
Devotion
Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature, and Political Imagination
University of Chicago Press
Published on 10. December 2021
Book
Hardback
200 pages
978-0-226-81610-4 (ISBN)
Description
Three scholars of religion explore literature and the literary as sites of critical transformation.
We are living in a time of radical uncertainty, faced with serious political, ecological, economic, epidemiological, and social problems. Scholars of religion Constance M. Furey, Sarah Hammerschlag, and Amy Hollywood come together in this volume with a shared conviction that what and how we read opens new ways of imagining our political futures and our lives.
Each essay in this book suggests different ways to characterize the object of devotion and the stance of the devout subject before it. Furey writes about devotion in terms of vivification, energy, and artifice; Hammerschlag in terms of commentary, mimicry, and fetishism; and Hollywood in terms of anarchy, antinomianism, and atopia. They are interested in literature not as providing models for ethical, political, or religious life, but as creating the site in which the possible-and the impossible-transport the reader, enabling new forms of thought, habits of mind, and ways of life. Ranging from German theologian Martin Luther to French-Jewish philosopher Sarah Kofman to American poet Susan Howe, this volume is not just a reflection on forms of devotion and their critical and creative import but also a powerful enactment of devotion itself.
We are living in a time of radical uncertainty, faced with serious political, ecological, economic, epidemiological, and social problems. Scholars of religion Constance M. Furey, Sarah Hammerschlag, and Amy Hollywood come together in this volume with a shared conviction that what and how we read opens new ways of imagining our political futures and our lives.
Each essay in this book suggests different ways to characterize the object of devotion and the stance of the devout subject before it. Furey writes about devotion in terms of vivification, energy, and artifice; Hammerschlag in terms of commentary, mimicry, and fetishism; and Hollywood in terms of anarchy, antinomianism, and atopia. They are interested in literature not as providing models for ethical, political, or religious life, but as creating the site in which the possible-and the impossible-transport the reader, enabling new forms of thought, habits of mind, and ways of life. Ranging from German theologian Martin Luther to French-Jewish philosopher Sarah Kofman to American poet Susan Howe, this volume is not just a reflection on forms of devotion and their critical and creative import but also a powerful enactment of devotion itself.
Reviews / Votes
"In Devotion, the authors probe the limits of knowledge and knowability in a way that does not devolve into a hermeneutics of suspicion. In an age of the collapse of shared narrative and con-spiracy theories ripping at coexistence, this approach might appear politically dangerous. But Devotion instead seeks to turn our inquisitive imaginaries into a way to supplement democracy . . . With its faith in literature, politics, and religion, and the imagination that they require and fuel, Devotion is a promise well kept." * Journal of the American Academy of Religion * "The book argues that the ways in which we negotiate freedom and authority between a text and its reader impact how we interact with the world intellectually and politically. The book's originality lies in its novel conceptualization of devotion. Furey, Hammerschlag, and Hollywood use the term to characterize a way of reading that is liberating in creating a safe space for intellectual, existential, and political experimentation . . . an act of reading that demands both fidelity and suspicion. Thus, objects of devotion are extended beyond religious texts to other genres of writing, including literature and philosophy." * Political Theology * "Devotion marvelously reveals the continuing entanglement of religious and aesthetic modes of reading. Even better, Furey, Hammerschlag, and Hollywood also offer new, cogent reflections on the politics of reading; they flag how very urgent an engagement with such politics is at a moment when liberalism and the liberal notion of the political subject seem exhausted and in crisis." * Deidre Shauna Lynch, Harvard University * "Thanks to the kind of rigor and patience that fidelity to complexity and ambiguity demand, this volume offers up a strikingly fruitful inquiry into religion, literature, and the nature of reading. Devotion is sure to make an influential and important contribution to the recent renewal of the religion and literature subfield as well as to the philosophy of religion." * Thomas A. Carlson, University of California-Santa Barbara *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
3 halftones
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
286 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-81610-4 (9780226816104)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Furey Constance M. Furey | Hammerschlag Sarah Hammerschlag | Hollywood Amy Hollywood
Devotion
Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature, and Political Imagination
E-Book
12/2021
1st Edition
University of Chicago Press
€30.49
Available for download
Persons
Constance M. Furey is professor of religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Erasmus, Contarini, and the Religious Republic of Letters and Poetic Relations. Sarah Hammerschlag is professor of religion and literature in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She is the author of The Figural Jew and Broken Tablets. Amy Hollywood is Elizabeth H. Monrad Chair of Christian Studies at the Harvard Divinity School. She is the author of The Soul as Virgin Wife, Sensible Ecstasy, and Acute Melancholia and Other Essays.
Content
Introduction
Amy Hollywood, Sarah Hammerschlag, and Constance M. Furey
Vivifying Poetry: Sidney, Luther, and the Psalms
Constance M. Furey
A Poor Substitute for Prayer: Sarah Kofman and the Fetish of Writing
Sarah Hammerschlag
Dystopia, Utopia, Atopia
Amy Hollywood
Afterwards
Amy Hollywood, Sarah Hammerschlag, and Constance M. Furey
Vivifying Poetry: Sidney, Luther, and the Psalms
Constance M. Furey
A Poor Substitute for Prayer: Sarah Kofman and the Fetish of Writing
Sarah Hammerschlag
Dystopia, Utopia, Atopia
Amy Hollywood
Afterwards