Beyond the Story : American Literary Fiction and the Limits of Materialism

Bieber Lake, Christina

University of Notre Dame Press（2019/10発売）

• 製本 Hardcover:ハードカバー版／ページ数 212 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9780268106256
• DDC分類 810.9382

Full Description

Beyond the Story: American Literary Fiction and the Limits of Materialism argues that theology is crucial to understanding the power of contemporary American stories. By drawing on the theories of M. M. Bakhtin, Christian personalism, and contemporary phenomenology, Lake argues that literary fiction activates an irreducibly personal intersubjectivity between author, reader, and characters. Stories depend on a dignity-granting valuation of the particular lives of ordinary people, which is best described as an act of love that mirrors the love of the divine. Through original readings of the fiction of Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Lydia Davis, Toni Morrison, and others, Lake enters into a dialogue with postsecular theory and cognitive literary studies to reveal the limits of sociobiology's approach to culture. The result is a book that will remind readers how storytelling continually reaffirms the transcendent value of human beings in an inherently personal cosmos.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of theology and literary studies, as well as a broad audience of readers seeking to engage on a deeper level with contemporary literature.

Contents

Introduction: Beyond Darwin

1. Beyond the Author: The Storytelling Consciousness and Hemingway's Baby Shoes

2. Beyond the Self: Escaping Narcissism in Philip Roth's Everyman

3. Beyond the Brain: Your Brain on Lydia Davis

4. Beyond Evolution: Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood and the Language Animal

5. Beyond the Postsecular: The Theological Grotesque in Toni Morrison's Beloved

6. Beyond Beauty: Theology on The Road

7. Beyond the Visible: Loving Witness in Daniel Clowes's Wilson and Richard McGuire's Here

Notes

Works Cited

Index