Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Žižek, Slavoj - David Wheatley (review date 7 September 2001)

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David Wheatley (review date 7 September 2001)

SOURCE: Wheatley, David. Review of On Belief, by Slavoj Žižek. Times Literary Supplement, no. 5136 (7 September 2001): 33.

[In the following review, Wheatley offers a positive assessment of On Belief, calling the work “an honest and admirable meditation on what belief may mean today.”]

Slavoj Zizek takes the question of belief very seriously. On Belief begins with a description of a recent episode of the Larry King Show in which a rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Southern Baptist are discussing ecumenism. The rabbi and the priest agree that, irrespective of creed, a truly good person can rely on divine grace and redemption. The Baptist thinks otherwise: only those who “live in Christ” can be saved, which means that sadly “a lot of good and honest people will burn in hell”. Zizek wants us to dwell on this as an illustration of the basic premiss of On...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Edith Kurzweil (review date May 1992)
   2. Slavoj Žižek and Peter Canning (interview date March 1993)
   3. Paul Thomas (review date fall 1993)
   4. Doug Aoki (review date winter 1995)
   5. Sarah Herbold (essay date autumn 1995)
   6. Denise Gigante (essay date winter 1998)
   7. Robert Miklitsch (essay date spring 1998)
   8. Robert S. Boynton (essay date October 1998)
   9. Lois McNay (review date 31 December 1999)
   10. Gustavo Guerra (essay date spring 2000)
   11. Mena Mitrano (essay date spring 2000)
   12. Slavoj Žižek and Christopher Hanlon (interview date winter 2001)
   13. Stephen H. Webb (review date 1 August 2001)
   14. Alex Callinicos (review date 17 August 2001)
   15. David Wheatley (review date 7 September 2001)
   16. Kevin A. Morrison (review date December 2001)
   17. Sabah A. Salih (review date spring 2002)
   18. Clayton Crockett (review date June 2002)
   19. Matthew Bullimore (review date August 2002)
   20. Andrew Hussey (review date 9 September 2002)
   21. Derek Hook (review date June 2003)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright