Robert Jensen is an emeritus professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin and a founding board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center.
His new book, This I Don’t Believe: A Fulfilling Life without Meaning, was published in September 2026 by Blue Ear Books. For details about Jensen’s previous book, It’s Debatable: Talking Authentically about Tricky Topics, and to read the chapter the publisher removed, click here.
This I Don’t Believe:
A Fulfilling Life without Meaning
AVAILABLE FROM BLUE EAR BOOKS
This I Don’t Believe: A Fulfilling Life without Meaning confronts the common fear that life has no intrinsic meaning and then describes one path to fulfillment without it. Mixing memoir and philosophy, Robert Jensen invites readers to ponder the possibility of life without transcendence. Rejecting common sources of meaning—belief in God, spirituality, Nature mysticism, and free will—need not leave us stuck with nihilism.
Drawing on his work as a journalist and professor, Jensen suggests that a life of thinking and work—joyful inquiry into a wonderfully complex world, coupled with a practice of ordinary labor—is enough to create a fulfilling life.
More Books by Robert Jensen
Latest Articles
Founding Rapist: Judging Thomas Jefferson by the Standards of His Time
3 Quarks Daily · October, 2026
The primary author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States raped one of more than 600 people he enslaved, starting when she was a teenager.
Four Questions in the Universal Quest for Meaning
Highbrow Magazine · September, 2026
Can we find other sources of fulfillment that don’t rely on concepts such as the divine, transcendent, mystical, or sacred? I have been able to live a “meaningless” but fulfilling life.Can we find other sources of fulfillment that don’t rely on concepts such as the divine, transcendent, mystical, or sacred? I have been able to live a “meaningless” but fulfilling life.
Domination/Subordination Dynamics: Five Foundational Books Challenging Illegitimate Authority
3 Quarks Daily · September, 2026
How does human nature play out in today’s social structures to produce domination/subordination dynamics in sex/gender, race, global affairs, economics, and the human exploitation of the larger living world? These books didn’t offer neat, tidy, paint-by-number answers but laid out analytic frameworks that guided my choices about how to teach, what to write, and where to direct my activist energy.
Featured In
