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Beyond (Post)Colonial Histories: M’hamed Oualdi and the Possibility of ‘Other Chronologies.’
The book begins with a body, alive, but registering a deep visceral shock. A blow that is a cultural, political blow, but is experienced at the corporeal level. It is the story, and the body, of the former Tunisian dignitary Husayn Ibn ‘Abdallah who, like so many others experienced ‘the physical and mental traumas of…
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Centuries of Gathering Scriptures: A Review of “Spreading Buddha’s Word in East Asia.”
History of the book and history of religion are two of my areas of interest, and Spreading Buddha’s Word in East Asia: The Formation and Transformation of the Chinese Buddhist Canon is an impressive work of scholarship which bridges those fields to bring to life the story of the compilation of one of the world’s…
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The Chaleur Bay Review of Books: A Brief Manifesto
El fascismo se cura leyendo, y el racismo se cura viajando Miguel de Unamuno. Unsourced quote. During the fascist years of Franco, in Spain, the Basque novelist Miguel de Unamuno was once presiding over a meeting at the University of Salamanca. The meeting was attended by people of diverse political backgrounds, including General Millan-Astray. The…
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Becoming Flesh: Jamieson Webster’s Conversion Disorder.
Works Reviewed. Webster, Jamieson. Conversion Disorder: Listening to the Body in Psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia University Press, 2019. 303 pages. Psychoanalysis, ever since its Freudian genesis, has been plagued by a certain categorical ambiguity; it touches on, and is set against, medicine, philosophy, religion, psychology, psychiatry, self-help, literature and so on. This ambiguity lends, perhaps,…
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Visions of the Secular: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Commodification of Freedom.
Secularism is a complex idea, or set of ideas and practices, with a long history. Considerable thought and work has gone into tracing that history and much ink has been spilled. Charles Taylor, a Quebec-based philosopher, in his book A Secular Age outlines a perspectival shift from the Middle Ages in which it was almost…
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With Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs: A Review of “The Hymnal: A Reading History.”
Works Reviewed: Christopher N. Phillips The Hymnal: A Reading History. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2018. I remember my father once commenting, in an offhand way, that if you want to know about the theology of a particular church, you can just peruse their hymnals. Hymnals being such an essential part of the fabric of my own church experience, it hardly…
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Geopolitics of Religion: Manlio Graziano’s Holy Wars & Holy Alliance.
Works Reviewed. Graziano, Manlio. Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. The theme of a return of religion, particularly a return of religion to the domain of politics, has been the subject of a great deal of attention over the past sixteen years…
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Unanchored Reason: Gaston Bachelard and Surrealist Philosophy.
Works Reviewed. Kotowicz, Zbigniew. Gaston Bachelard: A Philosophy of the Surreal. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016. 212 pages. It was with some sadness that I recently learned that Zbigniew Kotowicz had died, not long after I had begun reading his book on Gaston Bachelard. Sadness that he would never again put pen to with the warmth and wit …
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Song Phenomena: Various Approaches to Understanding Song.
Works Reviewed. Jean Nicolas De Surmont. From Vocal Poetry to Song: Towards a Theory of Song Objects. Translated by Anastasija Ropa . Stuttgart, Germany: ibidem Press, 2017. The vocalized song, among the most ubiquitous of cultural objects, is also one whose form remains remarkably undefined and insufficiently researched. Or, perhaps it would be more accurate…
The Mourning Cloak 