Lorenzo Chiesa (Newcastle University)



Lorenzo Chiesa in conversation with Mladen Dolar
God Is Undead: Psychoanalysis for Unbelievers (co-authored with Adrian Johnston) (Bloomsbury, 2025)


In God Is Undead, Chiesa and Johnston delve into and deepen the insights of both Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis as regards unbelief. One of the most important and novel contributions of God Is Undead is its gesture of dignifying unbelief. Far from a unified, homogeneous, and flatly bleak position, irreligiosity can come in many forms. This book shows such variegated non-belief in action. We have two unbelievers vigorously disagreeing with each other about fundamental ontological matters, thereby bringing to light critical questions going to the very heart of any unbelief: Can an atheism, as thoroughly atheistic, ever believe in or be certain of itself? What is the role of agnosticism, and specifically of an agnosticism strengthening (rather than contrasting with) atheism, in all this? How might different unbelievers become what Freud calls ‘comrades in unbelief’ without erecting new gods in the process?