Description
Book SynopsisAn analysis of spiritual eros in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard. Argues that Kierkegaard uses settings of theatrical and liturgical performance as rhetorical means of eliciting ever greater desire for God. Situates Kierkegaard against the backdrop of the Lutheran tradition and older traditions of negative theology.
Trade Review"The curtain rises-again and again-in Kierkegaard's writing. Helped by Carl Hughes, readers can now become viewers. They will recognize the overlooked stagecraft; they will appreciate the nuanced performances. Teaching us to read by watching, Hughes is as astute, as witty, as passionate as any great critic. Still his higher art, like Kierkegaard's own, it to show how fully this dramaturgy is theology. The drama here is always an invitation to redemption." -- -Mark D. Jordan Harvard University "Hughes' attention to historical details is impressive. Few scholars have recognized the importance of vaudeville and farce for Kierkegaard, and few have researched the Danish appropriation of these French and German genres in the way that Hughes has done." -- -Lee C. Barrett Lancaster Theological Seminary "This suggestive and insightful book argues that Kierkegaard's authorship can fruitfully be read as 'stagings of Christian desire,' elaborating both the connection between the notion of infinite desire and the notion of theatricality in Kierkegaard's work and the connection between the notion of infinite desire and 'theology.' The author explores the relation between aesthetics (the art, the ritual, the liturgy) and the architecture of the church in Kierkegaard's Communion discourses, but suggests that the theatrical qualities and the relation to infinite desire inform the whole authorship. The book, moreover, has ramifications for more than Christian theology because it reveals a broader notion of what theology can be (as exploration of unsatisfied desire for what can never be represented)." -- -M. Jamie Ferreira University of Virginia
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Prologue: Theology and Fairy Tales Introduction: Staging Desire, with Constant Reference to the Concept of Irony 1. Desiring "The One"-in Vaudeville, Marriage, and Beyond 2. Vor Frue Kirke as Stage: Aesthetics and Desire in Liturgy and Sacrament 3. "The Woman Who Was a Sinner": A New Statue in Vor Frue Kirke 4. Theatrical and Eucharistic Transformations: From the Farce Theater to the Feet of Christ 5. Sacramental Living, Sacramental Writing: Eros in Existence Epilogue: Renewing Theology-Kierkegaard beyond Barth Notes Works Cited Index
