Material Spirit: Religion and Literature Intranscendent (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)

The essays in this collection examine philosophical, religious, and literary or artistic texts using methodologies and insights that have grown out of reflection on literature and art. In them, them phrase “material spirit” becomes a point of departure for considering the continuing spectral effects of religious texts and concerns in ways that do not simply call for, or assume, new orrenewed forms of religiosity. The writers in this collection seek to examine religion beyond traditional notions of transcendence: Their topics range from early Christian religious practices to global climate change. Some of the essays explore religious themes or tones in literary texts, for example, works by Wordsworth, Hopkins, Proust, Woolf, and Teresa of Avila. Others approach―in a literarycritical mood―philosophical or para-philosophical writers such as Bataille, Husserl, Derrida, and Benjamin. Still others treat writers of a more explicitly religious orientation, such as Augustine, Rosenzweig, or Bernard of Clairvaux. Frontmatter Introduction (Gregory C. Stallings, Manuel Asensi, and Carl Good, page 1) Eucharistic Imaginings in Proust and Woolf (Richard Kearney, page 11) Impossible Confessions (Karmen MacKendrick, page 35) The Third Life of Saint Teresa of Jesus (Manuel Asensi, page 49) Renunciation and Absorbtion: On the Dimensionality of Baroque Asceticism (Burcht Pranger, page 59) "For the Life Was Manifested" (Kevin Hart, page 73) Augustine, Rosenzweig, and the Possibility of Experiencing Miracle (Virginia Burrus, page 94) "Come forth into the light of things": Material Spirit as Negative Ecopoetics (Kate Rigby, page 111) The Angel and the Storm: "Material Spirit" in the Era of Climate Change (Tom Cohen, page 129) The Material Working of Spirit (J. Hillis Miller, page 154) Notes (page 175) Works Cited (page 205) List of Contributors (page 219) Index (page 223) Explores the relation between religion, philosophy and literature.