Material Spirit

Abstract

This book examines philosophical, religious, and literary or artistic texts using methodologies and insights that have grown out of reflection on literature and art. In them, the 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 or renewed forms of religiosity. In other words, the chapters here seek to examine religion beyond traditional notions of transcendence: religion, for them, is a problem of immanence. Their topics range from early Christian religious practices to global climate change. Within the broader focus on religion, some of the chapters explore religious themes or tones in literary texts, for example, works by Wordsworth, Hopkins, Proust, Woolf, and Teresa of Avila. Others approach—in a literary-critical 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.