This summer finally sees the release of the latest entry in a surprisingly successful cinematic franchise. No, I’m not talking about Loki, or Black Widow, or any part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’m talking about The Conjuring universe, which stretches to nine films with The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. The Conjuring franchise succeeds where so many other …
Late in Gloria Naylor’s 1996, a partially-fictionalized account of a year she spent under government surveillance, the omniscient narrator takes the perspective of NSA Deputy Director Dick Simon. Simon imagines the effect his machinations will have on Naylor, observing that although she will try to “write a book about her experiences this past year,” the story …
Is there anything more complex than religious faith? Faith can be ineffably inspirational and intractably inflexible, a source of hope to motivate some of humanity’s greatest heroes and an excuse to defend some of our most despicable monsters. And when most people talk about the subject, they tend to focus on one quality to the …
The Burning Girls Explores the Horror and Hope of Religious Faith Read More »
A few years ago, a student in one of my lit classes recommended a book to me, based on the readings I assigned in the course. \”It\’s about a guy who hears voices that tell him to murder everyone, but he acts like this really nice person who everyone loves,\” explained; \”It seems like the …
Fathom Magazine: \”Teaching Confession, Learning Repentance\” Read More »
Below is an excerpt from an article about how Chang-Rae Lee\’s first two novels help us examine the differences between theories of identity construction advanced by philosophers Jean-Luc Nancy and Emmanuel Levinas. This paper seeks to mediate the differences between Levinas and Nancy with a reading of Chang-rae Lee\’s first two novels, 1995\’s Native Speaker …
Interpretation and Interruption: Reading and Identity Formation in Levinas and Nancy Read More »
Contrary to the solipsism emphasized in most discussions of John Updike\’s Rabbit tetralogy, this article examines the tenuous and improper community Harry Angstrom forms when he invites two members of enemy groups to stay in his house. Drawing from Kierkegaard\’s “neighbor-love” and Levinas\’s phenomenological ethics, I argue that the presence of others shatters Harry\’s selfhood, …