The use of messianism in 20th century literary and cultural theory. The essays critique the claim that religious paradigms simply underlie secular thought. In specific, they problematize the renewal of metaphysics by means of messianic temporality, by exposing pitfalls and paradoxes in the messianic idea.

Introduction: Saving Hope, The Wager of Messianism Anna Glazova and Paul North Part I: Critiques of Messianic Thought 1. Of Theory, Aesthetics, and Politics: Configuring the Messianic in Early Twentieth-Century Europe Lisa Anderson 2. On the Price of Messianism: The Intellectual Rift between Gershom Scholem and Jacob Taubes Thomas Macho 3. Impure Inheritances: Spectral Materiality in Derrida and Marx Nicole Pepperell 4. Agamben Messianic: The Slightest of Differences David Ferris 5. Messianic Language and the Idea of Prose. Benjamin and Agamben Vivian Liska Part II: Inverted Messianism 6. The Demand for an End: Kant and the Negative Conception of History Catharine Diehl 7. Migrations of the Bohemian Joshua Wilner 8. Paul Celan's Improper Names Anna Glazova 9. "When Christianity Is Finally Over": Images of a Messianic Politics in Heine and Benjamin Peter Fenves Part III: Negating the Messiah 10. The Crisis of the Messianic Claim: Scholem, Benjamin, Baudelaire Oleg Gelikmann 11. Messiahs and Principles Paul North 12. Messianic Not Werner Hamacher Notes Bibliography List of Contributors Index

"This book will change the transdisciplinary field of messianic thought in the most provocative and challenging ways imaginable." -- -Thomas Schestag Brown University "The individual essays in Messianic Thought wonderfully cohere into a true collection, in which a tradition of continental thought from Kant and Benjamin to Derrida and Agamben unfolds and gains new contours; one will want to read it as a whole and not just for the isolated piece." -- -Paul Fleming Cornell University