect of this experience.
Inquiétantes singularités
