Feeling Dead, Dead Feeling
Amy Hollywood
Religion, Emotion, Sensation December 3, 2019 DOI: 10.5422/fordham/9780823285679.003.0011 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that reading and writing difficult literature can serve as training for the difficulty of death, and that such engagement can be understood as devout or mystical even outside conventional religious frameworks. |
Abstract
What does it mean to read and write devoutly, religiously, mystically—even, or especially, if one’s reading or writing qualifies for none of these adverbs in any conventional sense? What, in particular, does it mean to read and write about death and dying in these affective registers? These are the questions that animate this essay, a deeply personal dialogue with selected literary authors that smudges the line between literature and criticism and is less a discourse on affect than an immersion in affect. The author of the essay approaches her chosen literary works—literature with which she has bonded—as both fragmentary inscriptions of the divine and articulations of complex affects that exceed individual subjectivity. Difficult literature, for this author—reading it, writing it—is valuable training for the intractable difficulty of death.