In recent decades, the philosopher William Desmond (1951-) has offered both insightful readings of individual tragedies and a striking reformulation of old Aristotelian standbys like hamartia and catharsis. This reformulation grows out of his wider philosophy of the “between,” which stresses humans’ fundamental receptivity or “porosity.” For Desmond, tragedy strips away characters’ self-determination and returns them to porosity. The audience is returned to porosity as well, a process of exposure that can be harrowing, and at times leads to despair, but (...) that can also lead, in Desmond’s take on catharsis, to a renewed sense of the worth of fragile beings. Both tragic “being at a loss” and catharsis are important for philosophy because they resist determinate conceptualization. Tragedy reminds philosophy of its limits, and it challenges philosophy to attend to the intimate and the singular. This essay situates, synthesizes, and extends Desmond’s many reflections on tragedy. It focuses in particular on Shakespeare's Macbeth and King Lear. (shrink)

ExcerptLocated down the street from William Faulkner's birthplace, the Union County Heritage Museum in New Albany, Mississippi, cultivates a unique contribution to Faulkner studies: a literary garden of over thirty plants that appear in his fiction, ranging from domestic wisteria to wild pokeberry. Scattered throughout the garden are plaques bearing relevant excerpts from Faulkner's works. It is an engaging way to explore his fiction, but it poses the critical visitor with a certain interpretative challenge. From one angle, the Faulkner garden (...) represents a laudable act of public environmental criticism. It emphasizes that the plants in Faulkner's works are not mere…. (shrink)

In 2012 Wendell Berry delivered the National Endowment for the Humanities' prestigious Jefferson Lecture. While other recent lecturers steered clear of controversial topics, the cantankerous farmer-poet from Kentucky issued a scathing critique of “corporate industrialism” and an impassioned plea for the “cause of stable, restorative, locally adapted economies of mostly family-sized farms, ranches, shops and trades.”1 “Family-sized” is the key word for Berry. He hopes to re-embed the economy in society, and thus to at least partially recover an older understanding (...) of economy “in its original sense” as oikonomia or “household management.”2 Just as a healthy household is built upon…. (shrink)

Aesthetics in Flesh, Image, and Word -- The Call of Beauty -- The Artist and the Between -- Sacred Aesthetics -- Epiphanic Encounters -- Tragic Howls and Being at a Loss -- Redemptive Laughs and Festive Rebirth.