Teaching Religion and Literature [1 ed.] 9781138587908, 9781138612709, 9780429464959

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Teaching Religion and Literature
The Organization of the Text
PART I: Foundational Approaches to Religion and Literature
1. Teaching “Religion and Literature” Contextually
Religion and Literature: The Period of Shared Cultural Roles
Religion and Literature: Trying to Bridge a Widening Gap
Religion and Literature: Emerging from Subversion and Critique
Religion and Literature: Identifying New Relations
Notes
Bibliography
2. Teaching the Bible and Literature
Notes
Bibliography
3. Pedagogies of Religion and Literature, Or Writing the “And”: Nathan Scott, Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida
Nathan Scott’s “Presence”
Paul Ricoeur’s Aporia
Jacques Derrida’s Elective Affinities
Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
4. Openings and Closures in Religion and Literature: Heart of Darkness or Demian, Life of Pi or Something New
Into Darkness: Traditions and Dimensions
Gnosis
Zimzum
Notes
Bibliography
PART II: Illuminating Religious Cultures with Literature
5. Surrender to God, Surrender to Love: Teaching Islam through the Poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi
Tawhid: The Oneness of God
Fana’ and Nafs: Annihilation and the Ego Self
Prophetic History
‘ishq: The Divine Force of Love
Teaching Rumi: Pedagogical Strategies
Integrating Sufism: Remembrance and Consciousness
Notes
Bibliography
6. Using Fiction to “Explain” the Daoist Zhuang Zi
I
II
Notes
Bibliography
7. Redeeming the Human Reality: Teaching African American Religion and Literature
Wade in the Water—Introduction to African American Religion and Literature
Deep River—Origins of African American Religion and Literature
How I Got Over—Slavery and Freedom in African American Religion and Literature
I Got a Right to the Tree of Life—Emancipation and Affirmation in African American Religion and Literature
We Shall Overcome—Justice and Hope in African American Religion and Literature
The Fire Next Time—Experimentation and Imagination in African American Religion and Literature
You’ve Got to Pay your Dues to Play the Blues: Sample Assignments for Teaching African American Religion and Literature
Notes
Bibliography
8. Science Fiction and the Religious Imagination: A Pedagogical Approach
On Faith
On Evil
On “Mad” Scientists
Notes
Bibliography
PART III: Thematic Approaches to Religion and Literature
9. Opening the Secular: Teaching Religion and Culture through Fiction
Teaching Literature in Religious Studies
Teaching Religion and Literature in Literature Courses
Notes
Bibliography
10. Interrogating Faith: Using Literature to Teach Religion and Nature
Cultivating Integrative Thinking
Teaching Leap
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
11. Contesting and Contextualizing Islam in America: Teaching Three Cups of Tea
Narrativizing and Problematizing Humanitarianism
Misrepresenting and Misunderstanding Muslim Men and Women
Intervening in the Text, Clarifying the Genre
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
12. Religion and the Self: Life Writing as a Literary Form and Religious Practice
Life Writing as Genre and Religious Practice
Pedagogical Choices for Particular Courses
Notes
Bibliography
PART IV: Three Approaches to Teaching Siddhartha
13. Through a Buddhist Lens: Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha
Siddhartha Mirrors Siddhartha, Sort of
Siddhartha as the Anti-Buddha
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
14. Love and Apotheosis in Hesse’s Siddhartha
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
15. Literature, Learning and Liberation: Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha
I
II
III
IV
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

“A timely collection of essays reckoning the historical spirit and future relevance of religion and literature, considerations offered with perspectives both limber in style and widely ranging in reach.” David Scott Arnold, Oregon State University

This page intentionally left blank

TEACHING RELIGION AND LITERATURE

Teaching Religion and Literature provides a practical engagement with the pedagogical possibilities of teaching religion courses using literature, teaching literature classes using religion, and teaching Religion and Literature as a discipline. Featuring chapters written by award winning teachers from a variety of institutional settings, the book gives anyone interested in providing interdisciplinary education a set of questions, resources, and tools that will deepen a classroom’s engagement with the field. Chapters are grounded in specific texts and religious questions but are oriented toward engaging general pedagogical issues that allow each chapter to improve any instructor’s engagement with interdisciplinary education. The book offers resources to instructors new to teaching Religion and Literature and provides definitions of what the field means from senior scholars in the field. Featuring a wide range of religious traditions, genres, and approaches, the book also provides an innovative glimpse at emerging possibilities for the sub-discipline. Daniel Boscaljon is the author of Vigilant Faith, editor of Resisting the Place of Belonging and Hope and the Longing for Utopia, and author of several articles. He has taught several courses in theology, literature, philosophy, and interdisciplinary humanities as contingent faculty in the Midwest. Alan Levinovitz is associate professor of religious studies at James Madison University. He focuses on classical Chinese philosophy, religion and literature, and religion and medicine. He authored The Limits of Religious Tolerance and several journal articles. His journalism has appeared in Wired, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Vox, Slate, and elsewhere.

This page intentionally left blank

TEACHING RELIGION AND LITERATURE

Edited by Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz

First published 2019 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-58790-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-61270-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-46495-9 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd.

Daniel dedicates this book, with deep gratitude, to his mentor and friend Brooks Landon, who let him discover how to teach (and live) with confidence, excellence, humor, integrity, and kindness—as well as the importance of an artful sentence. Alan dedicates this to his Religion and Literature cohort at the University of Chicago.

This page intentionally left blank

CONTENTS

List of Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: Teaching Religion and Literature Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz

xii xiii 1

PART I

Foundational Approaches to Religion and Literature

11

1 Teaching “Religion and Literature” Contextually Wesley A. Kort

13

2 Teaching the Bible and Literature David Jasper

24

3 Pedagogies of Religion and Literature, Or Writing the “And”: Nathan Scott, Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida Richard A. Rosengarten

34

4 Openings and Closures in Religion and Literature: Heart of Darkness or Demian, Life of Pi or Something New Larry D. Bouchard

46

x

Contents

PART II

Illuminating Religious Cultures with Literature

59

5 Surrender to God, Surrender to Love: Teaching Islam through the Poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi Danielle Widmann Abraham

61

6 Using Fiction to “Explain” the Daoist Zhuang Zi Alan Levinovitz

73

7 Redeeming the Human Reality: Teaching African American Religion and Literature Kimberly Rae Connor

82

8 Science Fiction and the Religious Imagination: A Pedagogical Approach Jennifer Arden Stone

98

PART III

Thematic Approaches to Religion and Literature 9 Opening the Secular: Teaching Religion and Culture through Fiction Daniel Boscaljon 10 Interrogating Faith: Using Literature to Teach Religion and Nature Nancy Menning

113 115

126

11 Contesting and Contextualizing Islam in America: Teaching Three Cups of Tea Michael Baltutis

138

12 Religion and the Self: Life Writing as a Literary Form and Religious Practice John D. Barbour

148

PART IV

Three Approaches to Teaching Siddhartha

159

13 Through a Buddhist Lens: Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha Catherine Benton

161

Contents

xi

14 Love and Apotheosis in Hesse’s Siddhartha Paul Fischer

172

15 Literature, Learning and Liberation: Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha Peter Roberts

183

Index

193

CONTRIBUTORS

Michael Baltutis (University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh) John D. Barbour (St. Olaf College) Catherine Benton (Lake Forest College) Larry D. Bouchard (University of Virginia) Daniel Boscaljon (Independent) Kimberly Rae Connor (University of San Francisco) Paul Fischer (Western Kentucky University) David Jasper (University of Glasgow) Wesley A. Kort (Duke University) Alan Levinovitz (James Madison University) Nancy Menning (Ithaca College) Peter Roberts (University of Canterbury) Richard A. Rosengarten (University of Chicago) Jennifer Arden Stone (University of Iowa) Danielle Widmann Abraham (Ursinus College)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the efforts of Kimberly Rae Connor, whose organization of a panel on Teaching Religion and Literature many years ago became the core of this volume, and whose encouragement through a long process of publication became an invaluable source of support. We also would like to thank Meredith O’Hare for being an amazing help throughout the final assembly of the book, taking on monumental tasks at the last moment and coming through with grace. Finally, we’d like to thank each of our contributors for their patience and faith in us during the long gestation period of this particular book.

This page intentionally left blank

INTRODUCTION Teaching Religion and Literature Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz

At some point, teaching Religion and Literature requires making mundane, real-world decisions. For example, instructors who plan on covering Daoism as part of an introduction to the world’s religions will likely select the Daodejing as a primary text. But how should they present the Daodejing to their students? Reading the book in its entirety is not out of the question, but requires time that might not be available. Most religion textbooks include selected quotes from the Daodejing, which certainly seems like an acceptable alternative. Yet those selections present further difficulties. The Daodejing is one of the most translated texts in existence. Does the textbook excerpt an acceptable translation? Assuming it does, there is still the danger that the selections misrepresent the meaning of the original text. In order to address the issue of fidelity, the instructor must familiarize herself with the Daodejing. But here, too, a number of issues arise, issues native to the discipline of Religion and Literature. Must she read Daodejing in its entirety? Scholars of Chinese religion would probably say she should. After all, without seeing the whole text, it is impossible to evaluate the representative quality of selections. But these same scholars, if they have ever taught Abrahamic religions, undoubtedly include selections from the Hebrew bible, the Christian bible, or the Qur’an in their courses, and it is a good bet that the vast majority have never read those holy books from start to finish—just like most practitioners of these religions. English instructors are far less likely to present selections from a novel than religion instructors are to present selections from a holy text. One of the reasons is pragmatic—most holy texts are too long, and in a class that introduces the world’s religions, there is often no time to read a whole book, even if it is short like the Daodejing. Beyond this, however, we view holy texts as fundamentally different from novels. They are, for the most part, composite, written by various hands at various times. Within them there are “self-contained” sections—parables, lists, poems, speeches, aphorisms, etc. Even believers who generally read novels from beginning to end do so with sacred texts. When teaching the Daodejing (or the Christian bible) piecemeal, one can take heart that students are following in the footsteps of tradition, which goes a long way towards resolving the issue of fidelity to the original. Thus, the question of how to teach a text inevitably begins with a descriptive question central to Religion and Literature: What kind of text is it? The question presumes that certain texts are supposed to mean in certain ways—novels holistically, collections of poems as individual

2

Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz

pieces, dramas as instruction manuals—and this proper way of meaning dictates the range of acceptable approaches to presentation and discussion. (One would ask students how actors should play the character of Hamlet, a question it wouldn’t make sense to ask of a poem or a prophecy.) In thinking about what kind of text one is dealing with—what is the Daodejing?—a crucial distinction must be made between competing definitions of truth: terms like “fiction” and “non-fiction” are too broad for the types of meaning produced by plays or poems, much less a mythological or sacred text. Related issues present themselves for the instructor who wants to use literature to explore a religious tradition. To make Daoism more accessible, an instructor might choose to have students read The Lathe of Heaven, a novel by famed science fiction author Ursula LeGuin. LeGuin took the title of her novel from a canonical Daoist text, the Zhuang Zi (see Levinovitz’s chapter in this book); she has also published a translation of the Daodejing. But one must then ask—does her novel accurately represent Daoism? In certain obvious ways, it does not. The novel’s title itself is a mistranslation. Lathe should be “turning,” since lathes hadn’t been invented when the Zhuang Zi was written. Students—and many faculty—have often never thought about these issues, at least not explicitly. In part, this is because modern higher education tends to draw a sharp disciplinary line between religion and literature. Religion faculty occasionally share combined departments with philosophy faculty, but far less frequently with English or comparative literature faculty. Degree granting programs also reflect this disciplinary divide. There are numerous philosophy and religion BA programs, and virtually none in religion and literature. Typical cross-listing of courses further reinforces the perceived kinship between religion and philosophy—two areas of study that deal with “non-fiction” truth claims—creating a distance between fictional literary worlds and historically rooted, revealed religious traditions. Needless to say, the institutional division between religion and literature grows out of tradition, not fundamental differences between the two. Religion and literature are inseparable. Religion has never existed without literature, and literature has its roots in religion. Increasingly, “non-religious” literature is taken by some secular humanists as a potential substitute for religion. And just as religion incorporates literary devices and literature incorporates religious tropes, so too interpretation of religion is enriched by literary critical approaches, and the study of literature benefits from the tools of inquiry associated with the study of religion. The subfield of Religion and Literature, as represented in this collection, takes these assumptions as its starting point. Its status as an interdisciplinary domain of thinking has allowed for broader scope in terms of its subject matter, methodology and interests. Originating in the West as a mode of inquiry largely devoted to the influence of the Christian Bible on ostensibly “secular” literature, the dynamic tensions within each field have encouraged increasingly complex connections between Religion and Literature in a variety of religious traditions. Given the importance of narrative and poetry in the development of religious traditions, teaching religion through an emphasis on literature provides students with a delimited context that encourages an awareness of the limitations of their knowledge. The individual disciplines of Religious Studies and Literature continue to become more nuanced, as does work within the subfield of Religion and Literature. The combined dynamic impulse allows this threefold constellation to explode the possibilities within the subfield outward, incorporating more texts, traditions, and methodologies that it embraces as appropriate, and increasingly necessary, to the field. Indeed, the past forty years have seen an increasing amount of scholarship devoted specifically to clarifying and expanding upon what it means to do Religion and Literature, allowing a more thoughtful treatment of the intersection as a discipline in its own

Introduction

3

right, and also with implications that extend to particular religious traditions and specific genres of texts. Growing interest in this interdisciplinary approach within Religious Studies and English courses has made more important a reflection on how to thoughtfully develop a type of classroom that has become more popular. Teaching Religion and Literature provides a reference point that brings together insights from instructors whose scholarship and teaching has influenced the trajectory of Religion and Literature, as well as younger scholars able to reflect on the challenges and opportunities confronting emerging teacher-scholars. We hope that this book will provide an introduction to those who have intuitively recognized the extensive overlap connecting Religion and Literature without understanding the extant foundation upon which they can build, and that it will serve as a resource for those who wish to expand the variety of courses, types of texts, or kinds of activities they use in the classroom. This expansion is important because Religious Studies and Literature courses provide uniquely valuable spaces for students to learn how to engage in interdisciplinary inquiry. Examining the historical basis of a religious tradition or exploring a world created within a novel provides students with a small, isolated context—often at least one step removed from their own personally meaningful narratives—in which to examine the frequency and effects of interpretation, as well as ways to engage in it reflexively. Interdisciplinary courses, especially Religion and Literature courses, introduce students to the challenge of thinking dialectically, providing the opportunity to understand how different interpretative lenses reveal and conceal different types of possibilities. By introducing students to the need for creative as well as critical thought and by rekindling a love of wonder and question, an interdisciplinary approach to interpretation promotes skills useful both within and beyond a world dominated by efficiency. Because interdisciplinary inquiry encourages a focus on how culture, language and tradition govern models of truth, students in these classrooms become more humble and self-aware learners and thinkers. In addition to expanding interpretative skills, Religion and Literature courses provide an excellent way to teach students about the particularities of religion. To teach “religion”—even to teach about a specific religious tradition—is difficult to do within the space of a semester because doing so requires instruction concerning hundreds or thousands of years of history and details about specific cultures. Using literature provides students with a lens through which the problems and possibilities of a given religious tradition emerge at an individual level, and deters students from a totalized misconception that they “understand” what a religious tradition “means” or “is” based on an encounter with a textbook and knowledge of key terms. Further, much literature that relates to a religious tradition also provides examples of encountering tensions within texts and communities, exposes differences and rifts within sects that from an external perspective to seem largely homogeneous, and thereby allows students to enter a world shaped and shaded within a particular religious imaginary. Teaching Religion and Literature draws together prominent scholars and educators in the field of Religion and Literature with instructors in Religious Studies and English departments who incorporate Religion and Literature into their individual classes. Contributors not only represent expertise in a range of specific religious traditions, but also speak to a variety of teaching situations ranging from large lecture courses to graduate seminars, from first-year student general education courses to advanced undergraduate electives, from public universities to colleges with religious affiliations. Additionally, each chapter incorporates a host of ways to navigate the difficulties of how to explore a religious tradition within the short space of a semester. The book offers a variety of pedagogical approaches specific to how literature presents attitudes and experiences relative to religious traditions. Interwoven with suggestions for theoretical

4

Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz

approaches to Religion and Literature, text and lesson suggestions, and syllabi, this is a book meant to inspire instructors at all levels, for all types of courses. Uniting the chapters is the importance of interpretation in the process of cultural meaning-making, and the need to engage in self-aware, creative, and critical thinking when grappling with systems of meaning—whether traditional or novel. This book provides an important opportunity for scholars and instructors who want to explore ways of using Religion to teach Literature, how to use Literature to teach Religion, or methods for teaching Religion and Literature courses. It provides more general reflections on how to approach teaching Religion in a public institutional setting and makes a valuable contribution to how to manage classrooms in ways that emphasize self-aware, responsible, and critical thought. Chapters provide new perspectives on what kinds of “literature” promote positive classroom conversations, and incorporate discussions about emerging genres in literature (autobiography, science-fiction) and domains in religious studies (secularism). In an effort to reveal the range of ways that Religion and Literature can be integrated, this book examines four different ways of approaching the conjunction between these two disciplines. The first part focuses on the interdisciplinary field itself and thinks through how a “Religion and Literature” course might be taught. The second part focuses on ways that literature illuminates a variety of religious cultures, with an emphasis on cultures and genres that have historically been underrepresented. The third part looks at how literature might be used for classes that emphasize a thematic approach to teaching religion: Religion and Society, Religion and Nature, Religion and Culture, and Religion and the Self. The final section provides three different ways to approach teaching Herman Hesse’s classic Siddhartha, perhaps the most popular—and misunderstood—literary text employed to teach religion.

The Organization of the Text In Part I, Foundational Approaches to Religion and Literature, instructors encounter a series of foundational positions concerning what it can mean to teach a Religion and Literature course. This comprises an overview of four ways of approaching Religion and Literature: as a field of study that comprises a discipline with its own traditions to be analyzed, in terms of a sacred text’s influence on secular culture (and vice versa), as a reflection on the interpretative methodologies, and as an undergraduate course that explores “secular” novels. In the first chapter, Wesley A. Kort offers an overview of the history of the interdisciplinary field as it has emerged over the past 200 years. Not merely pointing to the major figures as they emerged in conversation and contradistinction to each other, Kort provides a sense of major shifts in the development of Religion and Literature. He first identifies a period of affinity, where religion and literature seemed to occupy a shared cultural space and compatible cultural roles. The second period, covering much of the twentieth century, features different ways that scholars in their respective disciplines attempted to differentiate literature from religion, isolating unique qualities. The third major shift arises with the institutionalization of Religion and Literature through the latter decades of the twentieth-century, in ways that allowed for an era of mutual appreciation. Kort concludes his chapter with a call for interdependence among scholars in the field, with an emphasis on teaching constructive thinking skills that allow students to build on a more nuanced awareness of their own place in a still-developing conversation. Kort’s essay provides an important context for the remaining discussions in the book, and on its own offers educators a resource for presenting a history of how religion and literature have been related historically.

Introduction

5

Next, David Jasper provides readers with an apology for a context that once was the primary (perhaps only!) approach to Religion and Literature—through the lens of the Bible and Literature—as well as an awareness of how teaching this topic must continue to evolve. His chapter begins by pointing to English literature’s debt to the Bible, as well as the importance of the imagination in the work of the Bible’s early translators into English, and then demonstrates how many of the major theoretical lessons important in a reflexive hermeneutical approach that most Religion and Literature courses employ can be taught within the context of the Bible and Literature. The chapter thus expands on how a focus on the Bible and Literature helps students understand how difficult it is to distinguish between “sacred” and “secular” texts—and why teaching students this difficulty remains important to consider when approaching broader questions of religion, culture and truth. Jasper concludes with a reminder to teachers to balance traditional and new approaches to teaching Religion and Literature, recognizing that much of the foundation for the field remains stable even as new developments cannot be ignored. The in-depth overview of this particular slice of the field of Religion and Literature is important not only for teachers interested in the specific relationship that Jasper fleshes out, but also for an elucidation of the tension comprised in the term “religious,” which shifts from being a term devoted to what is sacred to one particular community to a term denoting a sacred that permeates all culture. The third chapter offers an intensive study on the primacy of “interpretation” as the major work constituting Religion and Literature; in it, Richard A. Rosengarten arranges three independent hermeneutic motifs into a harmonious interplay of identity and difference, striking a chord whose echoes resonate with core questions of pedagogy in Religion and Literature. In particular, Rosengarten attends to three major figures in the academic field of Religion and Literature— Nathan Scott, Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida—and the major methods that each develops: the theological, the hermeneutic, the deconstructive. Beyond a precise analysis of how each figure interprets a text, demonstrating these three modes of performing Religion and Literature, Rosengarten delves through these texts in order to demonstrate how the tension in Religion and Literature—which Rosengarten attends to in terms of the “and”, the per se—becomes activated in teaching and performing the connections of the “and” when engaged in the work of interpretation. More than just a way one might approach a graduate seminar on Religion and Literature, this essay supplies an outstanding analysis of three nuanced theoretical positions, complete with a reading of how each major figure reads, before articulating why understanding these approaches to interpretation will add depth and complexity to any classroom. The final chapter of the first section investigates the pragmatic questions important to constructing a syllabus for a Religion and Literature classroom. Within it, Larry D. Bouchard examines how his Religion and Literature course has altered over the years, thinking specifically on the advantages and disadvantages of the novels that he has chosen to begin the class— including insightful ways of teaching these texts to students—and concluding with the problem of how to replace a book that has served well as an end to the course, once it has become too dated. Throughout, Bouchard provides an expansive glance at how individual novels and classes can provide students with nuanced understandings of differing definitions of “religion” and approaches to religious studies overall. Bouchard’s essay is an asset for any instructor wishing to supplement an extant Religious Studies course with a novel, for those wondering how to begin or end a course along the lines of “Religion and Modern Fiction,” and for those interested in understanding ways of using novels to help students gain an appreciation for religion. Part II, Illuminating Religious Cultures with Literature, shifts to an examination of literature as a window into specific religious traditions. In “Surrender to God, Surrender to Love,” Danielle

6

Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz

Widmann Abraham explains how the Sufi poet Rumi allows students to get outside of reified stereotypes about Muslims and what it means to relinquish one’s life to God. The chapter introduces key concepts in Islam that recur in Rumi’s poetry, such as tawhid, the oneness of God, and fana’, the annihilation of the self in God. Widmann Abraham shows how poetry can both reflect a religious tradition and function as a creative force within it, which in turn allows students to see Islam as an evolving and diverse set of practices and beliefs rather than a monolithic entity. Rumi’s poetry also provides an excellent case study in the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, since students are confronted with unfamiliar religious concepts alongside poetic images that demand multiple interpretations. The chapter concludes with a set of pedagogical strategies meant to help students deal with the difficult and unfamiliar tasks of reflecting on religious poetry and poetic religiosity. In the following chapter, Alan Levinovitz looks at how focusing on literature offers an alternative approach to problems of authorship and genre in the Zhuang Zi, a canonical Daoist text. The Zhuang Zi is notoriously difficult to interpret—a collection of parables, dialogues, and dense philosophical vignettes, compiled and edited over centuries. Nevertheless, most textbooks and scholarly commentaries attempt to distill the text into a set of straightforward ethical imperatives, in keeping with the idea that religious texts should offer stable guidance for living. Levinovitz suggests supplementing these commentaries with a short play by Lu Xun, the father of modern Chinese literature. Lu Xun’s play, “Bringing Back the Dead,” appears to be a criticism of the Zhuang Zi, but Levinovitz shows how a comparison of the two reveals profound similarities. The use of a literary critical approach—natural to reading a play—helps students distinguish between Zhuang Zi the character and the author(s) of the Zhuang Zi, a key distinction. It also allows pedagogues to teach the text without turning it into a list of ethical imperatives, an approach that feels more consonant with the text’s use of cryptic genres and playfully ambiguous tone. While Widmann Abraham and Levinovitz focus on a specific literary figure, Kimberly Rae Connor takes a broader approach to the intersection of literature and African-American religion. Connor demonstrates how literary products of all types—music, poetry, novels—have drawn from and shaped African-American religious belief. Aesthetics is intimately connected within the religious tradition—spirituals imitate the practice of speaking in tongues, and biblical precedent helps shape nineteenth- and twentieth-century African-American jeremiads, giving divine sanction to abolitionism and the civil rights movement. Biblical themes of hope and divine redemption, writes Connor, are found throughout the work of prominent African-American literary figures, from Langston Hughes to Zora Neale Hurston. But Connor also emphasizes how rejection is as important as appropriation, calling attention to how the Black Arts Movement repudiated European aesthetics, including Judeo-Christian forms. The chapter concludes with a variety of in-class exercises that help students creatively experience African-American religion and literature—stomping out the blues, writing poetry, and composing spiritual autobiographies. These invite students to imitate the creation at the heart of African-American religious literature in order to better learn from it. In a departure from typical understandings of what constitutes a religious tradition, this section concludes with Jennifer Stone’s analysis of faith, good, evil, and madness in nineteenthand twentieth-century British and American science fiction. While many in today’s world oppose science against religion, Stone argues that the apparent rejection of religious faith by science constitutes its own form of faith. She demonstrates that science, as reflected in the literary form that bears its name, grapples with its own sense of superiority over religion. As with any religious tradition, science fiction contains a variety of conflicting answers to

Introduction

7

fundamental epistemological and ethical questions, and Stone chooses texts that exemplify this diversity. She concludes with readings and assignments that break down truisms about the necessary opposition between science and religion, faith and doubt, religious evil and secular madness. Part III, Thematic Approaches to Religion and Literature, focuses on innovative ways to incorporate an interdisciplinary approach on a book-at-a-time basis, featuring classes that are thematically grounded as generic or flexible components in a typical course catalog. The first chapter in this section provides an investigation of how incorporating secularism can be used as a way to introduce Religion and Literature to students who intend to take only a “Religious Studies” or “Literature” course. Daniel Boscaljon describes how emphasizing secularism within a Religious Studies classroom allows students who come from non-religious backgrounds to appreciate the role of religion as it emerges in cultural productions that ostensibly have nothing to do with “religion,” expanding its sphere of influence. Boscaljon then describes his experience helping students understand the importance of religion in the formation of secular worldviews by showing the theo-logics implied within poetic and narrative structures, articulating how authors are thereby able to offer creative—rather than philosophical—understandings of the uncertain yet lingering presence of the divine. In addition to discussing how secularism works as a way to discuss Religion and Literature in both Religious Studies and English classrooms, Boscaljon’s essay also describes ways of encouraging student interest in Religion and Literature, even in class structures that have limited freedom or flexibility. The second chapter in this section discusses the benefit of using Religion and Literature approaches within a different interdisciplinary context; here, Nancy Menning describes her work teaching Terry Tempest Williams’s Leap in a Religion and Nature course. Beginning with a discussion of the student population—one indifferent to the humanities in general—Menning moves to discuss how Religion and Literature encourages her students to engage in integrative thinking as they develop more nuanced worldviews. The description of this unit of the class—in which Menning weaves together discussions of Mormonism, literature, nature, politics, and art with student writing and reflection—reveals how teaching Religion and Literature provides students with a flexible framework and a variety of lenses through which they can consider questions. Menning’s conclusion concerning how a Religion and Literature approach allows students to better distinguish between competing narrative claims to authority and truth provides a powerful example of why emphasizing the interpretation ingredient within Religion and Literature expands the value of a course. This section is not only useful for those interested in Religion and Nature courses or the work of Terry Tempest Williams, but more broadly demonstrates how to help students become more self-aware of the importance of this work in their everyday lives. In the next chapter, Michael Baltutis offers an innovative account of how teaching better known but less noble books provides incredibly valuable lessons concerning the work of interpretation “hidden” within banal cultural artifacts. Baltutis’s particular focus is on how Greg Mortenson’s controversial Three Cups of Tea offers students insight into how America characterizes Islam, and also how larger mythic structures tend to make otherwise unbelievable narratives seem more familiar—and thereby more acceptable. Describing how he carefully orchestrates student sympathies throughout the teaching of the book, moving from one that embraces the work of the protagonist to one that reviles him, Baltutis also reveals why critical reading is crucial in the twenty-first century. Important for teachers who wish to teach about how popular impressions of religion are formed in addition to the practices or rituals of a given religious tradition, Baltutis’s novel approach to teaching Religion and Literature expands the canon of texts worthy for consideration in a critical classroom.

8

Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz

The final chapter in this section examines the valuable role that autobiography, or life writing, can play in teaching Religion and Literature. Beginning with an analysis of the genre of life writing, John Barbour provides an expansive argument for incorporating and emphasizing this type of literature when conceiving of Religious Studies courses in general, and Religion and Literature courses in particular. In addition to giving examples of the specific advantages of teaching life writing, Barbour also provides essential approaches to key texts within this genre, reflecting on different kinds of courses and the particular texts that his former students have enjoyed. Beyond discussions of life writing, instructors from both Religious Studies and English programs will benefit from reading how Barbour’s courses and assignments help students grow to be more self-aware, reflective interpreters of their own lives. The collection concludes with an in-depth examination of a literary text widely used in religion classes: Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha. Assigned with great regularity in high school and undergraduate courses, the novel is an excellent choice for engaging students. Hesse’s prose is accessible, his characters compelling, and he addresses Hinduism and Buddhism in the space of only one hundred and fifty short pages. Basic concepts, like emptiness and Om, from these traditions figure prominently throughout, giving students the opportunity to deploy what they have learned in the service of interpretation. And, of course, a central theme is the futility of pedagogy, which makes for nice subtext when teaching the book. However, Siddhartha cannot be taught uncritically as a primer on Buddhism. As Catherine Benton explains in her chapter, Hesse’s main character may be compelling, but he is not a typical Buddhist. This does not mean Hesse’s novel should not be taught; instead, Benton provides material that explores how Siddhartha represents a departure from, not representation of, traditional Buddhist teaching. Framing this account is an examination of how Hesse came to understand the religions about which he was writing, and how his own religious background interacted with them to create a unique vision of enlightenment and Buddhist pedagogy. Paul Fischer draws on his teaching experience to provide a thematic pedagogical guide—a series of 16 questions that helps students engage and unpack the themes that Hesse has weaved through his quasi-Buddhist Bildungsroman. Grouping the questions into four categories—anthropology, cosmology, theology, and soteriology—Fischer shows how literary critical questions help address the foundational issues of religious studies scholarship. Third, in keeping with the idea that Siddhartha has value outside of its insight into Buddhist and Hindu practice, Peter Roberts argues that, when treated as a literary text rather than a religious primer, Hesse’s novel reveals itself as a meditation on pedagogy. In the religious studies classroom, Roberts suggests, Siddhartha becomes a lens through which to understand all religious pedagogy—it teaches readers about teaching in general, and especially how relationships factor into effective pedagogy. The contributors to this volume neither presume a reader’s familiarity with “Religion and Literature” as a subdiscipline, nor with any given religious or literary tradition. Even though each chapter draws on each author’s individual classroom experiences, they nonetheless offer perspectives on how to teach Religion and Literature that will benefit all instructors interested in introducing this interdisciplinary approach to learning. Not only this, but the range of texts enable even those readers less interested in Religion and Literature, per se, to gain a better understanding of approaches, assignments and attitudes that augment a student’s work of critical and creative thinking. Although the emphasis on interpretation clearly is designed to function best within a Religion and Literature classroom, many of the skills could also be translated into other teaching environments. As the framework that supports the contemporary post-secondary education system continues to change, demands on instructors in the humanities will continue to escalate. Promoting

Introduction

9

interdisciplinary work through Religion and Literature offers a way for instructors to articulate how the humanities uniquely opens students to becoming more eager learners, allows administrators to acknowledge the concrete, marketable types of benefits that grow more important each year. Most importantly, however, we hope that these essays will point teachers to texts that will inspire them—and their students—to embrace Religion and Literature as an enjoyable and enlightening mode of education.

This page intentionally left blank

PART I

Foundational Approaches to Religion and Literature

This page intentionally left blank

1 TEACHING “RELIGION AND LITERATURE” CONTEXTUALLY Wesley A. Kort

Courses in Religion and Literature are often taught without context. For example, literary texts are chosen that can be related to a religious topic or topics of the instructor’s choosing, such as evil or redemption. What value such a course has lies in the occasion it provides students to be engaged by religious or theological topics made accessible by means of a literary text and to be shown that religion is not confined to religious institutions but plays wider roles in the culture. While these are worthy pedagogical goals, courses designed in such ways risk being isolated and academically abstracted from the rich cultural framework that would allow students to locate Religion and Literature in broader and ongoing academic agendas. Courses in Religion and Literature can be designed to offset the risks of isolation and abstraction by providing contexts. These are of two prominent kinds, which can be combined. The first is historical or cultural. For example, American literary texts can be placed within the context of American cultural and religious history. Or Victorian novels can be studied in relation to the history of adjustments in England to various cultural shocks, such as Darwinism, Biblical Higher Criticism, and the rise of imperialism, urbanization, and industrialization. A second kind of context would be theoretical, dealing, for example, with how various genres of writing (fictional narratives or lyrical poetry, for example) are open to the inclusion of religious interests, feelings, or beliefs. Or a theoretical topic could be deployed that would occasion the inclusion of both literary and religious theories and texts, such as theories of tragedy and the problem of human suffering. These and similar contexts will enable students to relate Religion and Literature to other historical, cultural, or theoretical studies. In this chapter, I want to elaborate an additional, less prominent context for courses in Religion and Literature, one that combines historical/cultural and theoretical emphases. Engaging with this context could be the work of a single course, or it could supplement courses differently contextualized. It is the context provided by the continuing and culturally symptomatic discourses addressing the actual or desirable relations of religion and literature to one another, discourses that have been undervalued in discussions of Religion and Literature but need, especially today, to be revived and recast. Incorporating this context would provide students with a more nuanced grasp of how Religion and Literature emerged and developed. It would seem obvious that literature and religion are related to one another, since religious texts, oral and written, usually have literary forms like poetry and narrative and since poets and storytellers,

14

Wesley A. Kort

when they turn to interests of weight or consequence, often include matters that are religiously important. But to establish that they are related in natural and mutually beneficial rather than in isolated and compromising ways has sponsored a continuing but also changing discourse that has not reached its conclusion. The question of how and why religion and literature are, can, or should be related is contested, unresolved, and both intrinsically and culturally important.

Religion and Literature: The Period of Shared Cultural Roles The history of attempts to answer the question regarding how religion and literature relate to one another comes into view at the beginning of the nineteenth century due to the changing and more explicit or exposed cultural roles and identities that both literature and religion began to assume and play. Rapid and radical historical changes provided new challenges and opportunities for both religion and literature that placed them in cooperation but also in competition with one another. Most important in this transitional period are the claims made for literature, especially poetry, which gave it a new, religiously colored, and culturally elevated role and the emphasis in religion and theology on personal experience and feelings. These changes had behind them the important influence for the formation and unfolding of modernity exerted by “second scriptures,” a designation or form of textuality imputed to literature during the Romantic period. Nature had been read and regarded, even in medieval culture, as a second scripture, and Protestantism, especially Calvinism, formed the ground for theorists like Bacon and Locke to expand and elevate Nature’s status as a scripture equal in importance to the Bible, an elevation that continued until for many influential theorists the relation of the two scriptures, adjudicated by human reason, gave to Nature a superior and even determining role. This was followed in the eighteenth century by the elevation of history to the status of “second scripture,” a process that began with Vico’s New Science, which draws explicitly on Bacon. Central to that elevation was an emphasis on the historical appearances of social order, which, increasingly during the latter eighteenth century, evoked alternatives to political disruption and change. In the nineteenth century, literature joined nature and history to play the cultural role of a second scripture.1 A crucial figure in articulating this change in the status and role of poetry was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In his Biographia Literaria, Coleridge developed a theory of the human imagination that he offered as warrant for his conviction that poetry in the present and future would be distinguished from poetry of the past because, among other reasons, poetry in the past played a subservient role from which it had finally been emancipated. Drawing on Kant’s aesthetic theory and using Wordsworth as a prime example, Coleridge related poetry to human genius, particularly its ability to combine deep feeling with profound thought, everyday incidents with the ideal, and the humanly subjective or internal with what is objective and external. In a famous passage at the close of Chapter 13 of the Biographica Literaria he relates poetry causally to what he calls the primary imagination, which is truly creative and reenacts divine creativity: The primary imagination I hold to be the living power and prime agent of all human perception, and is a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM.2 While Coleridge did not clearly elevate poetry above the Bible as scripture, he conferred a new autonomy and religious quality or standing to poetry that elevated it, like nature and history, to the status of a second scripture.

Teaching Contextually

15

This move to give poetry a new autonomy and elevation may seem excessive, but it should be remembered that the Romantics were responding to unsettling social and political conditions prominent in their time, particularly the increasing urbanization and industrialization of English society. These changes, and the geographical and social mobility they occasioned, threatened the coherence and quality of English culture. Something was needed to counter these changes and to remedy their harm. Poetry, then, was to have the personal and cultural role of providing an alternative to, a protection from, and/or a redemptive potential relative to these historical disruptions. This was particularly important given the waning influence of Christianity. While Coleridge placed poetry on a level roughly equal to that of the Bible as scripture, Matthew Arnold was less reserved. Having lost faith in the ability of religion to counter or remedy the detrimental cultural effects of modernization, Arnold called on poetry to assume the role, previously attributed to religion, of providing a unifying and uplifting resource or reference for culture. As he writes in “The Study of Poetry,” More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry.3 According to Arnold, the new standing or role of poetry needs the support of a literary and cultural criticism that focuses attention on the best that is known and thought, especially on what contributes to the perfection of human life. While Arnold did not reject the Bible and religion, he placed them in a subservient role insofar as he believed religious texts should be read as literature and their contemporary relevance should be determined by the culture. Attempts to impute religious roles to poetry continue well into the twentieth century. Wallace Stevens announced its culmination; after belief in God dies, poetry takes its place: “The relation of art to life is of the first importance especially in a skeptical age since, in the absence of belief in God, the mind turns to its own creations and examines them. . .for what they reveal, for what they validate and invalidate, for the support that they give.”4 Unlike Arnold, Stevens does not appeal to a philosophical idealism that allowed poetry to indicate realities beyond or above itself. For Stevens poetry did not offer access or contact with something more or higher but only with the livable and workable fictions that poetry itself provides. “The final belief is to believe in a fiction, which you know to be a fiction, there being nothing else.”5 A brief survey of these discourses reveals two things. First, relations between literature and religion were fluid with the result that literature came to play cultural roles previously assumed by religion and religion began to be viewed more culturally and aesthetically. Second, the cultural prestige and force of both literature and religion relied on the presence in modern culture of generally shared forms or vestiges of philosophical idealism, especially the Hegelianism upon which Arnold could and did depend. The dependability of this cultural idealism, however, began to decline in the face of the increasing force of theoretical and popular naturalism or materialism. The idealist props that had supported the relation of poetry and religion both to one another and to something above or beyond them that was unifying, uplifting, and directional gave way before the cultural impact and prestige of science and technology, and the determination of social history by urbanization, industrialization, and war. Advocates of both poetry and religion were forced to carry on with little cultural support.

16

Wesley A. Kort

Religion and Literature: Trying to Bridge a Widening Gap While the cultural force and role of both poetry and religion were weakened by the rise of naturalism or materialism, advocates both of poetry and of religion, as often is the case when two parties are affected by adverse conditions, went their separate ways and tried to secure the integrity and value of their interests independently. Indeed, at times, each would grow critical of the other in an attempt to secure a protective distance. Poetry came to be viewed as “autotelic,” detached and an end in itself, and Christianity, especially in its Evangelical and neo-orthodox forms, related to the culture after the First World War in an increasingly contrary and even judgmental way. This separation of religion and literature from one another gave rise to attempts by individuals to restore a respect for their innate affinities. On the side of religion, these attempts were sponsored primarily by liberal forms of Christian theology, forms that included Christianity under the broader heading of religion. This gave culture, especially high culture, positive religious potential. Two theologians influential for these attempts were Amos Wilder and Paul Tillich, who argued that religion should not adopt a negative relation to culture because literature particularly and art generally can be sites where the importance of religion in and for human life is revealed in new and powerful ways.6 From their perspectives, religion is positively affected by literature, and religion and art can make common cause against the erosion or reduction of culture by theoretical and popular naturalism or materialism. This period of explicit reconciliation saw advocates from both disciplines, working primarily individually, identifying or trying to forge relations between religion and literature. Their work assumes that earlier intuitions concerning the affinities connecting these disciplines were correct, but recognized that such connections must now be argued for rather than taken for granted. Students will benefit from working through the powerful theological and theoretical arguments developed during this time, as well as from understanding the cultural context that contributed toward an institutional need to generate this type of apologetic work. I will survey these worthy attempts in an orderly way by grouping them according to the four foci of aesthetic theory, namely: reception, authorship, the work itself, and the culture reflected in or challenged by the work. One attempt to argue for an interconnection depicted the relations between the two as residing in the response to literature by readers or critics. T. S. Eliot, for example, argued that, since the culture lacks agreement concerning morality and religion, the Christian reader should complete reading with interpretations and evaluations of literature that are ethical and theological. This completion is made urgent by the fact that contemporary literature tends to be, as he put it, “degrading,” due to the dominance of “secularism,” a product of cultural materialism. Such a culture means that literature “is simply unaware of, simply cannot understand the meaning of, the primacy of the supernatural over natural life….”7 A non-religious or secular reading or evaluation of literature will not correct or supplement this lack. J. Hillis Miller follows, while he also alters, Eliot’s approach. The reader’s own commitments are relevant to acts of reading and evaluating literature. Miller’s difference from Eliot concerns the weight of the reader’s judgment. He thinks that Eliot goes too far, turning literary criticism toward censorship. While religious commitments can and should counter a path which, as Miller argued, Nietzsche clearly indicated leads to nihilism, they should not, when they form part of the critical task, take on the qualities of certainty or dogmatism.8 Paul Ricoeur also turns to reading as a site where the separation between religion and literature can be overcome. Symbolic language, which is characteristic of both literature and religion, should be taken seriously because of its ability to relate contraries to one another and to

Teaching Contextually

17

create wholes. Symbols also challenge the adequacy of literal language. Rather than read symbols literally, which would be naïve, one should read them in relation to, even in tension with, literal language and with the possibility, held open by what he calls a “second naiveté,” that the two languages will become or be seen as complementary.9 Establishing the connection between religion and literature within the site of readers presumes that readers have a religious context (Eliot), knowledge of personal moral commitments (Miller) or ability to read well (Ricoeur) to provide this context. This faith in the reader emerges in a context of a literate, predominantly Christian, Western culture. Providing a different focus, other theorists tried to forge relations between religion and literature by turning to the author or to creativity. Dorothy Sayers saw literary creativity as a human characteristic related to divine creativity. For her, the imago dei most clearly appears in human life in and through “the desire and the ability to make things.”10 People are most fully themselves when they create, and they also, at such times, reveal what God is like. Nathan A. Scott, indebted, as was Sayers, to Coleridge but indebted even more to Arnold, turns attention to the author by means of what he calls “style.” He places literary style in a contrary relation to materialism generally and to Marxism particularly because the goal or effect of their orientation is reductive. But rather than judge modern literature as limited to and by secularism or materialism, as Eliot tended to do, Scott follows Amos Wilder and Paul Tillich to identify modern literature as being “crypto-religious.” This quality lies in the author’s goal to heighten and expand awareness beyond materiality, something achieved by the author’s relating particulars in a comprehensive style that arises from the author’s orientation to what is capacious and uplifting.11 The merits of this approach require the assumption of creative genius, and the examples chosen prove their points in each case; however, this inspirational quality cannot be assumed of all publications any more than an explicit religious knowledge or moral framework can be assumed of all readers. A third focus for critics and theorists trying to relate literature and religion to one another is the literary work itself. Northrop Frye saw religion and literature joined in the literary text because the ultimate and apocalyptic interests or orientations of religion are more likely to be found in literature than in more ordinary aspects of the culture. However, for Frye religious matters, when incorporated by literature, lose their religious qualities and become literary. This emphasis frees the literary critic from having to make judgments regarding religious material in literary texts. Frye was important in the move to relate religion and literature to one another not only because he was highly regarded as a literary critic, theorist, and historian, but also because his work supported the pervasive interest taken by both literary and religious critics and theorists in myth, an interest shared by major literary figures like Lawrence, Joyce, and Graves.12 Sublating the religious into the literary eliminates a conflict between these domains, although at a loss of its theological potentiality. Finally, some critics and theorists related religion and literature to one another in terms of the culture they reflect and/or challenge. Amos Wilder saw religion and literature as sharing a common problem created by the loss in the culture of a pervasive idealism. This cultural deprivation calls for and warrants treating literature and religion together in an effort to address and fill this lack. W. H. Auden takes a similar approach. Literature and religion have more in common with one another than either of them has with cultural materialism. Indeed, the culture in which both literature and religion operate is non-supportive of the welfare of both. The two, therefore, can and should support one another by providing resistance and alternatives to materialism.13

18

Wesley A. Kort

Finally, Cleanth Brooks relates religion and literature to one another by their shared capacity to provide the culture with what he calls “value-structured experiences.” However, he also thought that religion and literature should be treated as independent from one another, since commitment and imagination, though related, are also distinguishable. He is “wary of conceptions that would turn literature into an ersatz religion or religion into a kind of fairy tale with ethical implications.”14 That is, he opposed both viewing literature as religious and viewing religion aesthetically. Each of the above approaches have in common a desire to keep the disciplines as distinct but compatible, as happenstantial allies whose joined strengths manifest against the threat of materialist reductionism.

Religion and Literature: Emerging from Subversion and Critique While many of the voices addressing the relation of literature and religion came from the literary side of the divide, attempts to bridge the divide were more ambitiously and substantially carried on by faculties in religion or theology that included Religion and Literature as a specific subject or program in their curricula. Most importantly, graduate programs in Religion and Literature, such as at The University of Chicago and Drew University, became sites where, in largely separate ways, efforts to treat religion and literature in their relations to one another were institutionalized. These institutionalized approaches to thinking through the problem of relating religion and literature in a systematic fashion were developed in a flourishing academic context that was beginning to prize both religious studies and the interdisciplinary work it enabled. Students benefit from understanding how the context of academia influences disciplinary developments and individual scholarship, for in accounting for this influence they will become more able to identify it in their own work. Attempts to institutionalize the relations between literature and religion met with limited but real success for two reasons. First, they were established during a time when both literary and religious theorists and critics were largely maintaining the integrity, distinctiveness, and autonomy of their respective domains independently from and not answerable to anything outside themselves. On the literary side this emphasis can be seen in the so-called New Criticism, which emphasized the enclosed or self-referential character of literature generally and of lyric poetry particularly. On the religious side, the emphasis was epitomized by a so-called neo-Orthodoxy that took a negative stance relative to a culture whose concealments and pretentions had been stripped away by the First World War to reveal the violence behind modern culture and the arrogance carried by it. Attempts to relate religion and literature to one another, then, were carried on by literary critics and theorists who related literature to the needs and potentials of human culture and, on the religious side, by theorists and critics who took a more positive, one would say a more liberal, view of culture generally and of human creativity and its products especially. A second reason why attempts to institutionalize the relations between religion and literature met with some success was that they anticipated powerful processes already underway, primarily the erosion, under the general banner of deconstruction, of both Religion and Literature as designations of discreet entities. While some attempts to relate Religion and Literature had been focused on the common cause they could make against the rising influence in academic culture of theoretical and critical materialism, materialism at the same time gained currency and eventually eroded the bases upon which the separate identities of Religion and Literature had depended. As materialism, particularly in the forms of Marxism and Freudianism, became more influential in academic culture, the categories of both Religion and Literature, the particularity and status each had enjoyed, were exposed to radical, materialist critiques.

Teaching Contextually

19

The most obvious result of this process was the subversion of canons, of the assumptions and claims that canons had supported, and of the authorities that gathered around canons in a priestlike way. Departments of Literature became increasingly dominated by cultural theory and critique, and literary texts that could be identified as engaged in critiques of the dominant culture were given greater, often central, and even exclusive attention. Meanwhile, departments of Religion, especially in non-ecclesiastical settings, related and even subordinated religion to social and cultural needs, forces, and functions, even to its role as warrant for the exclusion and oppression of some people in the society. These changes were not wholly successful in terminating efforts to relate Religion and Literature to one another. On the Religion side there was willingness on the part of some theorists in religion to adopt the emphases of postmodernism and to view the newly interpreted situation as itself religiously and theologically fruitful. And on the literary side, efforts to discredit canonicity were incomplete due to curricular needs and to the fact that literary texts critical of society and culture could not be separated from recognizable literary elements and qualities. The critical and subversive effects of what generally is referred to as postmodernism were not totally negative, therefore, and sponsored important work, although primarily of a critical kind, in both religious and literary studies. This gave rise to the third reason why attempts to institutionalize Religion and Literature met with a measure of success. With the subversion of the categories of Religion and Literature, the walls of enclosure around both were breached, and the resulting openness created possibilities for seeing religious and literary enterprises and interests as related to and affecting one another. At the least, more fluid or open conditions allowed literary interests to be cultivated more widely in religious and theological studies and religious interests, especially their cultural embodiments, to be included in literary studies. Because Religion and Literature as a field or enterprise had located itself in the space opened by separations between the two, that space, when both literary and religion departments became more fluid and inclusive, was entered from both sides and could validate and not simply displace institutionalized attempts to relate religious and literary studies to one another. The question is whether these altered conditions mean that discourses concerning the relations of literary and religious studies to one another are outdated or if they will be directed toward identifying or creating new or renewed relations between them. Informing students about the effects of institutions on the production of knowledge will allow them to be more conscientious thinkers in general; such information seems particularly useful in understanding a subfield that has thrived on the margins against a context increasingly defined in terms of materialism. Understanding this context reduces the risk that students will appropriate nineteenthor twentieth-century assumptions concerning how religion and literature relate, and allows students to understand the contemporary context that influences their work.

Religion and Literature: Identifying New Relations Having traced, however briefly, discourses of the last two centuries concerning the relations between religion and literature from their shared although also competing roles, through a period of separation and individual autonomy, into a period of various attempts to reconnect them, and finally into a time in which we now find ourselves, a time in academic culture dominated by theoretical and ideological materialism, we can raise anew the question of how religious and literary studies (which already differs importantly from “Religion and Literature”) can or should be related. Two aspects of the present situation suggest possibilities for identifying and clarifying these relations. The first is, as already suggested, a new sense of the inter-relatedness of human

20

Wesley A. Kort

interests and the study of them. The second aspect is that each discipline not only finds a common challenge in the materialist assumptions that, in academic culture, operate as an ideology but each also has a case to make (although it is not always the same case) that the human interests and constructions to which each turns are not clearly or fully traceable to causes contained within matter and energy. Given these shared conditions, what are the prospects? Certainly the critical awareness created in and by the period through which we have come should be continued. A more inclusive atmosphere has developed, so that formerly excluded people and their work have been included. Both religious and literary studies inherit from this period a mission of academic culture to maintain and increase awareness of social injustices and their personal and cultural costs. The content of religious studies and the sensitivities of literary artists and critics to whatever in ordinary life is overlooked or undervalued commission both religious and literary studies to persist in critical acts of exposing the operations of oppression and of freeing the overlooked from invisibility. Beyond this, the present context calls for a furthering of the possibility for interrelations created by the dismantling of walls. While some academics insist on and try to restore or maintain former isolation and autonomy, these attempts can now be seen as increasingly desperate and eventually vestigial given the movement toward interdisciplinarity in the academy. While distinctions can and should continually be made, overlap and mutuality are now dominant, and both religious and literary studies are seen as open and responsive to the surrounding culture. The distinction between classical or elevated and popular or ordinary, along with other separations, also has been subverted. But distinctions and evaluations continue to be part of both enterprises. The criteria for making judgments and the need to be attentive to what in the surrounding culture is and is not worthy relate the two interests to one another. Another possible characteristic of academic culture that abets the prospects for renewed relations between religious and literary studies is the waning of certainty. This loss, by all accounts, is a good thing because certainty is related to possession and possession is related to the acquisition and retention of power. While we live in a time of disillusion and cynicism and, as well, of dogmatism and fanaticism, the time is also one of openness, the prominence of questions, and exposure to the unfamiliar. Although they may have its casualties, particularly creating confusion and bewilderment, current conditions may also open new possibilities for relating literary creativity and religious interests to one another. While we continue to need institutional distinctions, we can also be free of the proprietary and exclusivist attitudes to which in the past they gave rise. An academic culture of increased disciplinary fluidity can support attempts toward inter-relatedness. Both religious and literary studies can encourage these new conditions and give them direction. While the potentials residing in current conditions should continue to be developed, changes of direction or emphasis also are needed, and resources for these needed changes reside in both literary and religious studies. The first is an exchange of what could be called an ironic stance or style for a hyperbolic one. While not discrediting critique, we have had enough now of viewing things, including literary and religious things, as other, less, or meaner than they present themselves as being. We have had enough now of an emphasis on a hermeneutic of suspicion, of an eye for what really is the case, an eye, that is, for what, beneath the respectable façade, is nasty. By constantly tearing things down, unmasking and reducing everything, we finally also tear down ourselves and culture itself. What is needed as an antidote to the excesses of reduction and exposure are attempts at uplifting, edifying, and inspiring. In balance with the ironic temperament a hyperbolic temperament should be encouraged. This means teaching and

Teaching Contextually

21

cultivating new forms of appreciation, both literary and religious. This need not be uncritical, but the critical impulse should be connected with a constructive one. Teaching this is crucial, for it is always easier to tear down or undress than to build up or adorn. If for no other reason than that the disdainful and critical spirit of exposure and debunking is finally boring because it often has no other result than the elevation of the critic, we need to train students to have a renewed emphasis on appreciation, celebration, and gratitude both in literary and in religious studies. Providing students with a grasp of the current context will enable them to appreciate more fully the gift of a hyperbolic hermeneutic stance. More basically, religious and literary studies, while needing to continue the sharp and relentless exposure and critique of the cruelties and crudities of the culture, should be wary of the materialism that critique as presently operative still carries within it. This materialism is less theoretical than practical and ideological. Prominent in the culture is the assumption, in both senses of the word, of power as the basic cause and most desirable acquisition. We need to look not so much any longer for what is lower but instead for what is higher, for what is deserving of admiration and emulation, for what inspires, and to what we should aspire. We have now to rebuild or replace what critique has succeeded primarily to tear down. And to restore this orientation, both religious and literary studies can and must raise again the question of what, personally and as a society, it is good for us to be and do. A quandary, however, now appears, for we cannot go back to the forms of idealism that sustained or reinforced literary and religious interests and their mutual concern for what is higher and uplifting. Philosophical idealism may have more academic currency than I am aware of, but I do not think that we can look, in our need to redress the lacks of our culture due to practical and ideological materialism, to a cultural dissemination of some form of philosophical idealism. But there are moments when, perhaps, we can hear in our need an encouraging word. It arises from the recognition of what for us as human beings is obvious and real, namely, our own capacities for thinking, imagining, believing, and aspiring. In comparison to these real, experienced, shared, and personal things, materiality is distant from us and even strange. We identify with and have identities that are formed by capacities that cannot easily be attributed to materiality but are real and significant for us nonetheless. Those teaching religious and literary studies need to return to, refurbish, and jointly stress the primacy in human life and identity of these elusive but defining and enriching capacities and gifts. Courses in Religion and Literature can, drawing on the tradition that has been sketched here, include as a component, if not dominant then at least prominent, the task of identifying and bringing together the alternatives that both religion and the creative imagination offer to the pervasive materialism that marks the culture of late modernity generally and of the academy in particular. This task or challenge, while it relates to both religious and literary studies as presently conducted, counters continuing tendencies in each disciplinary home to retain or perpetuate current materialist ideologies. Teaching Religion and Literature without context enables students to appreciate the affinities between the two at a level akin to the period of shared cultural roles discussed on p. 14, although the abstract nature of this approach denies students access to the larger stakes governing the discussion. On the other hand, teaching Religion and Literature with an eye to the context produced by materialism allows the course to join the tradition of fighting reductionism by juxtaposing similar resources mentioned on p. 19, and allows students to understand why this is done with an expansive sense of openness contributed by the phase of institutionalization. Providing students with this explicit background will enable Religion and Literature to continue evolving in a powerful and intentional fashion.15

22

Wesley A. Kort

Notes 1 For a treatment of the history of identifying and creating “texts” regarded or treated as second scriptures and the emergence of a variety of such “texts” see Kort, “Take, Read”: Scripture, Textuality and Cultural Practice (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996). 2 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria; or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1853), 155. 3 Matthew Arnold, “The Study of Poetry,” Essays in Criticism: Second Series (London: Macmillan and Co., 1889), 2–3. 4 Wallace Stevens, “Adagia” in Opus Posthumous, Samuel French Morse (ed.) (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966), 159. 5 Ibid., 163. 6 See Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture, Robert C. Kimball (ed.) (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959) and Amos Wilder, Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976). 7 T. S. Eliot, “Religion and Literature” in Selected Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950), 352. 8 J. Hillis Miller, “Literature and Religion” in Theory Now and Then (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991), 66 and 67. 9 Paul Ricoeur, “Conclusion: The Symbol Gives Rise to Thought” in The Symbolism of Evil, trans. Emerson Buchanan (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1967), 347–357. 10 Dorothy L. Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1942), 17. 11 Nathan A. Scott, “The Modern Experiment in Criticism: A Theological Appraisal” in Nathan A. Scott, Jr. (ed.), The New Orpheus: Essays toward a Christian Poetic (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964), 167. 12 Northrop Frye, “Theory of Mythos: Introduction,” in Anatomy of Criticism (New York: Atheneum, 1966), 151–158. 13 W. H. Auden, “Postscript: Christianity and Art” in W. H. Auden: Prose, Vol. iv, Edward Mendelson (ed.) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 775–779. 14 Cleanth Brooks, Community, Religion, and Literature (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995), 62. 15 See Wesley A. Kort, “‘Religion and Literature’ in Postmodernist Contexts,” Journal of the Academy of Religion, LVIII. 4 (Winter, 1991), 575–588, “What and Where is ‘Religion and Literature’ Now?,” Theology Today 62.3 (October, 2005), 400–407, and “What, After All, is ‘Religion and Literature’?,” Religion & Literature, 41.2 (Summer, 2009), 105–111.

Bibliography Arnold, Matthew. Essays in Criticism: Second Series. London: Macmillan and Co., 1889. Auden, W.H. “Postscript: Christianity and Art” in W.H. Auden: Prose, vol. iv. Edited by Edward Mendelson. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010. Brooks, Cleanth. Community, Religion and Literature. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1995. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.“Biographia Literaria or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions” in The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by Professor Shedd. Vol. III. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1853. Eliot, T.S. “Religion and Literature” in Selected Essays. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950. Frye, Northrop. “Archetypal Criticism: Theory of Myths” in Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. New York: Atheneum, 1966. Kort, Wesley, A. “Religion and Literature” in Postmodernist Contexts. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LVIII (Winter, 1990): 575–588. ———. “Take, Read”: Scripture, Textuality, and Cultural Practice. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996. ———. “What and Where is ‘Religion and Literature’ Now?” Theology Today. 62 (October, 2005): 400–407. ———. “What, After All, Is ‘Religion and Literature’?” Religion and Literature 41 (Summer, 2009): 105–111. Miller, J. Hillis. “Literature and Religion” in Theory Now and Then. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. Ricoeur, Paul. “Conclusion: The Symbol Gives Rise to Thought” in The Symbolism of Evil. Translated by Emerson Buchannan. New York: Harper & Row, 1967. Sayers, Dorothy L. The Mind of the Maker. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1942.

Teaching Contextually

23

Scott, Nathan A. “The Modern Experiment in Criticism: A Theological Appraisal” in The New Orpheus: Essays Toward a Christian Poetic. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1964. Stevens, Wallace. “Adagia” in Opus Posthumous. Ed. Samuel French Morse.New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. Tillich, Paul. Theology of Culture. Edited by Robert C. Kimball. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959. Wilder, Amos. Theopoetic: Theology and the Religious Imagination. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976.

2 TEACHING THE BIBLE AND LITERATURE David Jasper

The lurking fear, after spending some thirty years teaching in university courses variously described as “The Bible as Literature”, “The Bible and Literature”, “The Bible in Literature”, and so on, is that there is nothing much more to say. The dangers of repetition were brought to mind again recently when I was asked to review a new student Reader on the Bible and Literature, and I found that almost all of the critical texts supplied were on my reading lists decades ago. There seemed little new, innovative or exciting. Have we, as teachers, said all that there is to be said, being rooted in the obvious statement that the Bible is the single most important literary influence on Western literature and our task as teachers is little more than simply to show by examples that that is the case? That, indeed, might well be the case if the Bible was simply an example of what is broadly known as “literature,” an ancient and supremely important but not, finally, altogether unique example of Weltliteratur. But that would be to misunderstand nineteenth-century readers like S. T. Coleridge and Benjamin Jowett who advise us to read the Bible as if it were like all other literature, with the clear and continuing sense that, for them at least, it is not. This chapter claims that teaching the Bible and literature remains a fundamentally important exercise: that said, it also cannot remain static but needs to be re-thought continually for two primary reasons. First, if we have inherited the Bible as a sacred text, this is in the context of an increasingly secularized academic environment in which students are less and less aware of the importance of this tradition even when (or because) that sacrality is no longer acknowledged. Second, as we shall see, we live in an increasingly multicultural world so that, for example, I myself teach courses on the Bible and literature in Beijing to students with no sense whatsoever of the European religious traditions. In China the Bible takes its place alongside the sacred texts of other traditions in a global context—and thus we cannot continue to teach it with the assumptions and presumptions that we might have had even thirty years ago. And so we begin to teach by reminding students of the first exercise in their study, which is born of the fairly obvious observation that it is virtually impossible to study (let us limit ourselves at the outset) English literature without recognizing the more or less ubiquitous presence of the Bible, and that they need to start with some sense of the relationship between the Bible and all other literature in the Western canon. That is, they cannot but acknowledge the

Teaching the Bible and Literature

25

nature of the Bible as an inherited library of sacred texts. It makes no difference that its sacred nature has been less and less acknowledged since the eighteenth century. It is because the Bible, for so long and still to a certain extent, has been regarded as “sacred” that it remains uniquely important for other literature. In modern studies this is not always admitted. In a book that was standard when I began teaching, T. R. Henn’s The Bible as Literature (1970), the argument is made that it is the Bible as literature, what Henn calls its unique “forge of style”, that makes it sacred, rather than the other way around. Much earlier Richard G. Moulton, Professor of “Literature in English” at the University of Chicago, who wrote a student text book entitled The Literary Study of the Bible as long ago as 1896, described the Bible as “Literature Smothered by Reverence,”1 a library of energetic literary texts awaiting liberation from the stifling hand of religion and piety. Nearer the truth, however, are T. S. Eliot’s familiar if somewhat gendered words from his 1935 essay ‘Religion and Literature,’ always worth repeating—that “the Bible has had a literary influence upon English literature not because it has been considered as literature, but because it has been considered as the report of the Word of God. And the fact that men of letters now discuss it as ‘literature’ probably indicates the end of its literary influence.”2 One way forward from this observation, and it is along a neglected path that should be at least an element in all teaching of the Bible and literature, lies in the acknowledgement that the history of Western hermeneutics (that is textual interpretation understood theoretically and therefore close to what literary critics would call “literary theory”) begins in and is driven by questions of how on earth to read the Bible as the Word of God. But I wish to begin in earnest in a rather different and more specific way, taking up an observation that Sallie McFague made years ago in a Foreword to one of my own early books, The New Testament and the Literary Imagination (1987). She is addressing the issue of pluralities of interpretation, and I need to quote her at some length. Because Jasper sees scripture as principally “mythical literature,” as sacred history, whereby a people understands “the point where history gives rise to and is invaded by matter of ultimate concern,” scripture is not a collection of historical or doctrinal texts. Rather, it is an affair of the imagination and as such is not only open to but actually demands multiple interpretations. Jasper is appreciative of various critical approaches to the New Testament, including historical and redactional ones, but he invites the reader, above all, to approach scripture as literature, to focus on the text as poetic language, for this way of reading the text allows it to be heard and heard again – even as the classics are. The New Testament is kerygma, “testimony to the transforming power of the Resurrection,” but the way this testimony occurs is through indeterminacy of meaning and plural possibilities of interpretation, demanding continuous revision and continuous exercise of judgment. There is no one meaning.3 McFague’s point is that it is precisely because scripture is understood as “sacred history” and the New Testament as kerygma that it is to be read imaginatively and as literature. It echoes the point made by T. S. Eliot. This, it has to be admitted, is offered in contrast to the central Reformation hermeneutic as articulated by William Tyndale (?1494–1536), the greatest of all translators of the Bible into English, that not only is the Bible to be read to the exclusion of all other naughty literature that works only to the inflaming of our base desires and imaginings, but that there is finally only one way to interpret scripture. Tyndale’s sole concern is for the salvation of souls, and he writes, “The right way: yea, and the only way to understand the scripture unto our salvation, is, that we earnestly and above all thing, search for the profession of our baptism or covenants

26

David Jasper

made between God and us.”4 This singular understanding of scripture is to our “edifying in the literal sense”5 and to the avoidance of what Martin Luther calls, dismissively, our “heedless imaginations.”6 The Reformation principle of sola scriptura was hardly conducive to the intercourse between the Bible and other works of literature. In producing his Bible in contemporary and deliberately highly accessible English, Tyndale was above all concerned to curb the power of the Church and its priests: the Bible would provide the sole literary recourse of the common man and woman (assuming that they could read at all) both for their diversion from the trials of life and for the good of their souls. As he puts it in his translation of Erasmus’ Exhortations to the Diligent Study of Scripture (1529): “I wold to god the plowman wold singe a texte of the scripture at his plowbeme, and that the wever at his lowme with this wold drive away the tediousness of tyme.”7 Similarly, almost one hundred years later in 1611, the translators of the King James Bible, who were heavily indebted to Tyndale, were quite clear in an essay of searing literary brilliance that the nourishment provided by the Bible was entirely of a spiritual and religious kind, “a fountain of most pure water springing up into everlasting life.”8 But the fact is that, with all his religious concerns, and indeed, actually because of them, Tyndale produced a Bible that, with its straightforward Saxon syntax that speaks the language of the people, provided the foundation of English literature thereafter, giving truth to the remark that “without Tyndale, no Shakespeare.” Tyndale offers what is perhaps the key to greatness in literature—the common touch with the discipline and assurance of the scholar. In the words of David Daniell: “Tyndale insisted on being understood by the ordinary people. He preferred a simple Saxon syntax of subject-verb-object. His vocabulary is predominantly Saxon, and often monosyllabic. An Oxford scholar, he was always rhetorically alert. He gave the Bible-reading nation an English plain style.”9 The point is that this plain style, the language of the people, spoke with a purity that established itself at the very heart of English literature—above all in the work of William Shakespeare, and after him Bunyan and many others. It was through the Geneva Bible of 1560, which largely drew on the earlier work of Tyndale, that the Bible in English entered into the world of English literature—the world of the great Elizabethan and Jacobean poets and playwrights. It was a gift in many senses. National religious practice and piety ensured that the Bible was the one text, without exception, that Shakespeare and his fellow writers could assume would be well known to everyone in the theatre at all levels of society. When Bottom, awakening from his dream in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mangles the lines from St. Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, Shakespeare could be confident that everyone present would get the joke in the exchange with sacred scripture. More generally, and more subtly, Shakespeare picks up the genius of Tyndale through the resonances of his language in the wells of English undefiled. A supreme example might be in the words of the dying Hamlet in which, as Daniell well expresses it, “Shakespeare is close to Tyndale in that sense of simple words bringing in a new kingdom of possibilities. Had I but time – as this fell sergeant Death Is strict in his arrest – O, I could tell you – But let it be.10 From the Bible of Tyndale, it might be said, Shakespeare learns the art of letting words, often simple words, speak for themselves, even when words fail for the dying man: “But let it be.” Think here of Peter after he has denied his Lord at the trial in St. Mark’s Gospel: “And again the cock crew, and Peter remembered the word that Jesus said unto him: before the cock crow

Teaching the Bible and Literature

27

twice, thou shalt deny me thrice, and began to weep.” In each case four simple and unembellished words speak eternities in the human spirit. But as we progress further into the seventeenth century with the Bible we inevitably encounter the world of religious politics from which literature itself cannot be innocent. The 1611 King James Bible was much more than a great work of English prose—although it drew to a very high degree upon the work of the previous century and in some ways is a diminution from it—it was, quite simply, “a deeply political book.”11 At its political center, apart from the King himself, was the pugnacious Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bancroft, who was only persuaded to pursue the task of translation through his sense of political expediency and an understandable unwillingness to get on the wrong side of his monarch. It is well for the student to remember this in the inevitable approach to the greatest of all “Biblical” poems in the English language, John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), of which the relationship with the Bible is, at many levels, complex. For much of his life Milton was directly involved, as Latin secretary to the Council of State, in political, religious and civil controversy. At the same time his fellow poet, friend and assistant in his secretarial duties, Andrew Marvell, anticipating the stronger strictures of Dr. Samuel Johnson in the next century, famously expressed his doubts as to the wisdom of a mere poet presuming to “re-write” the Bible narrative: The Argument Held me a while misdoubting his Intent, That he would ruin (for I saw him strong) The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song, (So Sampson groap’d the Temples Posts in spight) The World o’rewhelming to revenge his Sight. Yet as I read, soon growing less severe, I lik’d his Project, the success did fear; Through that wide Field how he his way should find O’re which lame Faith leads Understanding blind.12 Linking the blind Milton with his Biblical predecessor Samson, on whose demise Milton was later to write a tragedy, Marvell rightly alerts the reader to the sheer audacity of Milton’s project in Paradise Lost. It was not simply that he was trying to outdo the text of Genesis, but in the words of the opening lines of the poem he seeks divine inspiration actually to speak for God, “putting long speeches into God’s mouth in the course of an account of what actually occurred in Heaven.”13 Even the Hebrew prophets themselves made no such presumption, merely claiming to be mouthpieces through which God’s words are mediated. The point is, as we must make quite clear to our students, that this is poetry with a purpose, its intention being a religious one—to “justify the ways of God to men” (the old theodical problem)—and the defensive voice that God here is given is that of rationality, the same voice that Milton had earlier employed in his theologically distinct and peculiar prose treatise De Doctrina Christiana.14 It is the ponderous, logical arguments of God in Paradise Lost that lie at the root of the Romantic tradition (to which we shall return in due course) which begins with William Blake and is taken up by the atheistical Shelley, and which takes the real hero of the poem as the ArchRebel Satan, God being at best an insufferable bore. This tradition of reading Milton finds, perhaps, its modern conclusion in William Empson’s book Milton’s God (1961) which reflects, in the spirit of Renaissance Humanism, at least to some degree, that “[Milton] could accept and

28

David Jasper

express a downright horrible conception of God and yet somehow keep alive, underneath it, all the breadth and generosity, the welcome to every noble pleasure, which had been prominent in European history just before his time.”15 But lest we, as both teachers and students of literature, get carried away by such righteous (or better, self-righteous) arguments, we need to keep clearly in mind the complex relationship between the Bible, Milton’s poem and Christian doctrine and belief. The Bible is not just literature, it is a “sacred” text, but as such its intrinsic, one might say necessary, “literariness” somehow speaks to fellow poets, whose work may, by association take on a “sacred” quality—a dangerous and presumptuous characteristic, which Marvell well perceived, and ultimately endorsed, in Paradise Lost. Within the limits of the present chapter it might be enough to hint that, broadly speaking, in his epic poem Milton does achieve his theological purpose of justifying the ways of God far more successfully than anything he achieved in the more straightforwardly “theological” work De Doctrina. True, as has often been pointed out, Milton’s Christian orthodoxy in his poem is, at best, wobbly, but the drama and human energy of the narrative after the rather tedious episodes in Adam and Eve’s pre-lapsarian condition picks up after the momentous event of Eve’s encounter with Satan until the now adult couple, in their very fallen condition, reflect a familiar world of complexity and love, of loneliness and mutual support. In short, in David Daiches’ words: Such is the mixture of our experience; such are the difficulties, contradictions, challenges, and rewards that await purposive man in the world. It is not the effortless peace of the Garden of Eden. It is something more interesting and more testing. And ultimately, to Milton, so the poetry if not the argument tells us, it is more satisfying. Good comes out of evil not in the theological way of the felix culpa, the “fortunate fall”, but more obliquely in the emergence of a world that in spite of everything is the world we want and need. So God is justified, in a way that might perhaps have surprised him.16 The point is that if the Bible is in some sense a “sacred text,” it is also a work of great literature, and literature can be rightly impatient of the sometimes rather pedantic processes of theology and doctrine, racing ahead through paradox and the drama of irrational encounters which speak of love and fear to visions which have more to do with the reasons of the heart of which reason, often, knows nothing. As a teacher I never tire of insisting to my students that the texts of literature are endlessly sociable—texts cannot do without texts, which they repeat, improve, and criticize endlessly. Just as there are countless conversations within and between the books of the Bible, so too the Bible as literature is embedded in earlier traditions of textuality and exchanges, absorbing the varying degrees of anxiety and communality that follow. Thus, any attempts, in the interests of piety, to isolate the Biblical text from other literature, to set it on a pedestal for its own protection from the wickedness of naughty influences in the “secular” sphere—sola scriptura—will inevitably result in its decay and final disuse. It was, above all, the poet and artist William Blake who was most deeply conscious of the sheer literary energy of the Bible. At the end of an eighteenth century in which the tendency had been to set the Bible apart as absolute in its claims—“Perfection [which] cannot be improved”17—and consign poetry, with methodistical seriousness, to the lowly status of being merely the handmaiden of religion, Blake regarded the Bible as “the best possible stimulant for the imagination.”18 Just as Blake, in a fanciful episode, claimed that he had dined with the “poets Isaiah and Ezekiel” and the three of them had exchanged views on the nature of Poetic Genius and the place of God in their poetry—taking for granted his compatible status with the

Teaching the Bible and Literature

29

Biblical writers themselves19—so, in his highly complex relationship with the Bible, Blake lamented that scripture had been misused as a way of keeping people in order and in their place for, he wrote, “The Whole Bible is filld with Imaginations & Visions from End to End & and not with Moral virtues that is the baseness of Plato & the Greeks and all Warriors.”20 Interpreting the Bible must be a creative and even dangerous process (“All Bibles or Sacred Codes have been the causes of. . .errors,” Blake wrote in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) balanced between an immediacy of response and a reasoned reflection on its effects. In other words, interpretation must partake of both emotion as well as the reason. In short, Blake would agree with his contemporary Samuel Taylor Coleridge as well as the liberal-thinking Master of Balliol College, Benjamin Jowett, much later in the nineteenth century, that one should read the Bible in the same way as one reads every other book. In Coleridge’s words: “I take up this work [the Bible] with the purpose to read it for the first time as I should read any other work.”21 Only then will its distinctive quality (perhaps its “sacredness”) become apparent, inasmuch as “the words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being; and whatever finds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its having proceeded from the Holy Spirit.”22 The voices of Blake and Coleridge on the Bible remain powerful for students, reminding us of the power of Scripture and its haunting presence as and in literature, suggesting, whatever our personal beliefs, a depth that cannot be ignored. The corollary of this, of course, is that there is no reason to presume that the Holy Spirit might not breathe through the inspiration of other works, even if less so. It remains clear, as Timothy Larsen has recently shown, that the Bible remained at the very heart of Victorian life and thought, both within and beyond the realms of traditional “religion.”23 On the other hand, as historical biblical criticism eroded the authority of scripture from within, and with the onset of what Owen Chadwick once described as the secularization of the European mind in the nineteenth century, the Bible rather paradoxically declined in its authority as a sacred text even as its prestige rose within the realms of literature and aesthetics.24 Not only do we find the beginnings of the idea of the Bible as literature, but the energetic exchanges with other literature, given the freedom of its natural “literariness,” became ever more apparent, until that literature itself, and above all the central genre of the novel, began to swamp and outstrip the Bible. (Strict Evangelicals, of course, dealt with this by prohibiting the reading of novels as mere “fiction” and therefore untrue, beside the truths which were to be found only within the Bible.) Picking up the Carlylean theme of “natural supernaturalism” as it is found in the “Didactic Novel” Sartor Resartus (1833–1834), teachers of the Bible and literature can trace the way in which the great tradition of Victorian “secular” fiction from Charlotte Brontë, to Charles Dickens to George Eliot, in their different ways, picked up and made their own the traditions of Biblical literature in narratives that variously continued and subverted the religious life that the Bible had brought into being and for so long supported. As a teacher I would argue that just as you cannot begin to understand the literature of the seventeenth century without profound attention to the Bible both within and beyond it, the same remains true of the nineteenth century, if for different reasons. By 1873, in Matthew Arnold’s study of the interpretation of the Bible, Literature and Dogma, with its Victorian emphasis upon “conduct,” the primary quality of the Bible (in distinction from Coleridge’s reflections upon the pre-conditional and energetic presence of the Holy Spirit, made only some three decades earlier) is that of poetry or “eloquence.” “In truth,” Arnold exclaims early in his book, the word “God” is used in most cases as by no means a term of science or exact knowledge, but a term of poetry and eloquence, a term thrown out, so to speak, as a not

30

David Jasper

fully grasped object of the speaker’s consciousness, a literary term, in short; and mankind mean different things by it as their consciousness differs.25 Arnold’s emphasis upon the consciousness has a distinctly modern tone, as does his assertion in the Preface to Literature and Dogma on the problem for the Bible (indeed for Christianity) in establishing it as the basis for something that can be verified as opposed to something (as Coleridge had done) that can be assumed. In other words, the Bible must now take its chances with all other literature. From here it was only a short step to D. H. Lawrence’s excessive rant in “Why the Novel Matters” which starts with the novel and only then moves to the Bible, as a novel, God very much taking a back seat. Charlotte Brontë had done precisely the opposite, beginning with the Bible and carefully deconstructing it in the “secular pilgrimage” of Jane Eyre. Lawrence will have none of that, asserting that: “The novel is the book of life. In this sense, the Bible is a great confused novel. You may say, it is about God. But it is really about man alive….Even the Lord is just another man alive, in a burning bush, throwing the tablets of stone at Moses’ head.”26 I used to warn my students off Lawrence’s incautious rhapsodies. With nicer scholarly discretion, I would argue that we must go no further than admitting (with people like Robert Alter) that it is an interesting exercise, perhaps, to read Genesis or the gospels “as if” they were novels, while remaining conscious of the anachronism of claiming any more than this. I am, I think, a little less convinced of the wisdom of this now. I would still wish to assert that there is something “odd,” perhaps “sacred” about the Bible, and without that acknowledgement, as T. S. Eliot asserted, we should soon become quite uninterested in it as literature and most of it would simply vanish, only those passages surviving which can lay claim to specific and isolated literary beauty or genius. This was actually beginning to happen at the end of the nineteenth century with the publication of anthologies like James Frazer’s Passages of the Bible Chosen for their Literary Beauty and Interest (1895) and Richard G. Moulton’s Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature (1898). On the other hand, in addition to all its mysterious qualities and the aura of holiness that has remained extraordinarily tenacious even in an age of extreme scepticism and abysmal fundamentalism, the Bible, as literature, has also that strange capacity to morph into the forms of any particular age and speak with something like a universal voice quite apart from any “eternal message,” just as we can engage with Aeschylus in our theatres or read Homer (and the Bible) alongside Tolstoy and Thomas Mann. That is the crucial ambivalence—the Bible is literature, but it is more than literature at the same time. And before we finally leave Lawrence, we might recall another of his brash claims for the novel that is dependant for its impact upon association with the strange miracle to be found in the literature of the New Testament and that has had such an effect upon Western culture. The novel is the highest example of subtle inter-relatedness that man has discovered. Everything is true in its own time, place, circumstance, and untrue outside of its own place, time, circumstance. If you try to nail anything down, in the novel, either it kills the novel, or the novel gets up and walks away with the nail.27 Before I start drawing towards my conclusion I wish to draw attention to an important but now largely neglected event in late Victorian England that was of inestimable importance for the place of the Bible as a sacred text and within the context of world literature. I mean the publication in Oxford between 1878 and 1910 of the fifty massive volumes of the Sacred Books of the East, under the indefatigable general editorship of Max Müller. This gigantic publishing feat,

Teaching the Bible and Literature

31

outstripping even the publication of the great Oxford English Dictionary, which began to appear in 1895, brought to the English reader, often for the first time, scholarly and reliable texts of the great “sacred” books of the religions of the world beyond Judaism and Christianity, including James Legge’s pioneering work on such Chinese texts as the Tao Te Ching and the mysterious I Ching (later to attract the close attention of Carl Jung). Apart from these there were texts of the Upanishads, work upon which had first brought scholarly attention to Müller, the Koran, and so on. The consequence of this massive effort within the field of world literature, and particularly sacred world literature, was that even conservative scholars like the ex-missionary James Legge, the first Professor of Chinese Literature and Language at Oxford University, were prepared to suggest that God might speak through the sacred literature of other cultures and religions. In other words, the Bible is not the only “sacred text” even if, for Legge, the revelation recorded in the gospels remains unique and central. What is extraordinary is how little this has affected our study and teaching of the “Bible and Literature.” It is as if nothing has changed in thirty years, our universities increasingly secular and global in outreach—and yet the Bible remains, in all its ambiguities, its power still felt. I began this chapter what might seem to the reader rather a long time ago by remarking that there seemed to be little left to say on the subject, prompted by the suggestion that things do not seem to have changed very much in our classrooms since I began teaching over thirty years ago. Undeniably we have become more than a little parochial and safe, refusing new questions and still cashing in on the now very dated newness of the exercise and its existence on the margins of “real” biblical scholarship, “proper” theology or the “scholarly” study of literature. Thus, if I compare the book which I co-edited with my colleague Stephen Prickett in 1999 entitled The Bible and Literature: A Reader, which grew directly out of our teaching of undergraduates in a joint programme of literature and theology (which no longer exists) with a book published in 2014 entitled Literature and the Bible: A Reader, edited by Jo Carruthers, Mark Knight and Andrew Tate, not much seems to have changed. By and large, the bibliographies, with a few exceptions given the passing of fifteen years, are much the same, and more important, the assumptions are largely unaltered. It is not that I wish to be particularly critical of the more recent book. Indeed, some might suggest that it is because in some ways we have got it about right that each new generation of students ought to get the basics correct by becoming familiar with foundational texts and theories in the field such as those of Erich Auerbach, Hans W. Frei, Jacques Derrida and Frank Kermode. With these tools to hand, and aided by new approaches such as feminist criticism, they will be able to tackle intelligently the business of relating the Bible to literature and vice-versa. There is some truth in that, and academic careers are still there to be made, no doubt, through such dependable avenues. But there is something missing. Throughout, this chapter has scratched that uncomfortable sense that what Lawrence said of the novel is even more true of the Bible: with all of its texts from the beautiful to the pornographic, the downright boring to the sententious, the historical to the fabulous—if you try to nail it down it gets up and walks away with the nail. Is this what we mean by it being a “sacred” text in our teaching—whether we believe in the traditions and theology of that sacrality or not? Of course the Bible, like all great literature, but especially so because of the outrageous religious claims that have been made for it, is an incendiary device, and from the very beginning of the Christian era wise people have known that its value as sacred scripture is in direct proportion to its dynamic power as literature. The third-century scholar Origen wrote in his Prologue to the Song of Songs, which for him is nothing less than an epithalamium, or wedding song of divine love, that, given its nature as erotic poetry, “if anyone approaches who is a grown man according to the flesh, no little risk and danger arises for such a person from this book of

32

David Jasper

Scripture.”28 Linking the Bible with literature is a dangerous exercise because it is literature, but not just literature, a sacred text but not just a sacred text, religious and profane—and religious because profane and profane because religious. Thus each new generation needs to undertake this interdisciplinary task again, with its own concerns and its own perspectives. This is not merely a scholarly exercise—which can become so easily embedded in assumptions that make it easy for the cumbrous academic system to undertake examination and assessment—but one which itself requires an active imagination, an alertness to literary, cultural and even political circumstances that change and shift. New text books must think about and reflect such changes, or courses in the Bible and literature will simply fade and become historical curiosities. I do not believe that they are such things: they remain important for literary, religious, cultural and historical reasons. Our sense of world literature in the academies of the West, even in the last ten years, has expanded massively to include the contemporary literature of China and East Asia, areas where the Bible too is now often being read with a fresh sense in new contexts. The time has come for those of us in the older generation of scholars of the Bible and literature to hand over to the new generation—and their challenge is that there is a great deal of new thinking, imagining and reading to be done. Simply to repeat the old mantras will only prove to be a deadly short cut: having said that, Erich’s Auerbach essay in his book Mimesis, “Odysseus’ Scar,” remains a classic and should be read by all. Maybe sometimes you have to have it both ways to succeed.

Notes 1 Richard G. Mouton, John P. Peters, A. B. Bruce, The Bible as Literature (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1923), 3. 2 T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays. Third Edition (London: Faber and Faber, 1951), 390. 3 Sallie McFague, “Foreword to David Jasper,” The New Testament and the Literary Imagination (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987), ix–x. 4 “W. T. Unto the Reader,” in Tyndale’s New Testament. 1534. (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995), 4. 5 William Tyndale, Doctrinal Treatises. Ed. Henry Walter (Cambridge, 1848), 310. 6 Martin Luther, Table Talk. Trans. William Hazlitt (London: Fount, 1995), 5. 7 William Tyndale, quoted in George Steiner, After Babel. Second Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 258. 8 “The Translators to the Reader,” The Bible, Authorized King James Version. Ed. Robert Carroll and Stephen Prickett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), lvi. 9 David Daniell, The Bible in English (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003), 158. 10 William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act 5, Sc. 2, lines 328–330. 11 Adam Nicholson, The Power and the Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible (London: HarperCollins, 2003), xiii. 12 Andrew Marvell, “On Mr. Milton’s Paradise Lost,” Lines 5–14. 13 David Daiches, God and the Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 26. 14 This work, saturated in Biblical quotations, was not published until 1825. It is less surprising when we find that in it Milton, among other things, questions the doctrine of the Trinity, to the point of ridicule, and seeks to justify polygamy as Christian marriage. 15 William Empson, Milton’s God. Revised Edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 276. 16 David Daiches, God and the Poets (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 49 (emphases added). 17 Samuel Johnson, The Lives of the Poets. 1781. “The Life of Waller” (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), 203. 18 Christopher Rowland, Blake and the Bible (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 234. 19 William Blake, “A Memorable Fancy”, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. c.1790–1793. The Complete Writings. Ed. Geoffrey Keynes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 153–154. 20 William Blake, “Annotations to Berkeley,” quoted in Rowland, op. cit., 233. 21 S. T. Coleridge, Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. Ed. Henry Nelson Coleridge (London: William Pickering, 1840), 8.

Teaching the Bible and Literature

33

22 Ibid., p. 13. 23 Timothy Larsen, The People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 24 For a detailed argument along these lines, see Stephen Prickett, Origins of Narrative: The Romantic Appropriation of the Bible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 25 Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma. Ed. James C. Livingston (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1970), 22. 26 D. H. Lawrence, Selected Literary Criticism. Ed. Anthony Beal (London: Heinemann, 1967), 105. 27 D. H. Lawrence, “Morality and the Novel”, in Selected Literary Criticism, 110. 28 Origen, Selected Works. Trans. Rowan A. Greer (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1979), 218.

Bibliography Arnold, Matthew. Literature and Dogma. Edited by James C. Livingston. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing, 1970. Blake, William. “A Memorable Fancy” in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. c.1790–1793. The Complete Writings, ed. Geoffrey Keynes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Carruthers, Jo, Mark Knight, and Andrew Tate, eds. Literature and the Bible: A Reader. London: Routledge, 2014. Coleridge, S. T. Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit. Edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge. London: William Pickering, 1840. Daiches, David. God and the Poets. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. Daniell, David. The Bible in English. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Eliot, T. S. Selected Essays. Third Edition. London: Faber and Faber, 1951. Empson, William. Milton’s God. Revised Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Jasper, David. The New Testament and the Literary Imagination. London: Macmillan, 1987. Jasper, David and Stephen Prickett, eds. The Bible and Literature: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Jeffrey, David Lyle, ed. A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1992. Johnson, Samuel. “The Life of Waller” in The Lives of the Poets, 1781. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. Josipovici, Gabriel. The Book of God: A Response to the Bible. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. Larsen, Timothy. The People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Lawrence, D. H. Selected Literary Criticism. Edited by Anthony Beal. London: Heinemann, 1967. Lemon, Rebecca, Emma Mason, Jonathan Roberts and Christopher Rowland, eds. The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2009. Luther, Martin. Table Talk. Translated by William Hazlitt. London: Fount, 1995. McFague, Sallie. “Foreword to David Jasper” in The New Testament and the Literary Imagination by David Jasper. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987. Moulton, Richard Green. The Literary Study of the Bible: An Account of Literature Represented in the Sacred Writings, London: Isbister and Company, 1896. Moulton, Richard G., John P. Peters, A. B. Bruce, eds. The Bible as Literature. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1923. Nicholson, Adam. The Power and the Glory: Jacobean England and the Making of the King James Bible. London: HarperCollins, 2003. Norton, David. A History of the Bible as Literature. 2 Volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Origen. Selected Works. Translated by Rowan A. Greer. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1979. Rowland, Christopher. Blake and the Bible. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. Sawyer, John F. A., ed. The Blackwell Companion to the Bible and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Steiner, George. After Babel. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Tyndale, William. “W. T. Unto the Reader,” in Tyndale’s New Testament. 1534. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. ––– Doctrinal Treatises. Edited by Henry Walter. Cambridge, 1848.

3 PEDAGOGIES OF RELIGION AND LITERATURE, OR WRITING THE “AND” Nathan Scott, Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida Richard A. Rosengarten

A descriptive if not an exhaustive account of Religion and Literature might name three major forms it has taken in its institutionalized history: the theological (literature as words about God); the hermeneutical (literature as requiring self-conscious acts of interpretation), and the deconstructive (literature as disclosive of its own non-disclosure). The field’s well-worn struggle with self-definition is a function of this rather striking palette. At the same time, that palette testifies to Religion and Literature’s sustained engagement with major interpretive models in the human sciences. As practiced respectively by the figures named in my title, each of these forms is neither more—nor less—than a pedagogy of reading whose resources continue to enhance classrooms where Religion and Literature is taught. In what follows I suggest that the rather more celebrated differences of these pedagogical approaches can obscure a common denominator. I term that denominator, “writing the ‘and.’” To give a sense of what these very different reading pedagogies share—the construal of the “and”—recall the former pedagogy of American schoolchildren, who for many decades were taught to recite an alphabet not of twenty-six but of twenty-seven figures, in which the twentyseventh locution—“and per se and”—conjured both a word (“ampersand”) and a logogram (“&”). A recital of the alphabet that is more than the alphabet: something like this may help us to capture how the “and” that quite literally constitutes the field unites such otherwise disparate pedagogies of reading as Nathan Scott’s correlations, Paul Ricoeur’s dialogicality, and Jacques Derrida’s antinomies. This chapter pursues this claim via analyses of essays penned by each in which they read a particular work of literature (“Notes Toward A Supreme Fiction,” Confessions, Genesis 22) to explain the writing of the “and” in that work (“presence,” aporia, “elective affinity”). These readings will, I hope, allow us to consider to what degree each exemplifies a pedagogy that religion is per se literature, and that literature is per se religion—and, in turn, whether this is not the animating impulse at the conjunction of the literal and figurative heart of the field. All of this is directly relevant to the classroom in at least two respects. The often underestimated unifying dimension is a classical commitment to closely attentive textual reading. Scott, Ricoeur, and Derrida share the claim that texts demand exegesis, comment, interpretation; and each sees no substitute to closely observed scrutiny in answering this demand. Each writes to teach this. At the same time, their common enterprise prompts distinctive claims

Pedagogies of Religion and Literature

35

about how a text means. Nathan Scott reads toward correlation of Wallace Stevens’s poetry of the particular with theology’s representation of God, or “the divine,” in the service of some more fully resplendent sense of “being.” Paul Ricoeur reads and in turn writes emulatively, aiming to replicate Augustine’s problem of “distension” toward the recognition that repetitive experience of the aporia is, in fact, productive rather than vicious. And Jacques Derrida reads to trace iterations of the story of the Akedah toward the recognition that its recensions elucidate precisely what the story does not, and indeed never can disclose. There is a risk in this approach that merits acknowledgement and brief address at the outset. Writers such as Scott, Ricoeur, and Derrida are not common fare for most undergraduates, and I know from personal experience that the texts I discuss in what follows can prove challenging to students working at the graduate level. I choose these thinkers, and these particular writings, to outline a model for examining the assumption that I take to be regnant in teaching Religion and Literature: that it is a pedagogy of reading. Indeed it is not too much to say that to do Religion and Literature is, then, to teach: it is to practice a method of reading, and in doing so to proffer a theory of meaning. Beyond the scope of this chapter, but of considerable interest, is the relationship of the two: each of our authors takes his stipulated relationship as intrinsic. In concluding I return to this question to offer some initial thoughts on the implications of this for pedagogy in Religion and Literature.

Nathan Scott’s “Presence” In Visions of Presence in Modern American Poetry (1993),1 Nathan Scott posits the poetic imagination as one of relation. Essays on ten American poets are introduced via an opening gambit lamenting deconstruction’s “complete abrogation of meaning” and the invocation of Gerard Manley Hopkins and William Wordsworth, through whom Scott introduces the idea that poetry is particular description, and that the particularity it describes is “presence.” Per Wordsworth, the distinctive mystery at the heart of the poetic inscription is that “when the concrete individual is faced with great intensity, ‘without losing any of its bright actuality, [it] tends also to be, or at least to suggest overtones of, something more.’” (4). The failure to appreciate this in “our phase of civility” rests in our misapprehension that poetry is philosophy. In fact, poetry is “non-discursive,” and seeks “to reveal the stark irrevocability of things as they are” (5). As coda to this contrast, Scott invokes Martin Heidegger’s recourse to poetry over philosophy as the most propitious avenue for exploring “being,” which Scott construes as presence per se. The American grain of poetry articulates such an idiom of presence. Readers of Scott’s extensive oeuvre will recognize here his signature effort to clear space for the theological: to claim that, in spite of itself, criticism founders on its inability to recognize that the literature it claims to elucidate is, incipiently and ineluctably, gesturing to the divine. In “Wallace Stevens’ Route – Transcendence Downward,” Scott pursues a characterization of the Hartford Bard’s “deep sense of ours being . . . a time of dearth” (10). The founding datum, which achieves initial expression in “Sunday Morning” and fuller, more insistent articulation in “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction,” is “the discipline of decreation,” Simone Weil’s term for a creaturely nullification that opens a path to the eternal. Decreation becomes in Stevens’ hands the poet’s effort to see something whole; and, in doing so, to devour it, to burn it. The goal of this comprehensive seeing is a kind of abstraction, not an abstraction of “some notional, theoretic construct” (17) but the liberation of abstraction from all such constructs. This, Scott argues, is what Stevens means by the poetic achievement as an encounter with the “first idea” of any thing.

36

Richard A. Rosengarten

And this, Scott will go on to suggest, is Stevens writing theologically—what I wish to term, poetry per se theology. As Scott notes, Stevens himself is restive with this goal precisely because it lends itself so readily to the very philosophical formulations that remove the reader from presence (e.g., John Locke’s insistence that our knowledge is our knowledge and our apprehension; or George Santayana’s posited essences). There is an element of the tragic in this inherent tension: we seem doomed to the conceptual and the categorical. Yet Stevens’ poetry more than soldiers on: it acknowledges and even counters this worry through continual, ever more insistent pursuit toward an engagement—per se theological—with the wholly other. In this arduous process, the poet’s quest for the real becomes an encounter with the quality of presence: the “strange perversity in things that leads them to withdraw so deeply into their own otherness” (19). This pervasively strange perversity’s counterpart is Stevens’ “major man,” the being from “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction” and, secondarily, “Examination of the Hero in a Time of War” who forges a “conjunction of reality and the imagination” (20). An adept in the mode of decreation, major man abstracts (we will need to return later to Scott’s description of it as a “phenomenological reduction”) precisely in order to discover. The mode of discovery, a proferred antidote to philosophy and its categories, opens for major man the prospect of seeing things in their candor, their showings that are not veiled but are irrevocable. Seeing so affords an essence that is more than our mere apprehension. We are beyond philosophy, even as our idiom of necessity remains, ineluctably and inevitably, philosophical. With Stevens’ hypothesis of major man, Scott detects an anchoring trope: “the death of God.” The trope serves as an anchor because the act of decreation is an affirmation conditioned by the ultimate, yet for Stevens the ultimate is now, of necessity, abstract. At the same time, the affirmation must re-cognize mutability, change. Not for Stevens, therefore, in Scott’s wonderful phrasing, “the old stylized festivities of traditional religious piety”; such is a “facile exercise” against which Stevens posits, in his own words, “the difficultest rigor.” Hence Scott’s theme of “transcendence downward”: per “Sunday Morning,” the silence of Palestine counsels the poet not to the complacency of the peignoir, but to a pursuit of presence in the local and particular, closely observed. The reader is counseled not to gaze with the philosophers toward heaven, but to study what is decidedly below the heavens for the truest experience—the things of this earth. Only then will the reader be appropriately abstract, but also—and crucially—open to change. At this moment in the essay—in a move that is adroitly counterintuitive—Scott amplifies his reading of Stevens by introducing the liturgical/devotional trope of doxology. For an experience of the things of this earth, Scott’s coda is the protean liturgical formula of praise that professes to gaze to the heavens and affirms a reality that transcends all time. In what, then, does this doxology of presence per se consist? Steven’s “doxology” celebrates poetry’s insistent interaction of facticity with imagination, a crescendo whose resolution resides in the locative power of the fact around which the dervish imagination swirls. Scott glosses the “resolutely opaque” lines from “Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction”: . . . the final thing – the fat girl, the terrestrial – is good in part because its “candor” is just enough to permit the imagination to dance round it, “round and round, the merely going round, / Until merely going round is [itself] a final good” (27). Here the doxology praises not the Trinity, but the goodness of the discovered “candor” of the fact; and not the Trinity’s everlasting presence, but the capacity of the fact per se to center the imagination’s circulation.

Pedagogies of Religion and Literature

37

The doxological trope discerned in “Notes” prompts Scott to turn to Stevens’ later poems. There Scott locates repeated invocations of “the final goodness of things” (27), a desire to move from our daily helplessness at the edge to a fixed middle point that is complete, and that as complete at once discloses the beauty of the world and endows our capacity to enjoy it. It is, Scott judges, an affirmation of presence as “Being,” “that informing elan or power . . . that enables all the various particular things of earth to be what their inner entelechies intend them to be” (28). The key to these moments resides precisely in this “Being” that is not one thing among other things and thus defies referential naming: Stevens must, to honor this category, speak of it apophatically.2 In this Stevens can sound like the Heidegger of Being and Time, most emphatically in a poem such as “Chocorua to Its Neighbor,” which Scott regards as nothing so much as a Benedicite to the “collective being” of the world and its creatures. All poets are, in the sense of this poem, celebrants of life, and the poet is, like the mountain, a shepherd of being and, as such, an exemplum of living. The work of the poet is thus to teach us to revel in presence, to celebrate enthrallment. It is this quality that gives to poetry its true tenor, which is “holiness.” (Scott is describing Stevens, but he could as easily be ventriloquizing Gerard Manley Hopkins or Paul Tillich.) Scott concludes his essay by taking up the question of how, if at all, we might term Stevens a religious poet. Disparaging the propensity of some (unnamed) critics to deduce from the program above delineated that Stevens is a pantheist, Scott argues that the late poems proffer a faith that “choose(s) to regard as essentially trustworthy, as indeed holy and gracious, that mysterious dynamis that simply lets all the particular beings of earth be” (36). This does not denominate or even imply the deity of traditional theism but an affirmation of Being as “steadfast, reliable, gracious,” deserving our trust: “it is to say that the Wholly Other, the uncreated Rock of reality, is for us, not against us” (37). Stevens’ per se theism renders him “a profoundly religious poet” working under the sign of the immanent. Poetry is per se theology precisely because it searchingly interrogates what claims may and may not be made for presence, and in turn for being, with reference to being’s ultimate referent—“God.” The quotation marks here aim to capture precisely the per se quality of Scott’s posited relation of poetry to theology: taken together, as one endeavor, they afford the truest rendering of our reading experience, in which meaning insists on its own integrity over against the reader’s cherished presumptions. Scott reads Stevens as teaching the reader by accurately, even sympathetically, naming those presumptions—and then relentlessly qualifying them. The essay thus teaches Stevens teaching the reader.

Paul Ricoeur’s Aporia In Part I of Time and Narrative,3 Paul Ricoeur pursues his thesis—that “. . . time becomes human time to the extent that it is organized after the manner of a narrative; narrative, in turn, is meaningful to the extent that it portrays the features of temporal experience” (3)—through dialogical exegeses of the categories of emplotment in Aristotle’s Poetics and the distensio animi in Augustine’s Confessions. Each category does not so much need as bespeaks the other. The concordance afforded by a plot, with its beginning, middle, and end, is a construction of the possible that leaves open the implication of discordance. The inability of the human soul to reside in a moment, and its consequent implications for the human identity before God, takes form and expression in a context of praise for a divine intentio that affords the solace of implied structure even as it does not fully resolve the effects of distension. Stated in general terms, the experience of time that prompts the human recourse to narrative is encapsulated by these

38

Richard A. Rosengarten

formulations that acknowledge at once both our propensity to order our experience, and our recognition that no ordering can be total. This is, for Ricoeur, the gist of hermeneutical reading: to honor at once the historical and literary integrity of the text, and the very different, but equally compelling, circumstances of the reader. Ricoeur aims to teach the reader how to achieve equipoise in relation to what he regards as equally compelling demands of the text, against a tendency in criticism—and in pedagogy—to privilege one over the other (in effect, not either New Criticism or New Historicism, but both). In “The Aporias of the Experience of Time: Book 11 of Augustine’s Confessions,” Ricoeur argues that Augustine’s discussion of the question, “What, then, is time?” is in all respects—stylistic as well as reflective—“aporetic”. Indeed, such is Ricoeur’s conviction that he suggests it is so to a degree that even Augustine himself did not fully comprehend. Ricoeur does not initially define the aporetic, but he does aver that it witnesses to “the constant thesis of this book . . . that speculation on time is an inconclusive rumination to which narrative activity alone can respond” (6). It follows that any resolution of the aporetic will be “poetical and not . . . theoretical” (6). The nature of this informing distinction, and of the nature of the aporetic, pivots on a series of three enigmas in Augustine’s discussion of time. The first is the paradox that humanity, per Augustine, reflexively speaks of time as having being despite the skeptical argument that time can have no being since the future is not yet, the past is no longer, and the present does not remain. The skeptical argument thus implies that we speak of being that in fact has no being. In response, Augustine in Book 11 develops the ideas of memory and of expectation to understand past and future time: these frame the present, and together create a sense of a continuum in which recollection and expectation condition our sense of a present moment. This reduces the “pointlike” character of the present moment. Yet—and this is the sense, emergent in the text, of the aporetic quality Ricoeur has announced—this nascent three-fold sense of time itself presents an enigma: how do we measure time? We instinctively answer, “As it passes” (praetereuntia), but in fact this references the present, which passes away. And that’s not all. Our senses of past and future reside in images in the mind, but our language for these defies their reference. How can vestigia (images of the past) be both engraved in the soul and at the same time “about” the past? How can sign-images of the future “exist already” if they are future? The resolution of the question has given us further questions. Augustine turns at this juncture from the cosmos to the soul. The problem of time now iterates itself in a new form, described by the relationship between intentio and distentio. Ricoeur calls this the second version of the enigma: it is the question of the extension of a thing that has no extension. This takes explicit reflexive form in Augustine’s pervasive reference in Confessions to his experience of distentio animi (the distension of the soul) and its tensive relationship with his invocation of intentio (the soul’s movement to eternity and God). Ricoeur suggests that the distensio reciprocates the idea of the three-fold present, that each is the other. To support this claim, Augustine uses the metaphor of music to rehabilitate the previously discredited idea of “time passing.” Sound resonates, and our language about sound deploys the past tense to speak of the passing of the present, and the present tense to speak of the passage of time. We say, for example, that we recite a verse by heart. Such a locution introduces memory and the retrospection required by prosody. These speech acts, Ricoeur notes, introduce ideas of expectation, memory, and attention to the distentio animi. Expectation, memory, and attention are the functions of the mind that measure time; but these functions only make ever more concrete our sense that the mind is “distended”— it maps, as it were, the coordinates that stretch the mind in very different directions.

Pedagogies of Religion and Literature

39

Indeed—preparatory to the third and final version of the enigma—the movement these terms describe is, in an important sense, retrograde: the future, which it expects, passes through the present, to which it attends, into the past, which it remembers. Throughout Confessions, but to a striking degree in Book 11, Augustine’s usage oscillates between active and passive voices. In doing so it speaks both lack of extension and extension—we discover as we read that distentio animi resides in the contrast between the three tensions. We experience passivity in activity, a function of the roles of expectation and memory but countered by their interaction with the present. Thus, Ricoeur writes, “The more the mind makes itself intentio, the more it suffers distentio” (21). This is the supreme enigma, the final expression of the aporetic. It is also, for Ricoeur, Augustine’s “inestimable discovery”: the soul’s distention is always an expression of the threefold present—between, to put it necessarily, the present of the future, the present of the past, and the present of the present. We might say that discordance is per se concordance, and vice versa: the various intentions of expectation, attention, and memory together give rise to a three-fold present. Ricoeur dilates on this in Confessions to underscore how narrative itself enacts the play of discordance and concordance. Its ordering decisions of beginning, middle, and end present concord, but even within these unities disparities can give rise to a sense that narrative closure is incomplete. Narratives not incidentally witness to this in various ordering decisions. Thus Homer’s epics famously begin in the middle of the action, and retrace its course to the beginning before the realization of closure. And Flannery O’Connor’s stories, while they proceed sequentially, invariably foreshadow at the outset the impending doom with which they shall conclude. Thus narrative enacts and prompts the enigmatic experience of the distensio. If this sequence of enigmas has advanced our understanding of the distensio, it has not addressed the corresponding question of the intentio—our impulse to eternity and the divine, on some accounts the true resolution to the enigmas of time. Here Ricoeur qualifies rather than predicates. Whatever one might stipulate for intentio, it cannot take the form of a Kantian “limiting idea.” Ricoeur seems to mean that we must acknowledge the full import of the fact that our intelligence is not able to compare time and eternity. To proceed as if this is not the case would deprive the distentio of its axiomatic referent – the soul torn asunder. This qualification keys the pervasive narrative dynamic of the Confessions: its continual alternation of praise and lamentation, and the bridge this creates between the eternal Verbum and the temporal vox. To deploy a metaphor neither Ricoeur nor Augustine uses: the distensio is this bridge’s keystone, and temporality places us on the bridge in such a way that our sense of its exact length, and of what is on its other side, is beyond even the specification of limit. This grounds the integrity of the aporetic: to the degree that our resolutions of the enigma of time bespeak either a concept of eternity or (in all its rectitude) a Kantian limiting idea, it deprives time of its inimitable and irreducible distensio. This is the deepest rendition of temporality—a transformation of chronology into an intensive meditation on our experience of time. This meditation is nothing less than the movement of the soul, for which that classic measurement of time—the celestial bodies—is but the poorest and most partial of metaphors. For Ricoeur, we might formulate the hermeneutical lesson as follows: narrative is per se time, and time is per se narrative. The problem of time is precisely what Ricoeur takes to be the central problem of religion—death, understood as the decisive phenomenon that demands interpretation. To read in Religion and Literature is thus to elucidate the sometimes neglected but always present core of human experience: life per se death, and vice versa.

40

Richard A. Rosengarten

Jacques Derrida’s Elective Affinities Jacques Derrida’s “Literature in Secret: An Impossible Filiation,”4 takes as its epigraph and controlling formulation the French phrase, pardon de ne pas vouloir dire (“pardon for not meaning to say”). By way of transition from Ricoeur, we may at first take it to be testimony of the aporetic quality of discourse: in isolating this phrase, Derrida wishes to bring to the consideration of the “average hermeneut” the question of whether such a phrase can bear the predication of “a real signatory” and “a real addressee.” Unlike Ricoeur, Derrida’s procedure is not the articulation of a hermeneutical circle of increasingly productive, if not fully resolvable, enigmas. It is instead the exploration of the testimony of this particular phrase to the inherent “secrecy” of literature. The disruption of sender and sendee in the message is, in the end, a matter of what is not known, of what appears to be withheld. To speak of literature “in secret” is thus to speak of what is unspoken. Deconstruction names and honors the paradox, acting on its recognition that the delicate task of interpretation is to do neither more nor less. Anchoring Derrida’s controlling conceit is his articulation of “elective affinities.” Like Ricoeur’s aporia, Derrida invokes rather than defines his operative term; for Derrida, the invocation is a question of quasi-covenantal alliance in which Abraham’s secret in Genesis 22 finds its recapitulation in later literature, here invoked via Søren Kierkegaard and Franz Kafka. Not meaning not to say is, Derrida suggests, precisely what it means to keep a secret. And this precise concordance is what links God and Abraham, each of whom acts “secretly.” The nature of the secrecy is underscored in the test God administers to Abraham. It “does not consist in hiding something, in not revealing the truth, but in respecting the absolute singularity, the infinite separation of what binds me or exposes me to the unique, to one as to the other, to the One as to the Other” (122– 123). God tests Abraham; Abraham responds, “Here I am”; and God delivers the instructions for what Abraham is to do with his son, Isaac. And Abraham is silent. Here Derrida turns from the story to its iteration by Kierkegaard, and to the irony that in Fear and Trembling Johannes de Silentio “never stopped talking about Abraham’s silence” (123). In doing so he recounts—and so “invents” —the story. The tensive nature of Kierkegaard’s iteration—its genius, for Derrida—is its integral oscillation between the aesthetic and the ethical. Each responds to the secret, but diametrically: aesthetics desires and cultivates the secrecy, while ethics requires its manifestation and, to the degree that the secret resists, effectively punishes it. What ensues through the four “movements” or versions of the story is the emergent recognition that its themes of silence and of secrecy portend, in fact, the question of forgiveness. The weight of de ne pas voulour dire is, precisely, pardon. Within the phrase itself is a covenantal relation: “not meaning to say,” the enduring quality of utterances (here instigated by the deity), mandates a “pardon.” This is the most immediate “elective affinity” Derrida discerns. Animating the “pardon” is the deity’s “retraction” or withdrawal, indexed by both the staying of Abraham’s hand at the culminating moment, and by the silence of Abraham in its aftermath. Here Derrida exhorts the reader, as he does continually in the text of “Literature in Secret,” to exercise patience contra meaning per se to say too much: in Kierkegaardian terms, to lapse into either the aesthetic or the ethical. Such a lapse would be to “give away” the secret. It would be to deny the secrecy in which both God and Abraham remain throughout Genesis 22. God’s test of Abraham is a test of his capacity to keep a secret; the text’s test of the reader is the same. The second text that Derrida elects for affinity with Genesis 22 is Kafka’s “Letter to His Father.” Here the focus is not on the first but on the final pages, in which the son who has addressed his father now addresses to himself the letter that his father might write in response to what he has written. Derrida’s phrasing merits quotation:

Pedagogies of Religion and Literature

41

Kafka addresses to himself fictively, more fictively than ever, the letter that he thinks his father would have wanted to, would have had to, or in any case would have been able to address to him in response. “You could respond,” “you could have responded” (Du konntest. . .antworten), the son says, which thus echoes like a complaint or countergrievance: you don’t speak to me, in fact you have never responded to me and never will, you could respond, you could have, you should have responded. You have remained secret, a secret to me (133). Via Kafka, Derrida traces a lineage that has its basis in the son’s indictment here of his father on the grounds that marriage, for the son (unlike the father), is impossible. Here, for Derrida, Kafka demonstrates the full scope of the “elective affinity” that Abraham’s secret engenders. For Kafka’s “Franz,” “taking a wife” is emblematic of “the secret” in the sense that it is at once mandated, yet impossible. This dynamic—of the inevitable that is impossible—thematically links the story of Abraham with that of Kafka (via Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Kierkegaard’s Regine). The test of secrecy inaugurated with the story of Abraham becomes, in its elective affinities regarding fathers and sons and their problematic generations, per se the possibility of literature. In this light, what is most striking for Derrida about Kafka’s “Letter” is that it indicts in the name of forgiveness. When the son speaks for the father, the dynamic is one in which the father is made to ask for forgiveness for the son in the place of the son. The rhetorical stroke is one in which, as a result, the father is at once accuser, forgiver, and exculpator of his son. The elective affinity with Abraham—conjured from the point of view of the son—implies an inexorable logic: “if one cannot forgive without identifying with the guilty, neither can one forgive and render innocent at the same time” (137). The test of secrecy between God, Father, and Son that Derrida traces through Genesis 22 becomes, in Kafka’s valorization, a meditation on the possibility of forgiveness: its logic and its terms. “Letter to the Father” teaches—perhaps better, makes yet more apparent to us in the iteration what Genesis 22, and Hamlet, and Kierkegaard also teach—that to forgive is to reify the fault: to absolve is to render the evil “unforgettable and unforgivable” (137). It is an abrogation of a silence (think here of the pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling) that implies the recognition that to forgive fault is to introduce fault: indeed, Derrida writes that the act of forgiveness introduces an “aporia,” the clear sense that to forgive is per se to ask forgiveness. This aporia takes perhaps its most resonant form in this necessary “specular identification,” this presumption, because it means that to forgive—at least in this mode—is precisely not “forgiving the other as such for an evil as such” (137). This aporia of forgiveness crystallizes in the question of the deity’s (in)capacity to ask forgiveness, behind which is the “immense question”—source of the secret, and source of the elective affinity that endows the world with literature—“can one ever forgive oneself?” To ask for forgiveness can have, indeed must have, not one object but two: the self, and the other. Whichever the object, each is again inevitable and impossible. The final index of the immensity is that to ask one question is to ask the other: the secret is “the impossible delineation of ‘who’ and ‘what’” (142). This is the secret that spawns the elective affinities that link ineluctably Abraham and Kierkegaard and Kafka. In lieu of this recognition, Derrida invites us to return to his epigraph—“Pardon for not meaning (to say) . . .”—to inquire if its request can issue in forgiveness. Inflected by the previous discussion, he names three construals of its ambiguous grammar. The first is the “impersonal passivity” of the conventional language of fault (“one forgives it,” “it is forgiven,” “it is forgivable”), which the discussion of secret and elective affinity has so problematized.

42

Richard A. Rosengarten

Derrida beckons to the second and third possibilities, which examine, respectively, reciprocity (“pardoning each other”) and reflexivity (“pardoning oneself”). These possibilities—which emerge from deconstruction’s attention to the ways that disclosure does not, in fact, disclose—bring into a relief a reformulation of secrecy: secrecy as per se legacy, the way that a remnant of the past becomes by its inscription both legible and, in its inevitable partiality (note the ambiguity!), illegible. Kafka’s letter “remains, without remaining, between the son and himself” (144). This is “literature,” the realia that the working hermeneut seeks to negotiate. That negotiation is at root an encounter with passing and death: the code, the encryption, is funerary. The hermeneut confronts the question, in this context, of a form of completion that at once risks narcissism and proffers comprehensive forgiveness: its “cryptic gift” is, in Letter to My Father, “a scene of forgiveness that was at the same time requested and granted, of and by oneself” (145). The terms of this doubleness can invert: the narcissism that makes possible forgiveness can, in the realization of forgiveness, accentuate the narcissism. How to negotiate what Ricoeur might term the “vicious circle” of conventional forgiveness? By way of answer, Derrida lifts into a major key an earlier trope: the way that God retracts from fault. In a phenomenological moment, Derrida elaborates the claim that, behind the accretions of disciplinary prowess, what the text of Genesis 22 and its subsequent elective affinities testify to is a conception of a deity who does not repent, but retracts. It is straightforward, he suggests, to understand how retraction gives rise to the conception of repentance – this is the power of the fault, what it exercises over us, personally and in our trans-actions with others. To retract is to request forgiveness virtually. The mark of God’s retractions is the ultimate source of elective affinity, because “as soon as one says or hears “pardon” . . . well, God is mixed up in it” (148). This is the true meaning of the covenant: God and human each inflects the other at every turn. The resonance with John Milton’s Paradise Lost is at once strikingly apt yet intentionally differentiated: not a feleas culpas, a “fortunate fault” but a reciprocity, yet similar in a deep resonance that defies differentiation and elicits literature. The fact that God has created humanity with evil elicits, and is of the essence of, the retraction. The story of the flood in Genesis 6 underscores the depth of the reciprocity: excepting Noah from the flood renders moot the hermeneut’s capacity to ascribe agency. Precisely at issue is “in the name of whom and of what” this exception—extending not just to Noah and his family but to animal life—consists. This defiance of the attribution of agency—this “secret without content” —is the point at which Derrida parts company with Kierkegaard: there is not, contra Johannes de Silentio’s retellings, anything to hide. The test of Abraham has not as its object the death of Isaac, but something else, something more: Isaac is secondary (“an even more monstrous eventuality”), or rather the means to place Abraham precisely in the position of “not being able not to say.” We might say that, contra Job, it is Abraham who is truly patient—an above average hermeneut if ever there was one—and who honors, slowly—even stolidly—the logic of the divine interdict. Derrida’s coda to “Literature in Secret”—in the genre of a formal resolution, with a series of no less than six “whereas” statements followed by a “be it understood”—issues in the conclusion that what we call “literature” is per se religion: it is the inheritance of a holy history from the Abrahamic moment, a filiation that at once generates literature and is denied by literature. At root, literature reenacts the double betrayal of Genesis 22: the impossible possibility, the asking of forgiveness which Kafka understands better than Kierkegaard to be both an imposition and a presumption. Literature is the divine betrothal, sworn to in the aftermath of Abraham’s refusal to say: the proliferation of saying nothing—and asking forgiveness for it. The secret that spawns elective affinities is itself the ultimate divine interdict.

Pedagogies of Religion and Literature

43

Conclusions The assumption—overt in Scott’s work, at play in many conversations about the field of Religion and Literature—that the approaches of theology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction are impossible bedfellows is, as these examples suggest, unwarranted. Scott, Ricoeur, and Derrida each proffers a program for reading, in which literature is per se religion, and vice versa. Scott’s conception of “presence” renders the poet’s quest to be the heart and soul of the most apposite theological lucubration: in his focus on the American context, he brings forward to the twentieth century Martin E. Marty’s dictum that nineteenth-century America’s greatest theologians were, in fact, its poets. Ricoeur’s formulation of the aporetic signals the incipient restlessness of Augustine’s attempt to be at rest. His elucidation of the distensio animi is in the service of a theory of narrative as the quintessential modern form of discourse, and thus at root about temporality as a condition not of the heavenly bodies but of the human soul. Jacques Derrida’s conception of elective affinities bespeaks the spawning secret of God’s interdiction with Abraham: literature incipiently references, more and less appositely, an initiating form of signification that both gives and does not give. Stevens’ poetry, Augustine’s narrative, and Kafka’s epistle afford apposite exemplars of the demand to read, and to read well: the most common of denominators for these three remarkable writers is their effort to foster sophisticated hermeneuts. Each is also, in his particular way, keenly aware of the danger of sophistication that falls into sophistry. I rehearse this because it is so often unrehearsed or, perhaps better, because the common dimensions of all the fields that comprise the humanities can too easily be underestimated in contexts where the felt demands of both specialized scholarship and particular degree requirements can foster a mentality of disciplinary distinction rather than complementarity. Vis à vis Scott, Ricoeur, and Derrida, this point must be accompanied by the recognition that this common goal is achieved via very different stylistic modes. Here, on my reading, Ricoeur is the odd man out: his attempt is to write in some semblance of the way Augustine writes (that this is selfconscious is highlighted when the reader compares his chapter on Augustine with the accompanying chapter on Aristotle’s Poetics, which adopts a deductive, “second order,” rather than an aporetic style). By comparison both Scott and Derrida compose in distinctive and independent argots. Scott is predicative, Derrida allusive, but one wonders if Scott, had he had the opportunity to read “Literature in Secret,” might have found himself so readily disparaging Derrida’s deconstructive project.5 Scott’s “presence” is nothing if not elusive, even secretive, and its positing as the common aim of poetry lends itself readily to the idea of elective affinity. Scott would perhaps object to the degree to which “affinity” elides the particularity of “the dearest freshness deep down things” and, in turn, the affirmation of an essential goodness. Yet Scott no less than Derrida writes decidedly under the sign of Heidegger, even as in characteristic fashion Scott’s apodictic declarations contrast with Derrida’s late phenomenological turn (behind Heidegger to Husserl) in this essay. Uneasy bedfellows, perhaps, but not so distant as might at first seem. Here Ricoeur reenters the conversation, because the project of Time and Narrative is, as its title bespeaks, per se a rethinking of the project of Being and Time with specific emphasis on the question of narrative closure as emblematic of the closure of life. Ricoeur’s well-known confidence in linguistic predication does contrast with Derrida’s insistence on the “always already.” As we have seen, however, Ricoeur’s notion of the repetitively enigmatic articulations of the aporetic is, in its insistence on iteration and return, closer to rather than farther from the sensibility of “elective affinity.” The difference here is perhaps, in the end, political: Ricoeur concludes Time and Narrative on two levels that, in a signal of hope, he postulates as

44

Richard A. Rosengarten

intersecting: that of interpretation, and that of life in the public square. Derrida’s coda is a doubling, to be sure, but it is one track rather than two. To sound a Scottian note: it is perhaps a signal of our times that we tend to distinguish the philosophical and the rhetorical. The ancients did not—or, to sound a Derridean note, they did and they did not. In Ricoeurian terms, they proceeded dialectically, appreciating the necessary complementarity of thought and speech, the ways in which each informs the other. In “writing the and,” then, religion and literature enacts the recognition of two necessities: the Aristotelian mandate to distinguish, and the Platonic insistence to concord. Both the distinction and the agreement are essential. This overarching, common predication brings to the fore the field’s differentiating question—operative at the level of reading, and in turn at the level of representing one’s reading. This is the question of style. Reading religion and literature is a matter of recognizing, appreciating, negotiating, and critiquing a style. Writing religion and literature is, in turn, its own matter of representing this process—a style of elucidating style. This sometimes obdurate, but often reasoned insistence, on the “and” underscores the philosophia perennis that is the field of Religion and Literature. To teach it is to teach the writing of the “and”—as object but no less as subject lesson. Religion and Literature thus underscores the intrinsic relations of writing, reading, and thinking: one cannot write the “and” without being able to read it; to read it is, in a crucial sense, to become able to think it. On this account, we can recognize that each of these fundamental exercises of pedagogy mutually inform and reinforce each other. It is in turn to recognize, as do Scott, Ricoeur, and Derrida, that one truly must distinguish style from substance, and at once deny the distinction. The consequences of this for the field vis à vis the appropriately pragmatic demand of pedagogy include at least the following dictum: a commitment to close reading commits one to a theory of meaning. If the troika here discussed is truly representative, the corollary to the dictum is that any such theory will address the question of what the text represents: whether, in some mimetic articulation, the world we experience as charged with the grandeur of God (Scott); or, in some dialogical articulation, the interplay of text and context we experience a form of death’s play of decisive closure and imaginative possibility (Ricoeur); or, in some mediation on the paradox of ostensible disclosure that is not on those terms disclosive (Derrida). These might be understood to articulate the stakes of pedagogy in Religion and Literature: to foster the recognition that representation is per se religious, and that such a claim can gesture to unity without submitting to mere reduction.

Acknowledgments I owe sincere thanks to a number of very careful readers, including and especially the close written comments of Dan Boscaljon, and extensive discussions in two communities of Religion and Literature at Chicago: a dissertation reading group comprised of Aaron Curtis, David Gregg, Rohit Kukreti, and Thomas Schmidt, and a potluck discussion with members of the program and interested students in the Divinity School. My colleague Sarah Hammerschlag has taught me a great deal about Derrida, for which I am grateful, that has proved formative for this chapter. I owe a significant debt of myriad dimensions to Anthony C. Yu, myriad because both his pedagogy and his own expositions of Religion and Literature remain seminal and utterly complementary. Three colleagues read the chapter in its entirety and offered comprehensive comments that improved it: Richard B. Miller, Margaret M. Mitchell, and David Tracy.

Pedagogies of Religion and Literature

45

Notes 1 Nathan Scott, Visions of Presence in Modern American Poetry (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993). Page citations from this volume are included in the text. 2 Scott here foreshadows the interest in apophatic language in medieval mysticism: see especially Amy Hollywood, The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995) and Michael A. Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 3 Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). Again, page citations are included in the text. 4 Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret, trans. David Wells, second edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). Again, page citations are in the text. 5 This point is anticipated by Anthony C. Yu in the conclusion of his magisterial review of work in religion and literature (“Literature: Literature and Religion,” Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition (New York: Thomson Gale, 2005).

Bibliography Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret. Translated by David Wells, second edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Hollywood, Amy. The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and Meister Eckhart. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. Ricoeur, Paul. Time and Narrative, vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Scott, Nathan. Visions of Presence in Modern American Poetry. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. Sells, Michael A. Mystical Languages of Unsaying. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Yu, Anthony C. “Literature: Literature and Religion,” Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition. New York: Thomson Gale, 2005.

4 OPENINGS AND CLOSURES IN RELIGION AND LITERATURE* Heart of Darkness or Demian, Life of Pi or Something New Larry D. Bouchard

Is there a “domain of knowledge”1 that correlates with “religion and literature”? To so put the question entails all the risks of reification and essentialism the humanities and social sciences now dread. Religion would have to be definable, as would literature. The “and” would mark overlapping circles, as in a Venn diagram, creating a domain wide or narrow— depending on how close we bring the centers and how permeable these circles’ boundaries. Moreover, bringing them into proximity is indeed something we accomplish, even if we think they do overlap historically, culturally, even naturally. We are the ones who conduct the experiment whenever we set a syllabus or compose such an essay. We become entangled, quantum-like in the resulting knowledge, a hermeneutical implication that is also part of this domain. In an earlier piece on approaches to religion and literature, I sought to keep open as much methodological room as possible.2 On one hand, some students will find that the most convincing reasons for studying literature and religion together are historical: I mean the interweaving and intersecting of religious and literary histories, which can be interesting and illuminating. In respect to historical connections, it is helpful to define religion in terms of cultural systems where norms are wedded ritually or symbolically to distinctive worldviews, often inclusive of transcendence or divinity.3 Even putatively “secular” developments in the arts, culture, and politics have been informed by histories of religion.4 On the other hand, the realms of religion and the arts both entail extraordinary experiences: I mean of normative order, chaos, and value; of origin and limit; of identity and transformation; of knowledge and the unknowable, mysterious, or unprecedented—what some would call revelation.5 The realms of religious and literary experience can also be mutually illuminating, even when antagonistic; they may offer students new angles of entrée to either realm. Both realms also pose questions; their overlap defines places for inquiry and discovery. Religion and literature as a domain, then, becomes a fairly unbounded milieu of history, language, and spirit: of memory and anticipation, attraction and resistance, doubt and ecstasy, tradition and innovation, feeling and imagining. To define literature and religion any more systematically might preempt the possibility that either realm could receive new definition precisely though new juxtapositions.

Openings and Closures

47

I will meditate on this domain and how to introduce students to it by reflecting on how I framed an introductory undergraduate course I inherited, Religion and Modern Fiction.6 Framing first means, simply, with what works we begin and end. The issue is substantive, but also pragmatic. As a student of theater, I know that teaching is, in part, showmanship. I need to grab my audience and leave them wanting more. The first and last readings should also complete an arc of meaning and exploration. If memory serves, the course I inherited had begun with Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902). I kept it. It seemed perfect—until recently, when I switched to Hermann Hesse’s Demian (1919). In what follows I will try to illuminate the domain of religion and literature through these choices. Other choices may be waiting. I am considering whether Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2001) remains a good way to bring the course to closure. Before examining these choices, something more should be said from the literary side about the course’s aim, which is to encourage students to appreciate and reflect on religious dimensions emerging in the forms and styles of narrative works. Many fruitful approaches to literary-religious dimensionality are possible; mine is broadly hermeneutical. It may prove convenient to distinguish three sets of relations: among the work’s form and style, its literary and traditional materials, and its authors and readers. First, the work creates a “world.”7 Its voices, structures, tropes, and movements of time8 transform its materials—including religious language, themes, and roles, similar to traditional iconography in art—into a distinctive world of relations that readers enter. I compare the worlds created by literary form to how prisms refract light into arrays of color, or how lenses bring light sources into new foci.9 While concerned mostly with fiction, I invite students to consider how form creates worlds in nonfictional narratives, which employ plot, character, and ordered time.10 Second, the work’s world is also a “world of questions,” some of which may be religious. As fiction poses questions of (and solicits questions from) its readers, their life with the work may intensify (as in, “Whose life is being queried in Life of Pi?”). Questions can effectuate powerful relations, as when teachers and students ask pointed questions in class. The room goes quiet; bodies squirm; authority is imposed or put at risk; relief from tension may be desired. A narrative, poem, or play may be doing something like that. 11 Third, this questioning implies that we encounter the work as something like a “person.” We relate to it ethically. Its world not only has ethical import but is an ethical relationship bearing on all who enter: its “implied author,” its topics and characters, sometimes its actual authors and readers.12 I am particularly interested in works that signal these relationships “metafictionally,” that is, in stories that comment on themselves. Conrad, Hesse, and Martel have been fine metafictional choices for framing Religion and Modern Fiction.

Into Darkness: Traditions and Dimensions The arc of the course begins with early twentieth-century literature reflecting religion and modernity as “problems,” then moves to mid-to-late twentieth century fiction reflecting traditional belief systems “challenging and being challenged by” modernity, and finally to “contemporary and critical quests for religious meaning” in recent fiction. There are also “theory” readings that reflect an arc in religious studies. Paul Tillich, Martin Buber, and Mircea Eliade exhibit certain early-to-mid-century bearings on religion; Jonathan Z. Smith, Wendy Doniger, and John Caputo provide newer bearings. But students are urged to resist

48

Larry D. Bouchard

simply shooting theories at fiction. They are encouraged to treat theory itself as if it were imaginative literature, an especially useful ploy for newcomers to Buber’s I and Thou. Other theoretical levers are featured in the course and in this chapter. Heart of Darkness was a good way to begin. I usually paired it with Tillich on faith, idolatry, and the symbolic, followed by E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India (1924) and N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969). The latter is a collection of Kiowa myths and legends juxtaposed with historical memory, personal reflection, and two of Momaday’s poems; I have paired him with the contrasting theories of Eliade (the sacred as manifestly real) and Smith (the sacred as constructed). Part I of the course, then, presents the modern rediscovery of religion as other than familiar. Momaday finds aspects of his identity in Kiowa oral traditions that were disappearing long before he came of age; he sets out to repopulate his landscape through heightened perception and imagination. Forster, an English atheist, saw in another religion (Hinduism) a capacity to embrace, without needing to define, the chaotic plurality of nature and experience. His alter ego in Passage, Cyril Fielding, comes to sense something that Hinduism discerns or “sings” but which neither he nor his Muslim friend, Dr. Aziz, understands. This reading now needs reassessment, for it is one of the course’s hardest, owing to its period, its narrative intricacies, and its complex reflections of British attitudes toward Indians making it a symptom as well as a sharp critique of colonialism and orientalism. So too Heart of Darkness, usually regarded as a symptom and a critique of colonialism. So why did I begin with Conrad? It is short: the novella’s three parts (installments in Blackwood’s Magazine, 1899) lent themselves to three lecture-discussions introducing the class. That it was published as a book in 1902 also made it apt for a syllabus oriented to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. So, given an audience of students shopping for courses, Heart of Darkness had those trivial advantages. Second, while it is a secular story showing the “end” of modernity in multiple senses (e.g., modernity’s exploitive purposes and self-defeating consequences), it illustrates how religious traditions remain dormant in language and story-form. The terms “faith” and “belief” occur often. The main narrator, Charlie Marlow, sits like an “idol.” The prose makes references to the Bible and Buddhism. The plot alludes to Dante’s and Virgil’s journeys to Hell and Hades. Other traditions are in play by virtue of Conrad’s silence about them, namely those of Africa and the Congo—names never mentioned in Conrad’s attempt to universalize Marlow’s experience. The form of the narrative makes significant ritual allusions, to which I will return. The book provided a good lesson in what to “read for” in any modern literature course, especially in religion and literature. What is at stake, principally, is not the long jungle trek, the harrowing river journey, nor Kurtz’s demonic rule over unnamed Africans, but the devastating effects of Kurtz on Marlow’s mind. Marlow is a story-teller, relating his experience to four listeners on a private yawl—including the frame narrator, who writes in more optimistic tones— stalled between the Thames’ current and the incoming tide. Students should notice subtle forms of action in any novel, such as the action of Marlow’s narrating. The plot is about telling and hearing a story, as much as about the story told—and explicitly so in Heart of Darkness. Most importantly, the narrative form and prose style illustrate how a work of fiction can transform religious-traditional and other cultural ingredients into religious dimensions related but not reducible to those materials. This is a very fraught assertion. It comes near to saying that Heart of Darkness is an occasion of revelation, not identical with its allusions or intentions. I add that last caveat because “revelation” is another of Conrad’s religious references. Kurtz’s face fascinated Marlow, as if “a veil had been rent.” His dying words “had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth.”13 A religious dimension is not just a pattern of allusions (either to religious traditions or religious experiences) but an aspect of the world that is disclosed and transformed in

Openings and Closures

49

the encounter between work and reader.14 We can elaborate on such dimensionality in Heart of Darkness in respect to the three sets of relations sketched above. 1)

2)

3)

A dimension is not a secret hidden in the work but part of a world of meaning-relations created by the text and surrounding the reader. Marlow is a story-teller. Early on, the frame narrator observes that Marlow’s yarns of “inconclusive experiences” (20) were not like nuts to be cracked, with the shell discarded once the kernel was eaten. Rather, a Marlow tale was a “glow [that] brings out a haze” (18). The haze of the story would reach beyond its words to other matters, meaning, and concerns. Students need to consider that the haze of meaning, or dimensionality, is created not only by statements and overt actions but mainly by formal and stylistic qualities. In Heart of Darkness, meanings emerge from: the double first person narrative, abstractions embedded in dense metaphoric descriptions, allusiveness and elusiveness, ironies, shadowy scenes of hearing and overhearing—all epitomized by the fog that endangers the steam boat with its anxious, imperialist passengers. We enter literary-religious dimensions as we sense their questions. References to “faith,” for instance, become questions. A journalist once told Marlow how Kurtz “had the faith. He could get himself to believe anything” (116). What then is faith? Is it good to have? How near is it to idolatry? The queries may be ethical, not only in terms of moral obligation but as to how lives are lived and virtues strained. Is ethics intrinsically related to “the religious”? Fiction can explore contested questions like that. Often when we speak of stories raising questions, students assume we are being metaphorical. But Part I of Conrad’s text ends with an almost explicit question: “I was curious to see whether this man [Kurtz], who had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort, would climb to the top after all, and how he would set about his work when there” (55). That sentence is a motivation of Marlow’s narrating. What will become of esteemed, European values when placed under the extremity of utter isolation (Kurtz “had kicked himself loose of the earth,” 107) and the consuming lust for elephant ivory? If religious dimensions are relational—“religious” by virtue of their historical-traditional materials or their questions of ultimate or ethical concern—this suggests that the world disclosed in a story is much like another person. We encounter it as a “Thou” (Buber) or “the face of the other” (Emmanuel Levinas).

Here, I am indebted to Narrative Ethics by Adam Zachary Newton. His first example, comparable in form to Heart of Darkness, is Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” A Wedding Guest, much like Conrad’s frame narrator, is grabbed by a Mariner, who holds him captive to a cautionary tale: “He cannot choose but hear.” In this case, the ethical structure of the narrative act is one of coercion, but other structures are possible. A story might seduce its readers—or else judge, purge, coopt, affirm—or ask readers to complete it, or even ask readers’ forgiveness.15 Newton also shows how authors assume mimetic responsibilities to their story’s characters. Authors ought not to treat characters as stereotypes, but neither should they completely bury their universal qualities under peculiarities. And he shows that readers assume responsibilities of interpretation. We should not reduce a narrative to an abstract message, but neither should we fixate on details to the neglect of its wider import. Of those listening to Marlow, only the frame narrator seems to have listened adequately. The tale has changed him, enough to pass it on to us, who may pass it on to our students. We wager this teaching-as-giving can be good but can never be certain. The religious-ethical dimension of a

50

Larry D. Bouchard

literary work, then, is a domain of relations to be shared, and not without risk, much as we relate to persons.16 When I taught Heart of Darkness as the course’s first text, I concluded with two interpretations of Marlow, illustrating how narrative can transform religious traditions and allusions into questions or interrogative relations with readers. The first picks up on something thrice mentioned, that Marlow told his story in the lotus position, like an “idol” or statue of a “preaching,” “meditating Buddha” (16, 20, 124). What Marlow is doing is analogous to religious teaching. We, then, would be his disciples, learning a lesson on civilization’s futility or about some “darkness” in ourselves. Marlow would be imparting sacred-like knowledge. This interpretation must be qualified, however, by the adjective hanging over his narrative, “inconclusive.” The word does not invalidate his sermon but does unsettle it; and, in a way, Marlow is asking us to complete it, to make sense of what to him was an unfathomable, negative revelation.17 What “knowledge” he imparts cannot be known except through participation and not, really, even then. Yet we are invited to pass on this inconclusive revelation. My other interpretation played on that gothic scene when Marlow visits Kurtz’s fiancée, who begs to know his last words. They were, famously, “The horror, the horror.” Yet Marlow, who claims to “hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie” (49), cannot bear to tell her the truth. Is he too kind? Is he too overwhelmed by “a feeling of infinite pity”? He tells her Kurtz’s dying words were “your name.” For this Marlow expects to be punished, but is not: “The heavens do not fall for such a trifle” (122–123). Yet the lie haunts him. Though “sin” is mentioned only twice, the narrative may be construed as Marlow’s confession of his lie and how close he came to identifying with Kurtz. He has remained “loyal to the nightmare of my choice” (104) and affirms Kurtz’s willingness to “judge” (113). Kurtz judged the darkness (however it may be defined) within and without, which the officesitters in the story avoid confronting. If Marlow’s narrating may be likened to a ritual of confession, then are his addressees to be his priest? Are we to absolve him, or prescribe his penance, or simply attend him? If he seeks our forgiveness, or even our understanding, is he making us complicit? Or is he saying we already are complicit, so his confession must become our own? Confession, testimony, and revelation are fragments from religious traditions. Heart of Darkness transforms them into questions that claim or repel us. The book made for a fine, opening lesson in how dialectical patterns in fiction—between form and expression, memory and speculation, tradition and dimension—invite readers to chart passages through its vaguely bounded domains. So why part with such a good beginning?

Gnosis Conrad was a hard sell. His novella reflects the distortions of racism, colonialism, and sexism. That it is also a critic of those traits of North Atlantic civilization is a claim Chinua Achebe would severely qualify.18 Being a critic of one’s own complicity in bad traditions does not absolve one of complicity. Marlow’s yarn is, moreover, tendentious, dire, and—some students always say—“depressing.” For those very reasons it was a good entrée into modernity and literature; Heart of Darkness teaches us quite a bit about how to read both, and for a long time I remained loyal to its nightmare. Yes, I did wonder if it was costing me a few students in their early semester shopping sprees—but surely that would be a bad reason to drop a good book. Conrad’s, however, lacks features we might desire when launching a course in religion and fiction: elaborated myths and rituals, interesting beliefs and speculative ideas, a broad swath of human experience including joy or hope, sexuality or intense friendship, as well as reflections on good and evil. Much, though certainly not all, of that is missing from Marlow’s long confession.

Openings and Closures

51

Early when I taught the course, Demian was the second assignment. As I thought about the limits of Conrad, Hesse crossed my mind, but I didn’t reconsider him until a short time ago. There are similarities I had forgotten. If Conrad’s book comes at the start of the twentiethcentury’s calendar, Hesse’s marks the advent of its spirit, the Great War. He wrote it in 1917 and published it pseudonymously in 1919. The story ends as the war begins. Both books are first person narratives. Max Demian is Emil Sinclair’s focal concern, as Kurtz is for Marlow. Like Heart of Darkness, Demian is a story of ideas placed in unresolved ambiguity, as if conjoined by dissonant metaphors. In Conrad, for instance, the value of self-restraint is in tension with confronting extremes; in Hesse, human being as an expression of Nature competes with Self-creation. Unlike Conrad, Hesse couches these ambiguities in deceptively clear language. And there are greater differences. Crucial is that Emil is an older, retrospective narrator of his youth.19 In the Prologue he does declare, “I shall die more easily when I have finished writing this story,” and “I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books.”20 However, Emil does not—until the last page—appear to struggle to narrate or undergo change through the writing of his story, as Marlow and Conrad’s frame narrator do implicitly; this was the great pedagogical advantage of Heart of Darkness. So if I was to lose narration as a crucial action, Hesse should provide other advantages. One is obvious. As a Bildungsroman, or comingof-age story, Demian can appeal to students Emil’s age when he meets Demian’s mother, Lady Eve (Frau Eva). The genre itself is interesting, as it can explore characters, ideas, conflicts, and intriguing experiences. I will indicate these and other formal aspects of Demian in respect to our three spheres of literary-religious dimensionality. 1)

2)

If the world of Demian is largely shaped by the Bildungsroman, it nonetheless plays on other forms, sources, and ideas, such as Augustine’s Confessions, Hegel’s dialectic of spirit, Nietzsche’s Übermensch, Hinduism, Jungian psychology, Gnosticism, and Biblical narrative. Especially in its prologue, it can be a tapestry of enigmas and aphorisms, echoing Romanticist writers like Novalis. Each person is a “priceless, unique experiment of nature.” “[E]very person’s story is, important, eternal, divine ….” “In each of us spirit has become form, in each of us the created being suffers, in each of us a redeemer is crucified.” “Many a one never becomes a human being, but remains a frog, lizard, or ant.” Everyone “is a gamble of Nature ….” “We can understand [verstehen] one another, but each of us can only interpret [deuten] himself” (1–2). Are we to take such statements at face value? In a way, yes. Hesse employs propositions and arguments as material for art. But no, for it is as patterns of different ideas affecting Emil that such assertions contribute to a dimension of meaning. Hesse has a way of locating God not, apparently, in a realm of transcendence but of immanence (in nature, and in mind or spirit, Geist). I say apparently, for even that distinction may be in question. Max Demian has been viewed as a “fictional transfiguration of Jesus,” a Christian form emptied of Christian content.21 Yet what counts as content? To mix paradigms from Biblical and other sources may not completely disjoin them from former meanings, which even in their own traditions are plural. After a recent teaching assistant observed the novel’s allusions to the Prodigal or Lost (verlorenen) Son, we agreed that Demian could be a consonant retelling of the parable (if Demian and Lady Eve substitute for the wise and tolerant father), rather than the flipped sort of interpretation Max performs on the Cain and Abel story. Demian occasionally asks explicit questions about its world and the reader’s world—as with the book’s motto (which recurs later in the text): “All I really wanted was to try and live the life that was spontaneously welling up within me. Why was that so very difficult?” (1,

52

3)

Larry D. Bouchard

61). More often questions are posed by characters who become Emil’s “guides.” Space does not permit treating them all, but a church organist whom he meets away from home, while attending Gymnasium, bears mention. (Again, one can note how Demian recapitulates the students’ own collegiate situation, as they test new ideas.) The encounter implies a question I want the class to ponder: can we secure ourselves in knowledge? Pistorius is a disaffected seminarian who elaborates on what Emil is learning of a Gnostic deity, Abraxas, who unites opposites and is beyond good and evil. He links Abraxas to principles of individuation and the collective unconscious (with Jung the unmentioned source), explaining that everyone is rooted in a “great store of humanity” (70). Divinity is found only in evolving, deep subjectivity. Emil should shun the path of the majority and “build altars” to his dreams (73). What distinguishes these teachings from Demian’s is less their content than the fixity of Pistorius’s knowledge, leading Emil to finally reject him as an “antiquarian” (81) ensconced in static, if enlightened ideas. Are there alternatives to false security in saving gnosis? The novel’s claim is that to truly know oneself, one must ever be surpassing even the best models. Pistorius “had led me along a path that had to go beyond even him, and leave him behind” (82). But students should consider, is not this awareness also a kind of gnosis? It is in Emil’s efforts as an artist that we may broach the analogy between fiction and persons. Before meeting Demian’s mother, Emil in a forlorn state observes a young woman resembling Rossetti’s painting of Dante’s Beatrice. Inspired, he tries to paint her from memory. What emerges on the canvass reminds him of another, androgynous face, Demian’s, and then of his own face; it is his “character,” “fate,” or “daemon” (54). Afterward Emil paints a dream image, of a bird breaking out of its egg (associated with Abraxas), which he mails to Demian. What began as an encounter with a person, “Beatrice,” becomes another encounter with Emil’s inner self. He later notices his first painting also resembles Lady Eve’s image, what Jung would call Emil’s feminine ideal or anima. The class should reflect on whether, in our relations with art, we are being made receptive to matters other than ourselves, or are but seeing reflections of our own projections, and whether Hesse’s novel means to pose this question.

Eve and Demian are surrounded by a “narrow circle” of disciples (“who bore the mark of Cain”) and an outer circle of visitors from various traditions (95–96). Those in the inner circle “represented Nature’s determination to create something new.” They studied “the ancient world’s marvelous, thousand-headed cluster of gods all the way to the dawning of the great change represented by Christianity.” They listened carefully to their visitors but dismissed their “doctrines as anything but symbols.” They were preparing for a spiritual apocalypse, only to be interrupted by a historical one, the war. Emil and Demian are called up. One night, both wounded, they meet one last time. Demian, near death, promises to come whenever Emil calls to him within himself. Emil’s retrospective narrative concludes, “The bandaging hurt. Everything that has been done to me since then has hurt.” Yet he still can, in hurtful times, “descend all the way into myself” and peer into the “dark mirror” of his destiny, to “see my own image, which now looks exactly like him, him, my friend and guide” (109). Hesse intends Demian to be such a mirror or source. What is troubling is how the war-critic of 1917 seemed to associate self-individuation with actual violence, not just spiritual struggle. I do not mean Emil’s last phrase (proclaiming Demian as a kind of inner Christ-guide), which now resonates horribly: “Ihm, meinem Freund und Führer.” I mean the implication that for new birth, literal destruction is required. Consider how Demian interprets Emil’s dream image: “The bird is fighting its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever wishes to be born must destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The God is named Abraxas” (59). Demian’s circle

Openings and Closures

53

would likely apply this aphorism to the war entrancing Europe. However, it is not clear that Emil would. At the end he sounds less certain. He may be requesting, as Marlow may, guidance from his friend, the reader. Hesse, like Conrad, ends with suffering, not clear knowledge. Conrad’s will likely continue to be judged the finer narrative, and I am not averse to returning to it on occasion. Hesse, however, introduces students to a wider range of experience, joined to intriguing if not always consistent ideas about the self and the meanings of art and religion. He shows Emil engaged in some of the interpretive practices I want students to be learning and also questioning.

Zimzum I chose Demian over Hesse’s Siddartha (1922) because it depicts not only modernist interpreters but also modernist constructors of “religion.” However, the authors I have taught in the center of the course—such as Eli Wiesel, Isaac Singer, Flannery O’Connor, Frederic Buechner, Shusaku Endo, Marilynne Robinson—engage actual traditions. Their works concern freedom, faith, divine grace, and issues of identity, community, and otherness. The three contemporary questers I assign near the end also reflect, usually less directly, religious or ethical traditions. They have included Milan Kundera, Toni Morrison, Cormac McCarthy, Paule Marshall, Margaret Atwood, Seamus Heaney, John Irving, Thomas Pynchon, Mary Doria Russell, Arundhati Roy, E. R. Doctorow, and Yann Martel. Several of them can bring the course full circle, formally and thematically. Most not only are on critical and imaginary quests for religious meaning but, moreover, for the good. Martel’s Life of Pi is now well enough known, from both the novel and the Ang Lee movie, to omit summary. And to avoid ruining it for those yet to read it innocently, I will comment on its religious dimensionality more discretely. 1)

2)

Pi’s world is framed by a double first-person narrative. While its form recalls Conrad, its prose is simple and direct. To readers responsive to Pi’s voice and story of survival (and not all are), the book is a fast read. As for the framing of Pi’s zoo and sea adventures, it begins with the fictionalized Martel—a writer suffering from enervated creativity— looking for a story with “the spark of life” (possibly alluding to the Shekinah, or spark of the divine). He interviews the adult Pi Patel, then writes in his voice. The class should notice that the fictional Martel says he is re-creating Pi’s voice, not recording or remembering it, as Conrad’s frame narrator does with Marlow. There are other, minor narrator figures, some of whom are recorded. Altogether, they invite us into Martel’s Pascal-like wager: for Pi is double first-person in more ways than one, demanding choices in how we imagine the realism of the good. Life of Pi is a book of “big questions,” ranging from zoos and democracy to a critique of lifeboat ethics. But there are more subtle questions, as when Martel interrupts Pi’s narrative to contemplate things he has told him. “What were the words he used that struck me? . . .” Words of divine consciousness: moral exaltation; lasting feelings of elevation, elation, joy; a quickening of the moral sense, which strikes one as more important than intellectual understanding of things; an alignment of the universe along moral lines, not intellectual ones; a realization that the founding principle of existence is what we call love, which works itself out sometimes not clearly, not cleanly, not immediately, nonetheless ineluctably. I pause. And what of God’s silence? I think it over. I add:

54

Larry D. Bouchard

An intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and of ultimate purpose.22

3)

And questions arise implicitly not only from the three traditions Pi claims to follow (Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam) but from a fourth. After his voyage, Pi double majors in biology and religious studies and writes two theses, on the three-toed sloth and on Lurianic kabbalah. Luria’s idea of zimzum is almost (if not quite) mentioned (as another teaching assistant pointed out when we first taught Pi), but it may relate to the withdrawal of the crucial, composite, bestiary figure called Richard Parker23 and to the moral-imaginative choices Pi finds a freedom to make. There comes a moment of desperate suffering when Pi finally touches the usually untouchable Richard Parker, who in a number of ways is an analog to the novel itself. Much earlier—just before Martel interrupts with those notes on Pi’s words—Pi recalls two visionary experiences. One occurred before his voyage; it was a harmonizing epiphany, as he gazed on an inspiring land and sea vista, where “Atman met Allah.” The other came afterward. It was a more particular vision, in a snowy clearing where the Virgin Mary “was smiling at me with loving kindness” (62–63). The subtle differences between these memories may relate to a delayed choice experiment the novel conducts with its readers. I urge students to think about their feelings upon finishing the book, then think about them again after a number of days. They may find themselves forgetting, as I did, their first reactions to certain horrible, bestial aspects of the story and dwelling more on its bestiary adventures. Which of these experiences remains compelling?24

This possibility of delay, structured by the narrative, is something Ang Lee’s otherwise excellent movie sacrifices in its closing scenes. Martel’s fictional experiment apparently intends to offer an imaginative-ethical argument for the primordiality of the good as loving kindness. It would be a good whose reality is known through acts of imagination, and yet whose reality might be a “condition of the possibility” for imagining the good at all. Students find this a hard point to grasp, one which is not “provable.” It involves, as Pi says, a choice as to the “better” story. I am helped rhetorically by similar arguments made by C. S. Lewis, to whose fictions (Perelandra, 1943, among others) Martel alludes, and by Iris Murdoch, whose ethical writings25 Martel likely knows. If we—as authors or readers not wedded to “dry, yeastless factuality” (63, 64)—are impelled to imagine or choose the better story, then what is the source of this imperative? Is it biology, which evolves imagination and morality? Is it the Platonic good, or loving kindness? Is it God’s “contraction” (zimzum) to make room for freedom? Is it all of these conjoined, or not? Life of Pi has been a good closure to Religion and Modern Fiction. It complements the narrative forms and revises the ethical agnosticism of Heart of Darkness (which obscures the good under the critique of civilization) and Demian (which obscures how going beyond good and evil is itself a good). If Pi is about the fictional Martel, much as Heart of Darkness is about Marlow and Demian Emil, then Martel’s encounter with Pi is ostensibly “more other” than the encounters with Kurtz or Max. Pi is to Martel both a judgment on our capacities for bestiality and a revelation of the priority of the good, as entailed in that judgment. All fictions, implies Aristotle, make arguments and judgments. A plot (muthos) cogitates, hypothetically and heuristically, upon a culture’s norms; it “tests” their limits and universality.26 What if a ruler like Oedipus must solve a crime he unknowingly committed? How would a good, intelligent adolescent negotiate the moral life on a hostile lifeboat? Martel and Pi speculate on narrative

Openings and Closures

55

activity itself: what stories do we make versus the stories we prefer? Do our narrative choices and preferences show something of the reality of the good? In the artful Author’s Note, which students should be advised is part of the novel, Martel hopes society will support its writers in kindling sparks of life. My course’s last “critical quests” are to be “contemporary.” Life of Pi is recent enough, but Martel implies I should be seeking new stories; his recent novel, The High Mountains of Portugal (2016), is a good candidate. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006; film, 2009) also wagers on the priority of the good, in respect to power and powerlessness, as do a number of Margaret Atwood’s works, including her now twice-filmed novel, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985; film, 1990; TV, 2017–18). Ian McEwan’s novel Saturday (2005) explores an atheist’s “faith” in materialism and the ethical good. New stories and media might reenvision meanings of mind, spirit, art, and community via information technology: not only sci-fi AI films, like Spike Jonze’s Her (2013), but even Life of Pi. While Ang Lee’s version has the liability I mentioned, its digital creations of “life”—seemingly more real than optically filmed life—ask us to reflect further on Martel’s high claims for the imagination and the “better story.” So too do the digital and optical effects in Terrence Malik’s Tree of Life (2011), which meditates on creation, evolution, Job, and Dante’s Purgatorio, and may have contact points with Buddhism.27 I keep seeking newer worlds to invite students. Yet I will remain free to navigate Martel’s oceanic domain a little longer, in his tried and true spark-of-life-boat.

Notes * To the teaching assistants for Religion and Modern Fiction, 1984–2018. 1 I am grateful to Daniel Boscaljon and Alan Levinovitz for this phrase in a question they posed. 2 In “Religion and Literature: Four Theses and More,” Religion and Literature 41 (2009): 13–19, I associate historical and phenomenological approaches to religion and literature with Anthony C. Yu’s and Nathan A. Scott’s entries under Literature, The Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition, ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005). 3 Clifford Geertz defines religion as cultural symbol systems that fuse “ethos” and “world view,” The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 89–91. See critiques of cultural stability being over-weighted in such theories, in Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), ch. 2, and Kathryn Tanner, Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1997), ch. 3. 4 See Tracy Fessenden, Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007); Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). 5 On religion as “limit” language and experience, see David Tracy, Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology (1975: Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 92–109. William Franke explores poetry as revelation, paradoxically resisting determination in language, in Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 19–41. Kevin Hart takes up the issue in Poetry and Revelation: For a Phenomenology of Religious Poetry (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018). 6 At the University of Virginia, I inherited the course from Samuel T. Lloyd III. 7 On the “expressed world” of aesthetic objects, see Mikel Dufrenne, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience, trans. Edward S. Casey et al. (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 176–190; on the “world” of texts, see Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976), 37, 87–88, 92. 8 See Wesley Kort, Modern Fiction and Human Time: A Study in Narrative and Belief (Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1985). 9 See Mary Gerhart’s lens metaphor in “Generic Studies: Their Renewed Importance in Religious and Literary Studies,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 45 (1977): 309–325. Her hermeneutical model is refined in Genre Choices, Gender Questions (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 12–43. 10 See Paul Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, vol. 1 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 82, 206–208. 11 Such classroom questioning is an instance of “performative speech.” A new social relationship— perhaps difficult, perhaps trusting—between asker and hearer is created by the question’s being uttered,

56

12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20

21 22 23 24

25 26 27

Larry D. Bouchard

performed, in a pertinent context. See J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (New York; Oxford University Press, 1962). See “the hermeneutical priority of the question,” in Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, second revised edition, translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 362–379. Adam Zachary Newton, Narrative Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), chs. 1–2; Newton identifies his principal interlocutors as Emmanuel Levinas, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Stanley Cavell. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, with The Congo Diary, ed. Robert Hampson (London: Penguin, 1995), 111-112, 113 (further citations parenthetical). The veil suggests the temple’s torn curtain, Matthew 28:51. On transformation, see Frank Burch Brown, Transfiguration: Poetic Metaphor and the Languages of Religious Belief (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). See Newton, 7, 63. For Bakhtin, we become “answerable” to the novel’s polyphonic discourse; The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 279–281. Newton is also indebted, with reservations, to Martha C. Nussbaum’s and Wayne Booth’s approaches to ethical criticism. Nussbaum can speak of novels as “friends,” in Love’s Knowledge: Selected Essays in Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 11. Booth reflects on our “company” with literature, in The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988). Murray Krieger, The Tragic Vision: The Confrontation of Extremity (1960; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973), 154–194, on Conrad. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” in Chinua Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays (New York: Doubleday, 1989), 1–20. Theodore Ziolkowski, Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 159. Hermann Hesse, Demian, trans. Stanley Appelbaum (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000), 2 (further citations parenthetical). The first edition (Berlin: S. Fischer Verlag, 1919) was entitled, Demian: Die Geschichte einer Jugend—von Emil Sinclair. After 1920, the book’s authorship was attributed to Hesse and was subtitled Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend. Ziolkowski, 151–161, especially 158. Yann Martel, Life of Pi (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2001), 63 (italics original, where Martel interrupts Pi’s narrative; further citations parenthetical). Martel, 285–286. On Luria’s zimzum, see Jürgen Moltmann, “God’s Kenosis in Creation and the Consummation of the World,” in The Work of Love: Creation and Kenosis, ed. John Polkinghorne (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 137–151. In my classes, a few students argue that the bestiary adventures (involving a tiger) are the “actual” ones, not the bestial events (involving human predation). Both versions leave certain matters unaccountable, so the minority view is not entirely unreasonable. But an important point in Pi is that “dry yeastless factuality” lacks access to the ontology of the good, which requires imaginative approaches. Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970). On Aristotle’s Poetics, see James Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector, expanded edition (1975; Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994), chs. 1–2. Reunions on the beach in The Tree of Life may call to mind how Dante meets redeemed shades arriving on a shore in Purgatorio 2. On possible Buddhist associations in the film, see S. Brent Plate, “The Way of the Brother,” Religion Dispatches, July 12, 2011, accessed at http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/ culture/4857/the_way_of_the_brother%3A_how_critics_missed_the_boat_on_tree_of_life/.

Bibliography Achebe, Chinua. Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. New York: Doubleday, 1989. Asad, Talal. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003. Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. New York: Oxford University Press, 1962. Bakhtin, Mikhail. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. Booth, Wayne C. The Company We Keep: An Ethics of Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Openings and Closures

57

Bouchard, Larry D. “Religion and Literature: Four Theses and More.” Religion and Literature 41 (2009): 13–19. Burch Brown, Frank. Transfiguration: Poetic Metaphor and the Languages of Religious Belief. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness, with The Congo Diary. Edited by Robert Hampson. London: Penguin, 1995. Dufrenne, Mikel, The Phenomenology of Aesthetic Experience. Translated by Edward S. Casey et al. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1973. Fessenden, Tracy. Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. Franke, William. Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Truth and Method. Second revised edition. Translation revised by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad, 1989. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Gerhart, Mary. “Generic Studies: Their Renewed Importance in Religious and Literary Studies.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 45 (1977): 309–325. —— Genre Choices, Gender Questions. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992. Hart, Kevin. Poetry and Revelation: For a Phenomenology of Religious Poetry. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Hesse, Hermann. Demian. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000. Kort, Wesley. Modern Fiction and Human Time: A Study in Narrative and Belief. Tampa: University of South Florida Press, 1985. Krieger, Murray. The Tragic Vision: The Confrontation of Extremity. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1960, 1973. Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2001. Moltmann, Jürgen. “God’s Kenosis in Creation and the Consummation of the World.” In The Work of Love: Creation and Kenosis. Ed. John Polkinghorne. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Murdoch, Iris. The Sovereignty of Good. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970. Newton, Adam Zachary. Narrative Ethics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995. Nussbaum, Martha C. Love’s Knowledge: Selected Essays in Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Plate, S. Brent Rodriguez. “The Way of the Brother: How Critics Missed the Boat on Tree of Life.” Religion Dispatches, July 12, 2011. Redfield, James. Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector. Expanded edition. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1975, 1994. Ricoeur, Paul. Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1976. —— Time and Narrative. Volume 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Scott, Nathan A., Jr.“Literature: Religious Dimensions of Modern Western Literature.” The Encyclopedia of Religion. Second edition. Edited by Lindsay Jones. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. Tanner, Kathryn. Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1997. Tracy, David. Blessed Rage for Order: The New Pluralism in Theology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975, 1996. Yu, Anthony C. “Literature: Literature and Religion.” The Encyclopedia of Religion. Second edition. Edited by Lindsay Jones. Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2005. Ziolkowski, Theodore. Fictional Transfigurations of Jesus. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972.

This page intentionally left blank

PART II

Illuminating Religious Cultures with Literature

This page intentionally left blank

5 SURRENDER TO GOD, SURRENDER TO LOVE Teaching Islam through the Poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi Danielle Widmann Abraham

Within the vast historical complex of Islamic tradition, the stature of the poet Jalaluddin Rumi (1207–1273 CE) is almost unparalleled. Few individuals have had such a profound and lasting influence on the formation of the religious culture of Islam, one that continues unabated to this day. For many Muslims across many centuries, Rumi’s poetry has provided a singular point of entry into understanding Islamic thought and practice. Particularly in the areas north and east of ethnic Arab lands, speakers of Persian, Turkish, and Indic languages such as Urdu position Rumi as a figure who inaugurates popular discourses of Muslim devotion. Given that most of the world’s Muslims are not native speakers of Arabic and thus approach the Qur’an through dedicated effort to learn and internalize its words, the vernacular language of poetry communicates the love of God and the desire for religious experience in ways that are more familiar. For those readers of Rumi who claim his verse illuminates the central Islamic act of surrendering to the divine, his poetry is second only to the Qur’an itself. The poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi is now available in English-language editions that allow readers to explore his broad corpus. Originally written in Persian in the thirteenth century, Rumi’s primary poetic works are the Masnavi, a six-volume collection of 25,000 couplets, and the Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, which includes more than 40,000 lines of diverse forms of poetry. These original collections contain a tremendously rich breadth of expression that even the most artful translation can only approximate. In terms of contemporary English language editions, Jawid Mojaddedi has been working for almost two decades to produce a complete translation of the entire Masnavi. To date, he has published four out of six volumes, and his outstanding translation establishes a benchmark for English translations of Rumi that will not be surpassed in the foreseeable future. There are also other shorter English translations, such as Coleman Barks’ one volume edition, The Essential Rumi, which provide an engaging selection of the broader corpus. Scholars of Islam have noted that Barks’ translation emphasizes an esoteric understanding of Rumi, so Mojaddedi’s translation is preferable for its rigor, fidelity, and artfulness. I would encourage those who can to avail themselves of his work as it is completed in the years ahead. The verses quoted in this chapter, however, come from Barks’ translation since it is affordable and widely available for nonspecialists. Note that the following approach to teaching Rumi’s poetry does not depend on using a particular edition. Rumi’s poetry reflects an emphasis on cultivating devotion to God that characterizes Sufi paths in Islamic tradition. According to Sufi interpretations of Islam, individuals have the

62

Danielle Widmann Abraham

potential to sense the divine in the present moment of existence. This consciousness of the presence of God marks individual experience, and is described in contrast to everyday modes of perception, even as it is simultaneously intrinsic to humanity. Because of its emphasis on interior perception and experience, Sufi approaches have been characterized as the ‘mystical’ path of Islam.1 While the question of whether ‘mysticism’ stands as a robust category for the comparative study of religion remains productively open, it is helpful to present the poetry of Rumi in terms of Sufi traditions of Islam and the claims that Sufism makes about consciousness and experience of the divine. Assigning material that presents the development of Sufi approaches to Islam prior to exploring Rumi’s poetry will give students a conceptual frame through which they can engage his verse more thoughtfully. For students inexperienced in reading poetry, being introduced to Sufi thought prior to reading Rumi will likely increase their ability and stamina to work their way through his verses. Most introductory texts on Islam include a chapter on Sufism that can be used for such a purpose. Supplementary material to provide background for reading Rumi’s poetry can also be drawn from scholarly studies of Sufism, such as Carl Ernst’s The Shambhala Guide to Sufism and his Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam, Annemarie Schimmel’s The Mystical Dimensions of Islam, and Nile Green’s Sufism: A Global History. (See bibliography for additional resources.) Mojaddedi provides a brief but comprehensive and very useful overview of Sufism, Rumi’s life, and his poetry in the Introduction to his translation of The Masnavi: Book One. Providing students with a preliminary background in Sufism will help them to analyze Rumi’s verse, yet for some students, the very act of reading poetry remains daunting. For those unfamiliar with (or worse, nervous about) reading poetry, or who have not yet developed a reflexive confidence in their ability to make sense of verse, a focused collective conversation about the significance of reading poetry can prepare them for the interpretive task ahead. In courses introducing the Islamic tradition, if there has been a preceding discussion about the ways in which the Qur’an becomes distinguished from pre-Islamic poetry, it may be helpful to remind students about the historical significance of poetic conventions and oral tradition in early periods of Islamic history.2 In addition to considering historical factors, a single poem or short excerpt of verse can be briefly presented to prompt students’ reflection on the role of poetry in individual and collective lives: What expressive work does poetry do? What kinds of perception does it encourage? Why is poetry effective in some instances instead of prose? What are its unique properties in comparison with storytelling, narrative, and chronicles? Establishing in the classroom a shared understanding about the function of poetry to stimulate the imagination makes the parameters of learning more explicit and satisfying to students. It connects the process of reading Rumi in class to the engagement of human experience through poetry more broadly, both within the framework of Islam and the ongoing exploration of human possibilities that poetry imagines. Particularly in our contemporary moment, in which students confront reified stereotypes about Muslims and Islamic societies, establishing a pedagogical foundation for reading Rumi within humanistic inquiry is helpful and dynamic. It opens up room for students to explore Rumi both in terms of what he might ‘say’ to them, and in terms of how he ‘speaks’ within Islamic tradition. If we as teachers establish the value of holding the particular (Islamic) and the universal (human) in tension, we secure for our students an opportunity to imaginatively interpolate themselves into other times and lives, in the hope that they might become more conscious in claiming their location within their own fields of action and in marking their own modes of belonging. A dual approach to Rumi, which establishes his work as a uniquely creative and compelling expression of Islam and as an example of how poetry works to open up the possibilities of

Teaching Islam

63

human experience, builds student understanding of religion. Every person who belongs to a religious tradition participates in a religiously bounded and defined community, and at the same time, s/he is part of humanity. In teaching religious traditions, particularly at the undergraduate level, we wrestle with how to help students grasp the multi-dimensional complexity of religion. Devotional poetry assists us with this task. As a manifestation of creative expression, poetic discourse establishes that religion takes shape not just in creeds, texts, organizations, and rituals but also by forming compelling imaginaries that people invoke in a wide variety of social, political, economic, and cultural contexts. Devotional poetry allows us to see intimately the interpretive nature of religion, for it exemplifies the ongoing and necessary process of elaborating and renewing the religious imagination. Rumi’s poetic discourse shapes an interpretive frame for understanding how the lived practice of Islam can become oriented by the desire for and love of God. There are multiple topics and poetic tropes in his verse that can be explored in order to develop students’ understanding of Islamic thought and practice. Rather than analyzing the full corpus (which would be the work of one lifetime, at the least), I focus here on the exploration of key Islamic concepts in Rumi’s work so that students will be able to integrate their reading of Rumi with their developing understanding of Islam.

Tawhid: The Oneness of God Tawhid is the Arabic term that refers to the oneness of God. It is the primary doctrine of monotheism in Islam that affirms that God is singular and unique. The Qur’an commands human recognition of tawhid in chapter 112, which states “Say: He is God the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begets not, nor is He begotten; and there is none like unto Him.”3 In Sufism, the understanding of tawhid emphasizes the unity of creation as coming from a single divine source. There is, therefore, nothing that lives that does not manifest God’s power. In this view of reality, life is not separate from God, although we humans do not always perceive that truth. This Sufi understanding of the presence of the divine in existence glosses the first part of the shahadah, the Islamic profession of faith which affirms “there is no god but God,” as a statement about immanence. We can make the analogy that much as the water of the ocean moves through waves and reflects light, so too does the divine animate the plethora of earthly forms that can also reflect their luminous source and deeper reality. This, in turn, calls to mind that one of the Arabic epithets for God in Islam is “the Real,” al-Haqq. The essential connection between earthly life and the divine can be seen through the soul’s longing for God. In his poem The Reed Flute’s Song, Rumi expresses this longing through the evocative image of a reed torn from its reed bed, whose hollow core then resonates the movements of the wind.4 This poem, one of Rumi’s most well-known and cherished, establishes the mystical goal of reunion between the soul and God, and even recognizes that the desire for God—the longing that is the song of the poem’s title—can be its own fulfillment. “The reed is hurt and salve combining. Intimacy and longing for intimacy, one song.” The poem establishes a paradigm for understanding human experience in Sufi terms: the fundamental longing for God and the “vast ocean of grace” which surrounds humanity. Yet the awareness of this grace is not the default state of human perception, so there is a need to be judicious about one’s social relationships. One must guard against being turned away from perceiving the unity of the soul with God by a person “who doesn’t want to hear the song.”5 The realm of the social is, in Rumi’s verse, that domain that potentially threatens to pull perception away from the divine in order to focus on its own limited

64

Danielle Widmann Abraham

needs and desires. Hence the need to be discriminating about the company one keeps. As the poem recommends, in the face of the confusion, criticism, or incomprehension of others, “it is best to cut conversation short.”6 Yet the challenges of the social world, which pull human desire and consciousness away from God and circumscribe experience to the worldly web of human limitations known as the dunya, constitute just one potential mode of experience in Rumi’s verse. The other contrasting mode is to experience, in fleeting and transformative moments, the connection between self and God, human and divine, source and form. According to Rumi, consciousness of this kind of experience has its origin in longing for connection with God. Tawhid is the foundational theological doctrine of Islam, the statement of the irreducible unity of God. Rumi’s poetry presents a uniquely Sufi gloss on the doctrine of tawhid, emphasizing that all of creation shares the same origin in the divine source. This helps students grasp what tawhid means in terms of human understanding. For Rumi, tawhid is that ontological reality which makes it possible for humanity to perceive the divine nature of life and all creation, even if only in fleeting moments.

Fana’ and Nafs: Annihilation and the Ego Self Sufism presents a contrast between the pull of the ego self, mired as it can be in the body and the social world, and the freedom and peace found when such tethers are overcome in awareness of the divine. This dissolution or annihilation of the self in God, fana’, aligns the human will with God’s will and brings to the fore what is eternal by revealing the contingent and transitory nature of individual personality. In order to achieve this state of annihilation in God, one must overcome the forceful impulses of the body and the ego, nafs, since indulging this lower part of the self builds up self-consciousness instead of God-consciousness. This presentation of the pulls of the ego-self and how people struggle to overcome its limitations illustrates for students the very foundational act of islam, surrendering to God. According to Rumi and other Sufis, being released from one’s own nafs is work, because our baser appetites crave indulgence. Such appetites might be physical, such as lust or gluttony, or they may be more like psychological hungers, such as the desire to be recognized as powerful, influential, or even pious. Indulging the nafs endangers the soul, and so nafs need taming and constant training by the intellect. When the intellect exercises its capacity to subdue the baser desires of the ego-self, it makes space for the heart to be full of love of God. For Rumi, describing the effects of the nafs builds awareness of the path of devotion to God: we cannot see the direction we should be going until we recognize the bonds that hold us back. At times Rumi’s tone becomes didactic in reminding his audience of their responsibility to overcome the pulls of the ego-self. In the poem “The Witness, the Darling,” Rumi pushes aside metaphor and symbol, and simply states: “God/wants you to deny your desires, so/you will learn how to give up self-interest.”7 Here again, Sufi discourse works through contrast, as Rumi presents the positive model of the Prophet Muhammad, a “true witness,” who “could mediate for every kind of disgrace/because he looked so unswervingly at God,” and then juxtaposes this ideal against that of a false, “unreliable witness,” who has succumbed to “love of the manifest world.”8 This contrast functions to present Rumi’s distinct interpretation of the concepts of testimony and witness so central to Islamic tradition. Rumi connects the subjectivity of a witness to reflection and attention, such that we become a reflection of the object of our attention. Rumi posits that our attention should be held on God, and anything that pulls us away from that goal should be subject to reflexive redress. The ability to master nafs releases the self from the limitations of being tied to the temporal world—the dunya. Without that initial work, it would be impossible

Teaching Islam

65

to see that “majesty is here,” and that the world is saturated with the eternal sacrality of God’s mercy.9 The Sufi path moves towards the goal of opening the heart so that it becomes so filled with love of God that the self is then absorbed by the consciousness of the divine. Among Sufi poets, Rumi is uniquely gifted in expressing this transformation, which is also a kind of homecoming, a return to the originating source. “‘God loves you’ is the only possible sentence,” he claims in the Preface to the second book of the Masnavi.10 “The subject becomes the object so totally that it can’t be turned around. Who will the ‘you’ pronoun stand for, if you say, ‘You love God’?”11 To be devoted to God is to feel the divinity of love, for when the ego-self has been tamed, love fills the self with an all-absorbing consciousness of God.

Prophetic History In Islamic tradition, Muhammad is understood as the seal of the prophets, the concluding figure of a long prophetic history that includes Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus, among others. The Qur’an presents these earlier prophets to chronicle God’s consistent provisioning for humanity, and so too does Rumi offer a poetic exploration of these figures in order to portray the fundamental and definitively Islamic act of surrendering to God. Reading Rumi’s poems about Jesus and other prophets can help students understand how Islamic tradition affirms revelation, prophecy, and guidance as essential to monotheistic belief, and allows students to see how earlier prophetic traditions are integral to the formation of Islam. Muslims understand the Qur’an as the final revelation of God, and within this frame, the recognition of earlier prophets is a theological affirmation of God’s continual mercy and compassion for humanity. Confirming earlier prophecies thus serves to emphasize the status of the Qur’an as the culmination of revelation in human history. Through his poems, Rumi presents stories of prophets, those who communicate to humanity what God wants humanity to know about God. He portrays them as exemplars of faith, as humans who experience longing and love for God. In “Moses and the Shepherd,” Rumi tells the story of how Moses scolded a shepherd after hearing him speak to God. Moses sees in the shepherd’s speech a scandalous informality, and chastises him, saying such “familiarity sounds like/you’re chatting with your uncles.”12 Rumi then imagines God’s response to Moses as an affirmation of devotion and sincerity over propriety and convention, and thereby delineates the Sufi ideal of pure-hearted love. God, in Rumi’s imagining, tells Moses, “Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship, these mean nothing to me. I am apart from all that.”13 Rumi then envisions the contrast between what God wants with social expectations of what piety looks like, and imagines God saying: I don’t hear the words they say. I look inside at the humility. That broken-open lowliness is the reality, not the language! Forget phraseology. I want burning, burning. Be friends with your burning. Burn up your thinking and your forms of expression! Moses, those who pay attention to ways of behaving and speaking are one sort.

66

Danielle Widmann Abraham

Lovers who burn are another. The figure of Moses, in Rumi’s verse, exemplifies the shifting of consciousness from piety to God: orthopraxy and dogma are relegated to secondary status, superseded by sincere devotional love. Later in the poem, Rumi reiterates the hierarchical position of devotion over formalities of ritual observance: “Inside the Kaaba/it doesn’t matter which direction/you point your prayer rug.”14 This bold statement is located at the center of the poem, framed by the story of Moses and God’s guidance to him regarding his misplaced judgment of the shepherd. It offers a literary expression of the centrality of the Kaaba in Muslim devotion, for in the center of the poem it becomes a symbol to signify sincere and unfettered devotion to God. From the allusion to the Kaaba, the poem shifts back again to prophetic history, moving from symbolic action to the imagination of human experience, in order to show that even Moses comes to a deeper understanding of God in his own contingent circumstances. In this poem, the figure of the prophet Moses functions to sanction and humanize the Sufi understanding of religiosity as the expression of a loving heart. Rumi uses prophets and biblical figures to illustrate Sufi teachings, thereby deepening their authority as religious models by portraying them in moments of transformation and communication with the divine. Abraham, Moses, Joseph, Solomon, Mary, and Jesus are each presented in various poems as models for approaching God and cultivating awareness of the presence of the divine. “Jesus on the lean donkey,/this is an emblem of how the rational intellect/should control the animal-soul,” Rumi claims.15 In addition to these earlier figures, many poems present Muhammad as one who desires God and can also communicate to others the way to be closer to God. Such poems include “A Basket of Fresh Bread,” “One Who Wraps Himself,” “Deliberation,” and “The Private Banquet,” among others. Through the poetic presentation of prophets as those who both long for God and teach others how to approach God, Rumi confirms authoritative sources of Islamic tradition while simultaneously presenting a distinctly Sufi paradigm for how prophets are models for human devotion. Rumi reimagines prophetic history as a series of contingent surrenders, in which prophets are human beings who experience transformations that are also possible in the lives and histories of his readers.

‘ishq: The Divine Force of Love Rumi’s poetry is compelling in its ability to deftly elicit the sublime in the seemingly prosaic and to show how they are intermingled. This poetic revelation depends on the ability of his readers to recognize the way that human perception—of ourselves, of the others in front of us, and of the world around us—can shift, so that what is taken-for-granted appears splendorous and new. This change of consciousness, which is the telos of Sufi approaches to Islam, is powerfully expressed in the awareness of love. Focusing on the experience of love encourages students to see how powerful the mediation of religion can be: it connects a person to the divine while also encompassing the bonds between unique individuals. When seen through the frame of religion, love becomes an encompassing ideal. For Rumi, longing for God becomes love itself, a form of transcendence available to everyone. In Sufism, the ultimate fulfillment of being human is to occupy the position of lover with God as the ultimate beloved. To be in love—to exist with the awareness of the sacredness of love—is to inhabit “the resurrection-place.”16 Rumi goes so far as to call the “spreading union of lover and beloved” the “true religion.”17 This discourse of love could seemingly operate on a purely human register, with the beloved assuming a very human and not at all godly form. Rumi’s many verses about his companion Shams al-Din al-Tabrizi express a uniquely deep love, and a

Teaching Islam

67

longing for a singularly human other. And yet the way that Rumi’s language of love continually refers back to God reveals to his readers the potential of human love to reflect, even fleetingly, its divine origin. When we experience love, “grace floods in,” and language seems inadequate to convey this sublime reality.18 Even poetry itself, Rumi says, does not suffice to express the power of such love, for “no metaphor can hold this truth.”19 In the matter of love, then, discourse can never supplant experience, for it is in and through the experience of love that people become close to the divine. Annemarie Schimmel reminds us that for Sufis, “God dwells in a loving heart.”20 Thus the language of love becomes loosened from mere romantic attachment in order to move towards the possibility of transformation through grace.

Teaching Rumi: Pedagogical Strategies In teaching Rumi’s poetry to undergraduate students, I combine strategies that are directed and focused with those that are open-ended and exploratory. I take this dual approach so that students can see Rumi as an exemplar of broader Sufi traditions in Islam while simultaneously cultivating their interpretive skills as readers of poetry. Assigning writing tasks that support students’ ability to discover and apply key concepts is crucial for engaged reading. In the following points, I present a pedagogical approach to teaching Rumi that moves from structured introduction of content to independent application and extension. These strategies work to realize multiple learning goals for students. My goal is to teach Rumi in such a way as to develop my students’ critical thinking and analytical skills. Specifically, my pedagogical structure aims to enhance students’ ability: 1) to identify key concepts of Islam and Sufi traditions, and recognize the ideals and practices that characterize Sufi traditions; 2) to apply Sufi and Islamic concepts in analyzing new material; 3) to identify the particular ways that Sufism draws on and alternately critiques other interpretations of Islamic practice, and thus contributes to the heterodoxy of Islamic tradition; 4) to critically reflect on the function of devotional discourse as a way of structuring human understanding of the divine; and 5) to appreciate the ways in which devotional poetry contributes to understanding human experiences of desire and selfrealization by linking them with transcendent ideals. What follows are practical strategies to be used in the classroom. •

•

Beginning with a single poem that can be read aloud and collectively analyzed allows students to focus their attention on key concepts and tropes. Even in Barks’ selected translation, the volume of Rumi’s poetry can be intimidating for students, so pacing becomes important for supporting their intellectual engagement. Collective analysis of a single poem presents students with a model of close reading and builds interpretive confidence, allowing them to reap the benefits of the arts of attention. It is helpful if the initial poem addresses an aspect of Sufi thought that has been introduced in assigned reading, so that students are able to connect descriptive concepts with expressive discourse. Focusing on a single topic within one poem, such as the annihilation of the ego-self, offers students a sense of satisfaction as they begin to internalize new material. From this initial exercise, analysis can shift to comparison. My own approach involves introducing a second poem, one that either includes the same poetic tropes (the ocean as a metaphor for grace, for example, or wine for the ecstatic experience of love) as the first, or one that expresses the same concept with different metaphors. I find it is easier to sustain student engagement in close reading if they can quickly grasp a recognizable “hook,” a familiar element they can hold on to as they explore unfamiliar material. This second

68

•

•

•

•

Danielle Widmann Abraham

comparison can be within a collective conversation, in pairs, or in small groups, depending on the size of the class and students’ intellectual confidence and independence. Small-group or pair work should be brought back into larger class discussion, to ensure that all students participate in and benefit from comparative analysis. In my courses, I do not assign the entire text of Barks’ translation to students, since my goal is to encourage the development of close reading skills and the ability to use Sufi concepts in analyzing Islamic texts. Instead, I assign a selection of poems that reflect important elements of Sufi thought, based on my priorities for student learning. In all iterations of courses that include Rumi, I choose some poems that connect to earlier course material so that students can begin to see how theology, ritual, and history are elaborated in the formation of religious discourse. My intention is to foster a multi-dimensional view of Islamic tradition, so that students can understand how core beliefs—about God, the revelation of the Qur’an, prophetic exemplars, and ritual practice—are continually affirmed and renewed in particular social, devotional, and literary contexts. Assigning a selection of poems that includes these key concepts enables me to further this goal. I require undergraduate students to complete short written assignments on weekly reading in order to prepare them to actively participate in class discussion. Usually, this involves providing short answers to a series of questions or a slightly longer response to a single prompt for reflection. Such shorter writing assignments are useful in building towards a longer one, such as an interpretive essay. When teaching poetry, classroom discussion is an effective way to encourage the learning of students who are confused or reluctant. Teaching poetry reminds us to attend to those students whose expectations work against their own learning: I have never taught Rumi without having at least one student (often more) declare “I don’t get poetry.” If such confusion or aversion can be acknowledged, it can become productive and provide a benchmark for classroom analysis. Confusion can arise from particular elements or words, the multiplicity of possible interpretations of a poetic image, the play of language, or unfamiliar tropes. Tracking this confusion and drawing on the ability of other students to offer plausible and clear readings helps those who are confused get the intellectual traction they need to move towards understanding. It also makes the classroom an active learning community in which everyone contributes to the project of interpretation. Poetry affords a unique opportunity to a religious studies learning community, for we can create in the classroom the exploratory process of interpretation which parallels similar discursive processes in religious traditions writ broadly. Students can better understand how interpretive traditions form when they see their own unfolding before them. As part of the exploration of Rumi’s poetry, I mark out time to shift the discussion towards various dimensions of humanistic inquiry. My goal here is to encourage students to read poetry (which in this case happens to be religious, and with Rumi, specifically Islamic) as a form of expressive culture, a vehicle through which people engage the very human process of meaning making. I want my students to see how Rumi’s poetic discourse communicates the sense that experience—of love, longing, joy, connection, pride, loss, peace, death, relief, grace—is at once profoundly individual and, simultaneously, common to others. Put simply, poetry reflects and shapes expectations about being human. Reflecting on Rumi’s life trajectory can open up this area of inquiry: he was the son of a Sufi teacher who was also a religious scholar and preacher; when he was a child, his family left their homeland to settle in Anatolia, thus his life might fall within the modern paradigm of a refugee; he was transformed by loving intimacy in his brief companionship with Shams; he was a public

Teaching Islam

•

•

•

69

figure who gave sermons in the mosque and also taught his student disciples about devotion. These facets of Rumi’s life can be fruitful avenues of student reflection in terms of connecting poetry to lived experiences—not to create a map from his life to explain the meaning of his verses, but rather to think about how experiences of filial piety, migration, intimate love, public responsibilities, and being the caretaker of a tradition are part of the legacy of human possibilities. Religion remains a powerful force in the world in part because it interpolates such human experiences into an understanding of transcendence. Depending on the nature of the cumulative classroom discussion that has already occurred, I use different strategies to promote this exploration. This humanistic inquiry can be shaped by asking students to think about how certain poems refer to or assume background knowledge: What kinds of experiences does Rumi assume his audience has had? Which poem reminds you of an experience you have had in the past? Such inquiry can also be approached by looking at specific tropes, and even the limits of language: What kinds of experiences does Rumi think are easier to talk about? What ideas or experiences does he tell us are difficult to put into words? And why, do you think, he says there are times when it is better to be silent? Exploring such questions invites students to grasp the power of religious poetry to chronicle the struggle of individuals and groups to build shared worlds in which words and action make life worth living. As scholars of the humanities, we are uniquely positioned to present to students the opportunity and resources to explore such questions. Furthermore, such conversation mitigates against the reification of Islam (or any religious tradition) or the false restriction of religion into bounded cultural systems. Rather, it allows us to see religious traditions as historical projects that constitute the means through which people continually revise their understanding of themselves and others as human. Essay assignments involving poetry can be structured to both extend and integrate student learning. When providing parameters for an assigned essay, I require students to use poems that were not assigned, in addition to those that were, as textual evidence in support of an original thesis. This compels students to explore a volume of poetry on their own, and to select, analyze and evaluate poems based on the Islamic concepts, tropes, and terms explored in class. Such requirements give students an opportunity to apply their knowledge by extending it through independent analysis. For many religious studies classes, the poetry of Rumi is studied as one particular kind of Islamic discourse. Generally, when we teach religion, we use different genres of texts, including scripture, theology, history, and law, among others. While my own writing assignments on Rumi usually require students to engage closely a selected cluster of poems, I ensure that class conversation reflects on the genre of poetry by comparing it with other kinds of religious texts we are reading. Such directed comparison analyzes the function of poetic discourse and helps clarify students’ understanding of contributions made by different textual genres to the broad complex of any given religious tradition.

Integrating Sufism: Remembrance and Consciousness Sufism emphasizes the practice of dhikr, remembrance, as a means of moving consciousness closer to the goal of abiding with the divine. Teaching Rumi as part of the study of Islamic traditions enables students to integrate devotional approaches into their understanding of what it means to surrender to God, and reflect on how people have sought to foster an experience of

70

Danielle Widmann Abraham

closeness to the divine in themselves and others. In a way, the study of Rumi is itself an act of remembrance, an intellectual recollection of the diverse modes of experience and expression that form the broad tradition of Islam. Alongside ritual, theology, law, sociology, politics, aesthetics, and community formation, Sufism constitutes one of the major contexts of the practice of Islam. I want to consider some possible ways that the study of Rumi’s literary work can be extended into the study of religious history and performance as a way of concluding the teaching of Rumi. The diverse modes and contexts that shape Islamic practice are interdependent, and the study of Rumi’s literary works can be fruitfully expanded by looking at how they have contributed to the formation of distinct ritual practices, community structures, and aesthetic expression. In addition to being recognized as a poet, Rumi is considered to be the traditional source for the whirling movement that is part of the dhikr of Sufis affiliated with the Mevleviyya order started by his followers. What his poetry expresses in words, whirling dervishes express in bodily performance. Exploring this ritual tradition can follow the study of Rumi’s poetry as a way of understanding how the desire to transmit an experiential knowledge of the divine (what Sufis call ma’rifa, or gnosis) can develop new forms of embodied practice and performance. Furthermore, looking at the formation of a new Sufi community, when Rumi’s students and followers institutionalized his teaching in the Mevleviyya order, can offer to students a case study of how lived human relationships become vehicles of practice, preservation, and transmission of Islam. It is helpful for students to understand that individuals become part of collectivities, such as Sufi orders and networks, when structures are put in place to produce community, and that such communities endure only when their practices and structures are continually affirmed. Rumi’s poetry continues to be read, recited, sung, and illustrated to this day. The exploration of these aural and visual elaborations of Rumi’s poetry opens up the aesthetic domain of religious practice. For those of us who teach religious studies, inquiry about religious aesthetics allows us to consider the everyday forms of lived religion through which many people, in diverse temporal and geographical contexts, experience tradition. From Christian pop-rock to medieval Islamic miniature painting to the rising popularity of symbolic tattoos, we see the continual engagement with religion through music, symbols, illustration, architecture, illumination, and image. This engagement demonstrates that aesthetic forms powerfully shape affect and religious experience. Students can explore the aesthetic dimension of Rumi’s poetry as a way of grasping not only his historical legacy, but also the questions of consciousness that visual and aural expression raise. The ways in which Rumi’s poetic expression expands from the literary to the aural and visual is evidence of the profound influence of aesthetics in shaping religion as a historical phenomenon. Listening to musical recordings of Rumi verses and examining the archive of images created to express his poetry and personality provide students with an opportunity to experience the multi-dimensional nature of religious creativity. One can even ask students to take up the creative task directly by composing original aural and visual works for a specific poem. Teaching Rumi in the study of religion allows students to explore how the poetic discourse of Sufism constitutes a distinct expression of Muslim belief, and how such belief in turn generates new forms of community, embodied performance, and aesthetics. Reading Rumi’s poetry is helpful for students learning about Islam because it discloses the formation of tradition, as language joins individuals and collectives in a trajectory of movement towards a transcendent end: becoming closer to the divine. It teaches us about the lived power of imagination to form language and communities that are both expressive and pedagogical,

Teaching Islam

71

and to form religious traditions that are both transmitted and continually reformed. Finally, Rumi’s poetry brings to the fore the mystery of consciousness, which is simultaneously individual and unique and yet able to be shared and taught. Rumi’s verses speak to God, to himself, to his companion, to his students, and even, across almost a millennium, to us.

Notes 1 Carl Ernst addresses the contested definition of Sufism as mysticism in the preface of The Shambhala Guide to Sufism (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1997), xi–xxi. Schimmel traces various definitions of mysticism within the study of religion, focusing on the understanding of gnosis and the experience of love as foundational anchors for the investigation of Islamic mysticism. See Annemarie Schimmel, The Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 3–7. 2 Michael Sells offers an introduction to the oral tradition and poetic conventions of the Qur’an in Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations (Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2001). 3 The Qur’an, Abdallah Yusuf Ali trans. (Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, 2001), 423. 4 Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi: New Expanded Edition (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 18. 5 Ibid., 19. 6 Ibid. 7 Barks, 271. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., 290. 10 Barks, 274. 11 Ibid. 12 Barks, 164. 13 Ibid, 166. 14 Barks, 166. 15 Barks, 202. 16 Barks, 9. 17 Ibid., 10. 18 Ibid., 354. 19 Ibid., 354. 20 Schimmel, 190.

Bibliography Barks, Coleman. The Essential Rumi. New York: Harper Collins, 2004. Dickson, William Rory and Meena Sharify-Funk. Unveiling Sufism: From Manhattan to Mecca. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing, 2017. Ernst, Carl. The Shambhala Guide to Sufism. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1997. —— Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2011. Green, Nile. Sufism: A Global History. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Hoffman, Valerie. Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in Modern Egypt. Charleston: University of South Carolina Press, 2009. Karamustafa, Ahmet. God’s Unruly Friends: Dervish Groups in the Islamic Later Middle Period, 1200–1500. London: Oneworld, 2006. —— Sufism: The Formative Period. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. The Qur’an, translated by Abdallah Yusuf Ali. Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, 2001. Rumi, Jalal Al-Din.The Masnavi: Book One. Translated by Mojaddedi, Jawid. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. —— The Masnavi: Book Two. Translated by Mojaddedi, Jawid. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. —— The Masnavi: Book Three. Translated by Mojaddedi, Jawid. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. —— The Masnavi: Book Four. Translated by Mojaddedi, Jawid. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Safi, Omid. Radical Love: Teaching from the Islamic Mystical Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.

72

Danielle Widmann Abraham

Schimmel, Annemarie. The Mystical Dimensions of Islam. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975. Sells, Michael. Approaching the Qur’an: The Early Revelations. Ashland, OR: White Cloud Press, 2001. —— Early Islamic Mysticism: Sufi, Qur’an, Mi’raj, Poetic and Theological Writings. New York: Paulist Press, 1995. Sharify-Funk, Meena, William Rory Dickson, and Merin Shobhana Xavier. Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 2017.

6 USING FICTION TO “EXPLAIN” THE DAOIST ZHUANG ZI Alan Levinovitz

I Until recently most textbooks—and many scholars—discussed Daoism entirely in terms of two early classics, the Daode Jing and the Zhuang Zi. The rich religious traditions to which these works served as prologue remained entirely unexplored or, at best, received cursory treatment before being dismissed as superstitious drivel.1 Thanks to twentieth-century pioneers such as Henri Maspero, it has now become clear that the simple distinction between “philosophical” Daoism (Daode Jing, Zhuang Zi, and occasionally the Lie Zi) and “religious” Daoism (basically everything else) may be artificial and somewhat inaccurate, reflecting not a complicated historical record but rather the tastes of Chinese literati and those foreigners to whom they introduced their native traditions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The corrective for past neglect of (most of) the Daoist canon and Daoist history is fairly straightforward: relegate the “classics” to the beginning of a course, and fill in the rest with a comprehensive history that takes Daoism beyond shopworn stereotypes and engages with the experiences of diverse practitioners, including those who are alive and practicing today. The use of literature in this regard is also straightforward: supplement textbooks and primary texts with fictional accounts that treat neglected aspects of Daoism.2 But despite its broader scope, such an approach must nevertheless engage the classics, and pedagogues will still face the question of how best to approach the Daode Jing and the Zhuang Zi. This question is extremely difficult to answer, in large part because the authorship and genre of both texts are ambiguous, and conclusions about authorship and genre can have a profound effect on one’s interpretative approach. Indeed, it is decisions about authorship and genre that originally drove the oversimplified distinction between “philosophical” and “religious” Daoists. The former were those who understood the classics as collections of arguments, authoritative independent of authorship. The latter, on the other hand, believed in the divine origin of the classics and apotheosized their authors, which conduced to different interpretations—say, literal, as opposed to metaphorical interpretations of stories about implausibly long-lived characters. Authorship and genre are still crucial in deciding how to approach these texts. Take the Daode Jing, once believed to have been written by a wise man named Lao Dan, now revealed by

74

Alan Levinovitz

archaeological discoveries and textual criticism as a heterogeneous text that existed in various forms throughout its long and complicated history. No modern scholars accept the Lao Dan story anymore, opening up new interpretive possibilities. Text critic Michael LaFargue, for instance, has argued that there is no “original” text, the Daode Jing being best understood as a somewhat haphazard collection of popular aphorisms.3 As such, he contends the book could be organized differently than it is in the traditional received version—and his translation does precisely that, presenting the chapters in an entirely different order. Unsurprisingly, LaFargue’s reorganized text invites a substantially different interpretative approach than the received text, as do the individual passages that he reads as aphorisms rather than philosophical arguments or religious revelations that make up part of a coherent whole.4 Thanks to its status as the Daoist classic, the Daode Jing is often the first Daoist text that students encounter. In my experience teaching Daoism, however, I have found that the easiest way to introduce the hermeneutical issues bound up with authorship and genre is by starting not with the Daode Jing but the Zhuang Zi, the content of which, as we will see, is uniquely suited to unpacking these issues. As with the Daode Jing, there is substantial disagreement on the work’s authorship and original form. The popular consensus on the Zhuang Zi and its author, found in many introductory religion textbooks, maintains that: (1) Someone named Zhuang Zi existed, (2) he was a follower of Lao Zi, and (3) he probably wrote the first seven chapters of the book that bears his name. That consensus, unfortunately, remains hotly contested and highly unstable. Sinologist Angus Graham and others have argued that Zhuang Zi, should he have existed at all, could not have been a “follower” of Lao Zi because Zhuang Zi died before the Daode Jing took its current form, and because the author of the so-called “inner chapters” may have been responsible for inventing the fictional character of Lao Zi in the first place! Instead of attempting to settle the question of authorship—a matter of historical fact— according to my own best guess, I ask students a different question, central to the enterprise of religion and literature: What difference does authorship make to readers of a religious text? Does it matter whether the text was written by one person or many? If the author of the Daode Jing was invented by the author of the Zhuang Zi, what happens to the authority of the Daode Jing? These questions, students quickly realize, apply to other, more familiar religious texts. Does the authorship of the Christian Bible change how we feel about its content? If Jesus’s teachings are wise advice, why should readers of the Bible care who wrote them? Inevitably, students come to see that the truth and value of religious texts—as opposed to mathematical texts or astronomical charts—feels like it has a special connection to authorship. The connection (or lack thereof) between a text’s authority and its author is, of course, built into nearly every debate about religious truth claims, and the Zhuang Zi offers a safer, less personal way into this issue, which students can then explore through texts that are immediately relevant to their own beliefs and those of more familiar religious traditions. In addition to opening up important questions about the significance of authorship, the Zhuang Zi also challenges standard approaches to exegesis of religious texts. Since scholars are in the business of writing scholarship, glosses of the Zhuang Zi tend to distill its motley collection of dialogues, parables, and satire into prosaic ethical claims, a process that students are quite familiar with, having seen it performed countless times with the texts of Abrahamic traditions. Motivating and justifying this approach is the sense that despite superficial ambiguity, religious texts, unlike literary texts, admit of a single, coherent reading—a right and a wrong interpretation. After all, how else could they serve as moral guides? Daoism scholar Russell Kirkland gives a typical account of the Zhuang Zi’s core teachings:

Daoist Zhuang Zi

75

The thrust of the Chuang-tzu as we actually have it is not hard to apprehend. To wit, the world in which we live is in fact quite distinguishable from the world in which everyone agrees that we live. [. . .] The wiser alternative is to live one’s life as “a real person” (zhen ren) – one who simply abides in the processes that are so of themselves (zi ran) rather than trying to manage and control life’s events. Such a person is, in fact, in accord with a reality that is boundless and unending. Consequently, such a person cannot be understood by those who live their lives according to socially based constructs and will thus be called wild or useless. Nonetheless, one should let go of one’s typical human approaches to life, and live “in the boundless,” without regard for what society and its clever people think or do.5 With a little prodding, students recognize potential problems with this reading—a reading that, with some variation, is essentially agreed upon by most modern Zhuang Zi scholars. Before reading the text itself, I present students with one or two exegeses, and then as a class we challenge them. Kirkland, for example, finds in the Zhuang Zi the moral imperative that people should let go of “typical human approaches to life.” But if that’s true, I ask, doesn’t it mean students and professors should let go of their typical approaches to understanding texts like the Zhuang Zi? If the book is criticizing “clever people,” then isn’t it also criticizing people like me and Russell Kirkland—professors, approved by society and universities, who cleverly distill the “wild” approach of the Zhuang Zi into standard prose that is easily understood? I point out to my classes that a number of scholars share this concern. Translator Burton Watson puts it well: “Whenever I sit down and try to write seriously about the Zhuang Zi, I seem, somewhere in the back of my head, to hear Zhuang Zi cackling away at the presumption and futility of such an endeavor.”6 I feel much the same way as Watson when I teach the Zhuang Zi, and for a long time I struggled with how to overcome my sense of presumption and futility. To date, the best solution I have found has been availing myself of literature. In addition to scholarly commentaries, there exist a few extraordinary works of fiction that mimic the Zhuang Zi’s genre instead of trying to distill its message into a standard expository argument. Delegating the commentarial task to literary works allows me to teach the text in a way that transcends the strictures of standard scholarly commentary and the limitations of my own talents. The remainder of this chapter will be dedicated to an exposition of one such exemplary work of fiction, “Bringing Back the Dead,” a short one-act play by Lu Xun, which provides a novel and illuminating perspective on the Daoist classic that inspired it, along with a new set of questions about the significance of authorship and genre.

II Lu Xun (one of many pen names for Zhou Shuren) is probably the most famous modern man of letters in China, akin to Orwell in England or Twain in America. Like these two men he wrote in a variety of genres, and like them he is most famous for satirical fiction laced with biting social commentary. In 1936, the year of Lu Xun’s death, he published his last collection of short stories entitled Old Tales Retold, in which he rewrites or elaborates ancient stories and histories. In her introduction to the Penguin edition of his complete stories, translator Julia Lovell describes this final collection as “a gentle counter-perspective on Chinese history spiked with moments of contemporary satire.” Just as most modern scholars read the Zhuang Zi as a critique of staid, hide-bound thinkers such as Confucius and Mozi, so too Lovell reads Lu Xun as a critic of those classical thinkers whose stories he reworks: “Favorite targets are the philosophical

76

Alan Levinovitz

inadequacies of his intellectual heroes: the toothless quietist Lao Zi, defeated by the problem of heaving his ox over the city wall; the righteous Bo Yi, undone by his own indiscretion; and the ebulliently conceited Zhuang Zi, lecturing ghosts on their deficient understanding of death.”7 At first glance, Lu Xun’s “Bringing Back the Dead,” a one-act play from Old Tales Retold, really does appear to be a critique of the “ebulliently conceited” Zhuang Zi. The play makes its protagonist look like quite the fool. It opens with the venerable philosopher walking through a vast stretch of wasteland, and wastes no time before satirizing what is no doubt the most famous anecdote from his eponymous book. Before reading the play, I make sure students have read the first seven chapters of the Zhuang Zi, as well as some other relevant selections (to be discussed later), so they are therefore already familiar with the story, which reads as follows: Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly, fluttering about joyfully just as a butterfly would. He followed his whims exactly as he liked and knew nothing about Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and there he was, the startled Zhuang Zhou in the flesh! He did not know if Zhou had been dreaming he was a butterfly, or if a butterfly was now dreaming it was Zhou.”8 (29) While commentators have historically applauded the butterfly dream as an earnest critique of identity theory or an idealized depiction of playful freedom, Lu Xun lets readers know just how wanting he finds the story as a dictum for living life. “What a thundering bore thirst is,” declares Zhuang Zi in the opening line of the play, as he wanders alone through the landscape. “How much more fun to turn into a butterfly” (393). But then, a second later, Lu Xun points out that earthly appetites will always intrude on Daoist fantasies of sages unconcerned with the exigencies of everyday life. “A pool! What a stroke of luck!” shouts Zhuang Zi upon sighting water, and he rushes to take a drink. See, Lu Xun seems to be saying, you can have your playful Daoist ideals, but when push comes to shove they can’t be lived out practically. Humans are human, and that means they are governed by physical needs. Playful fluttering is fine in a fantasy world, but not in reality. The rest of the play is built from other stories that Lu Xun takes to task. Just after taking his drink, Lu Xun’s Zhuang Zi stumbles across a skull and begins to lecture it. The lecture is taken nearly verbatim from the original passage in the Zhuang Zi that inspired “Bringing Back the Dead,” and after students have read the play we set both versions side by side and think about Lu Xun’s approach. Here is the original: When Zhuang Zi went to Chu, he saw an old skull, all dry and parched. He poked it with his carriage whip and then asked, “Sir were you greedy for life and forgetful of reason, and so came to this? Was your state overthrown and did you bow beneath the ax and so came to this? Did you do some evil deed and were you ashamed to bring disgrace upon your parents and family, and so came to this? Was it through the pangs of cold and hunger that you came to this? Or did your springs and autumns pile up until they brought you to this?” When he had finished speaking, he dragged the skull over and, using it for a pillow, lay down to sleep. In the middle of the night, the skull came to him in a dream and said, “You chatter like a rhetorician and all your words betray the entanglements of a living man. The dead know nothing of these! Would you like to hear a lecture on the dead?”

Daoist Zhuang Zi

77

“Indeed,” said Zhuang Zi. The skull said, “Among the dead there are no rulers above, no subjects below, and no chores of the four seasons. With nothing to do, our springs and autumns are as endless as heaven and earth. A king facing south on his throne could have no more happiness than this!” Zhuang Zi couldn’t believe this and said, “If I got the Arbiter of Fate to give you a body again, make you some bones and flesh, return you to your parents and family and your old home and friends, you would want that, wouldn’t you?” The skull frowned severely, wrinkling up its brow. “Why would I throw away more happiness than that of a king on a throne and take on the troubles of a human being again?” it said.9 (193) Lu Xun takes up where the original leaves off. In his play, Zhuang Zi calls upon the god of fate with nonsensical incantations. The god appears and obliges his request by raising the skull from the dead. Suddenly, Zhuang Zi is confronted by a naked, terrified man, last on his way to see his family before he blacked out, nearly 300 years earlier. The man, fresh from death, is utterly confused as to his nudity and the identity of his well-dressed interlocutor. The ensuing conversation clarifies little, and there is no redemptive ending. Eventually the naked man accosts Zhuang Zi, who, no less terrified than his interlocutor, whistles for the police. After a short conversation, the policeman who arrives on the scene allows Zhuang Zi to go on his way because Zhuang Zi identifies himself as a famous scholar. The scene ends with the resurrected naked man clinging to the policeman and babbling about his relatives. Together, my students and I look at all the ways in which Lu Xun’s adaptation functions to make Zhuang Zi look like a fool, and how the play appears to be a critique of his carefree philosophy. Apparently speaking for Lu Xun, the god of fate questions the real-world practicality of Zhuang Zi’s philosophy, telling him that he “talks a good game.” Zhuang Zi’s playfulness ends up ruining the life of the man he brings back from the dead. Play has consequences, if not for oneself, then for others—and Daoist sages who don’t recognize these consequences are selfish. They are also hypocritical. Though Zhuang Zi pretends to be carefree like a butterfly, when confronted with an actual threat he whistles for the police, completely dependent on society. Virtually every line of the play undermines the theoretical appeal of the Zhuang Zi’s “carefree” philosophy by pointing out the practical impossibility of applying it. However, further reflection on both texts makes it difficult to see Lu Xun’s play as somehow “opposed” to the philosophy of the original. The oppositions between the two are obvious, but there are also unmistakable parallels. In the original Zhuang Zi, it is also Zhuang Zi who gets lectured by the skull. The skull possesses wisdom; Zhuang Zi is the dullard. With the protagonist’s name on the book, it is easy to forget he is not actually the hero of the original story. While Lu Xun criticizes Zhuang Zi, the Zhuang Zi does so as well, which means the play is not necessarily undermining the Zhuang Zi’s philosophy so much as offering an extended version of the original. Bringing up this possibility with students is an effective way to introduce the difference between the author of the text and the figure of Zhuang Zi that appears in it. “Zhuang Zi” the character, I suggest, is no more the author of the Zhuang Zi than Holden Caufield is J.D. Salinger. And it follows that the philosophy of the Zhuang Zi, whatever that is, isn’t necessarily the philosophy espoused by the character Zhuang Zi who appears in its pages.

78

Alan Levinovitz

Once author and character have been decoupled, Zhuang Zi’s appearances in the inner chapters look quite different. To establish the importance of this difference, I ask my students the following question: If the man dreaming about butterflies is the same man who gets lectured by the skull, does that mean we should question the wisdom of the butterfly dreamer, exactly as Lu Xun suggests we should? If so, it means that Lu Xun’s play is actually revealing a potential reading of the original, not discrediting it! Making sense of the original in terms of Lu Xun’s play forces students to recognize that the Zhuang Zi is, counterintuitively, quite critical of Zhuang Zi. When we revisit Zhuang Zi’s appearances in the Zhuang Zi, we discover a character eminently deserving of Lu Xun’s castigation. In his initial appearance, the very first words out of Zhuang Zi’s mouth to his friend Hui Zi are, “You are certainly stupid.” Not exactly what we expect from someone usually understood as a playful relativist. While most of the sage-like figures in the Zhuang Zi are reluctant to answer questions, Zhuang Zi himself is full of self-assured responses. Small wonder this character comes in for criticism, both from Lu Xun and the author(s) of the Zhuang Zi. This is the magic of religion and literature: by approaching the Zhuang Zi through a fictional parallel, students think about the original using a mindset they usually reserve for fiction. They look at the character of Zhuang Zi as a character, not an author, and in the process the straightforward message of the original text is ambiguated. To reinforce the ambiguating power of treating Zhuang Zi as a character who might come in for criticism, I have students read another famous story from the book in light of the skull’s counsel about death. In this story, emissaries who have heard about Zhuang Zi’s wisdom come to recruit him for a position in government. Their efforts are fruitless. “I have heard there is a sacred turtle in Chu,” Zhuang Zi tells them, “already dead for three thousand years, which the king keeps in a bamboo chest high in his shrine. Do you think this turtle would prefer to be dead and having his carcass exalted or alive and dragging his backside through the mud?” The emissaries reply, “Alive and dragging his backside through the mud.” “Get out of here!” scoffs Zhuang Zi. “I too will drag my backside through the mud!” (Ziporyn, 75) Students (and scholars) tend to read this anecdote as a lesson about rejecting worldly renown, and counsel to embrace one’s natural way of life, even if—especially if—society deems that way of life to be less exalted. Yet that reading requires us to agree with Zhuang Zi the character, who asserts the turtle would in fact prefer to be alive. Of course, it is this exact assumption that comes in for criticism from the skull and Lu Xun’s extended riff. The skull suggests that perhaps the dead are happier just the way they are, and Lu Xun, far from offering a criticism of the Zhuang Zi, actually serves to highlight and extend the skull’s criticism of Zhuang Zi’s perspective on death. The naked man would definitely have been happier dead. Not only that, but the story of Zhuang Zi the character, rejecting societal norms, conflicts with the very fact of his text. For whom, I ask my students, was the text written? How did the author learn how to write it, and why did he (they?) distribute it? Whoever was in charge of creating the Zhuang Zi managed to do something very little like wallowing in the mud, and much more like following the government emissaries. These alternative readings of the original Zhuang Zi are extremely hard to see when the text is read as religious texts usually are—with an enlightened protagonist serving up unambiguous

Daoist Zhuang Zi

79

ethical doctrines for the reader to follow. Lu Xun’s play is tremendously helpful for illustrating how a literary critical lens reveals neglected aspects of the Zhuang Zi that complicate traditional understandings of its message. The rest of Lu Xun’s play suggests similarly destabilizing lines of inquiry about our protagonist and the book that bears his name. On various occasions in the Zhuang Zi we hear Zhuang Zi’s words (among other things) described as “useless,” a typically pejorative descriptor that the Zhuang Zi famously reappropriates as laudatory. Lu Xun’s play, however, emphasizes the usefulness of Zhuang Zi’s words. When the police officer shows up to the scene he is initially suspicious of Zhuang Zi, and reasonably so, given that Zhuang Zi is the clothed one, making the naked, recently resurrected man look like the victim of a crime. The officer collars Zhuang Zi and threatens to beat him with a truncheon, but then realizes who he’s grabbed hold of. “Our superintendent’s been talking a lot about you these last few days,” the officer says reverently. “He’s a bit of a philosopher recluse himself, but he still takes on odd jobs for local government—courier work mainly. He loves your essays—especially ‘On the Equality of Things’: ‘Where there’s life, there’s death; where there’s death, there’s life.’” (400) Reading the officer’s words, one cannot fail to be struck by how aptly they describe the most likely author of the Zhuang Zi. Clearly he is no recluse: anyone who wrote such a text must have been extremely well-educated, and either he supported his studies with some kind of government job, or his fame as a teacher and scholar allowed him to subsist independently. Whichever the case, the figure of Zhuang Zi as iconoclastic recluse hero is at odds with what we know must be true of the Zhuang Zi’s author(s). Even if the original Zhuang Zi was actually a recluse and the book is the product of his students, it means he was social enough to have students—and we know the character had his friend Huizi the logician to abuse. Again, these tensions exist in the original, and it is essential to see how Lu Xun is not offering a critique of the Zhuang Zi—even if that is what he meant to do—but rather extending themes that are already present in it. In addition to illuminating alternative readings of the Zhuang Zi, Lu Xun’s play offers a unique opportunity to think about authorship and authenticity. Most commentaries, including this chapter, maintain a studied distance from the source material. They are characterized by continual reference to a distinct text called the Zhuang Zi. Such referencing is a performance of their separate identity—at no point in the Zhuang Zi do we read a sustained account of what the Zhuang Zi means, nor is there any extended analysis of its content uninterrupted by fictional narrative. It would feel strained to suggest that the chapter you are reading right now could conceivably be thought of as part of the original Zhuang Zi. With Lu Xun’s play, on the other hand, the suggestion feels more reasonable, since the play itself takes the form of the original. As countless Daoism scholars have emphasized, the current thirty-three chapter edition of the Zhuang Zi is the result of substantial editorial work on the part of an early commentator and compiler named Guo Xiang. Much of the later text, and possibly some of the first seven chapters, was written by multiple hands. If Guo Xiang and others subtracted and added material from the original text, why can’t Lu Xun? Why can’t we? Textual criticism has already conclusively demonstrated that our received text is the product of multiple voices and additions made across several generations. Does that process have a statute of limitations? Generally speaking, students intuitively object—as I do—to the idea that Lu Xun’s play might count as part of the original. I use this reaction in them and myself as a way to explore

80

Alan Levinovitz

some of the Zhuang Zi’s more challenging passages on the nature of identity. In “On the Equality of Things,” the chapter of the Zhuang Zi explicitly named by Lu Xun’s police officer, we read the following passage about what makes something what it is: Something is affirmative because someone affirms it. Something is negative because someone negates it. Courses are formed by someone walking them. Things are so by being called so. Whence thus and so? From thus and so being affirmed of them. Whence not thus and so? From thus and so being negated of them. Each thing necessarily has some place from which it can be affirmed as thus and so, and some place from which it can be affirmed as acceptable. (13) What exactly does this passage mean? Philosophy of language and ontology can be somewhat daunting for undergraduates in an introductory course, but Lu Xun’s play is an excellent starting point for thought experiments: Can we make the play part of the Zhuang Zi merely by affirming its identity as such? Does calling it so make it so? What if someone else disagrees? Does it matter more if she who disagrees is an authority? If we assert that the play is not a part of the Zhuang Zi, are we therefore disagreeing with the Zhuang Zi’s statement about how identity works? When I push students to answer these questions, they inevitably end up developing definitions of what counts as an authentic text. Usually that definition involves authorship— the real Zhuang Zi is only what was written by a certain person or a certain set of people. Without stipulating authorship as part of the identity of a text, Lu Xun’s play really could be counted as part of the Zhuang Zi, an intuitively unacceptable conclusion. How could a religious classic be open to arbitrary additions from thousands of years later? Doesn’t that take away from its sacredness? Yet the Zhuang Zi is filled with passages that call on readers to question the importance of authorship and traditional understandings of identity, including the famous butterfly with which Lu Xun opens his play, and which opens “On the Equality of Things.” Some students use these passages to defend textual identity as vertiginously unstable, countering that there isn’t anything wrong with thinking about Lu Xun’s play as the most recent installation of the Zhuang Zi, a long-awaited thirty-fourth chapter. Yes, it is still true: whenever I attempt to write or teach seriously about the Zhuang Zi, I hear its author cackling away at me. I fear that whatever I do will work against the dynamic of the text, stabilizing what is otherwise unstable, providing clarity when in fact the book appears engineered to produce bewilderment. Using Lu Xun as a surrogate mouthpiece in the classroom, I strive for textual fidelity to the Zhuang Zi through conservation of the original’s genre alongside traditional exegesis. The chorus of voices we produce—mine, the students’, Lu Xun’s, and those of the “original” authors—is a real-time performance of the choral process responsible for the production of the Zhuang Zi, and, in a sense, of all religious texts. There are endless ambiguities built into Lu Xun’s play. This is to be expected: literature, especially good literature, invites multiple readings. Yet the Zhuang Zi is too often classed as religion or philosophy, a classification which means that despite nods to its complicated mix of genres and apophatic parables, commentators and pedagogues are tempted to pronounce on its meaning, singular, rather than meanings, plural. This approach, I think, runs into the grave difficulties identified by Watson, and felt by anyone who has taught the Zhuang Zi. Lu Xun’s play helps remind us that the Zhuang Zi is not necessarily an unambiguous manifesto championed by an unambiguous hero, and it does so without forcing us to pronounce definitively on

Daoist Zhuang Zi

81

what it is. And although I still feel the author of the Zhuang Zi cackling at my attempts to teach his text, when I supplement my approach with literature I also feel him—them? us? —nodding approvingly.

Notes 1 Daode Jing is a transliteration of a title that translates, roughly, as The Classic (Jing) of the Way (Dao) and Virtue (De). The Zhuang Zi is named for its supposed author, Master Zhuang (Zi is the honorific). 2 For those interested in using literature to explore such historically neglected aspects of Daoism, I recommend two books. Anthony Yu’s abridged translation of Journey to the West is an accessible depiction of the heterogeneous belief systems that characterized much of Chinese history. For a more detailed exploration of a specific Daoist tradition, Eva Wong’s translation of Seven Taoist Masters provides a lively fictionalized introduction to the Quanzhen (Complete Reality) school that follows its twelfth-century founder, Wang Chongyang, and his students as they pursue the dao, highlighting obstacles such as excessive lust or pride and the proper means of overcoming them. 3 Michael LaFargue, The Tao of the Tao Te Ching (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992). 4 See Teaching the Daode Jing (2008) in the AAR’s “Teaching Religion” series for an excellent set of essays on how to teach this difficult work. 5 Russell Kirkland, Taoism: The Enduring Tradition (London: Routledge, 2004), 38. 6 Victor H. Mair, ed. Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), ix. 7 Xun Lu, The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun (London: Penguin, 2009), xxxii. 8 Brook Ziporyn, Zhuangzi: The essential writings with selections from traditional commentaries. (Indiana: Hackett Publishing, 2009). 9 Burton Watson, ed. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. Vol. 80. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968).

Bibliography DeAngelis, Gary Delaney, and Warren G. Frisina, eds. Teaching the Daode Jing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Kirkland, Russell. Taoism: The Enduring Tradition. London: Routledge, 2004. LaFargue, Michael. The Tao of the Tao Te Ching. New York: SUNY Press, 1992. Mair, Victor H., ed. Experimental Essays on Chuang-tzu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983. Watson, Burton, ed. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. Vol. 80. New YorK Columbia University Press, 1968. Wong. Eva. Seven Taoist Masters: A Folk Novel of China. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2004. Xun, Lu. The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun. London: Penguin, 2009. Yu, Anthony. The Monkey and the Monk: An Abridgment of The Journey to the West. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Ziporyn, Brook. Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Indiana: Hackett Publishing, 2009.

7 REDEEMING THE HUMAN REALITY Teaching African American Religion and Literature Kimberly Rae Connor

Wade in the Water—Introduction to African American Religion and Literature Among the features of African American religious culture to invite literary speculation and expression is its ability to unite spiritual, aesthetic, political, and cultural forms and ideas into a whole vision of reality and a way of being. Throughout the history of Blacks living in America, the process by which they claimed a sense of self and connection to society has been one of a subtle blending of received traditions and experiences with a strong sense of creativity and selfexpression in any number of textual modes. Thus, while the institutional forms of faith and the development of certain sects and cults is a distinguishing feature of black religion—where the church is seen as the extended family of God—other expressions of faith emerge in the daily cultural life of black Americans and have been expressed in literature as well as other art forms and in activism and other cultural activities since Blacks first came to America. From the earliest times, African Americans have transformed received faith traditions and their literary products and made them their own. Religion helped Blacks in oppression to symbolically render their experience and create a new moral order that explained their situation. Moreover, the early black church became the focal point for much activity not generally thought of as worship—forms of dance, song, storytelling, and even strategy sessions for planning escapes, deceptions, and rebellion. The church—writ large—sanctified many forms of life in black communities and held in common unity more black people than any other institution and has had more influence in molding the thoughts and lives of African Americans than has any other agency. The black church evolved not as a formal denomination with a structured doctrine, but as an attitude, a movement, representing the desires of Blacks to be self-conscious about the meaning of their racial identity and to search for spiritual fulfillment in terms of their understanding of themselves and their history. Thus, when exploring the religious dimensions of African American literature, one recognizes that there is no single doctrine, no official dogma, or one black church—just the belief that religion is relevant to those who espouse it. Even now when black culture has diversified and religion no longer assumes the influence it once had and many have been raised outside the church or a specific denominational influence, there are

Redeeming the Human Reality

83

few who would deny the church’s significance to black culture and community. The power of divine influence is still a force to be reckoned with because the church so long functioned to sustain and encourage the hopes and aspirations of black communities and individuals. Yet while religious and literary production often expresses the best and most positive aspects of black culture, it also reflects or mirrors other features of the dominant culture that continue to influence its growth and development. Under the strain brought on by social ills and new directions in black religious experience, many are questioning the relevance of the traditional religious ideas and the ability of faith to transform their lives. In its remnant forms that persist after the triumphs and disappointments of the Civil Rights movement, there still exists a belief that social and economic liberation is part of an African American gospel, its message, and the church, in whatever form, has been an instrument for change and alleviating oppression and a source of strength and affirmation for the community’s most visionary leaders—from Nat Turner, leader of the 1831 slave rebellion, and Sojourner Truth, the abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, to Oliver Brown who filed the lawsuit that abolished school desegregation, and Martin Luther King who transformed the nation with his politics of non-violent resistance.

Deep River—Origins of African American Religion and Literature Through all phases of its history, in the works of many writers and expressed in all genres, religion—as worship, context, idea, trope, symbol, influence, value, and inspiration—has abounded in African American literature. Since the first Africans arrived on the shores of the New World, the imaginative impulse to envision and create has shaped the development of African American religious life; and the expression of religious doctrines and creeds has provided source material, formal techniques, symbolic language, and thematic orientation for African American literature. The relationship between religion and literature began in anonymity, with the “unknown bards”1 of the spirituals who had to “steal away to Jesus.”2 And it continues in the highly public and idiosyncratic personalities of hip hop poets who know that “Jesus walks”3 with them. Until the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, the religious idiom remains more traditional and examples of the explicit relationship between religion and literature are more easily identified; but as the twentieth century unfolded, artists and intellectuals explored in new ways the historical religious experiences of black America and pushed further into contemporary experiences of black spiritual life. Although religious elements become more diffuse and diverse, they remain present nonetheless. In Beloved, a novel inspired by and steeped in biblical and folk religious traditions, Toni Morrison sets forth a clear expression of the unique relationship between religion and literature in African American culture when the character Baby Suggs intones that “the only grace they could have was the grace they could imagine.”4 The exercise of imagination as an agency of grace has been foundational and necessary to the articulation of religious faith in African American culture. Likewise, religious experience and observance has influenced all forms of African American literary production. Literacy, whether oral or written, was not seen as an exclusive or proprietary talent reserved for an elite class but an indispensable skill for all to apply in identity formation and culture building. For the communities of adherents and creators, both religion and literature have functioned to hold up a mirror to reflect how things are and a lamp to illuminate how they could be. Interpretations of the religious dimensions of African American cultural production have been initiated two ways: from the point of view of a religious doctrine or practice to which one

84

Kimberly Rae Connor

applies a literary methodology; or by beginning with a literary text of any genre to which one applies a methodology derived from religious studies. However one approaches the relationship, one will be engaged in an ongoing and vibrant dialectic. In this dynamic, religion and literature have reflected the movement between cultural patterns that highlight tensions, affirm traditions, and innovate strategies to survive and endure but also to thrive and create, as Victor Anderson illustrates.5 The most effective pedagogies parallel this process of inviting multiple perspectives. The “double consciousness,” articulated by W. E. B. Du Bois in The Souls of Black Folk as a defining characteristic of African American identity also aptly illustrates the relationship between religion and literature in African American culture: a sustained tension of existential orientations that leads to an ongoing conversation about black life in both creative and spiritual realms of existence.6 Indeed, Du Bois’s precise and prescient cultural analysis exhibits in its literary expression a sustained indexing of black culture to black religion. Articulating the ambition to merge the double self into a “truer and better self,” Du Bois names the effort a “spiritual striving,” and references such an arrival as occurring in the “kingdom of culture,” an obvious allusion to Christian scripture (“Of Our Spiritual Strivings”). The Souls of Black Folk even concludes with a prayer, an invocation to “O God the Reader,” that there will be an “awakening”—a classic Christian allusion to conversion—on the part of individuals and culture where African Americans will be “judged by souls, not skin” (“The Afterthought”), a sentiment echoed nearly a century later by Martin Luther King, Jr. African American Christian practices and belief provide the dominant paradigm for this relationship but its influence is paradoxical. Christianity has sustained its holy significance in the lives and artistic production of African Americans while the perversions of Christianity— first evident in slavery and ongoing in racism—have been indelibly stamped on the consciousness of African American writers. The literature, therefore, contains evidence of the uplifting and transformative power of religion in the lives of its characters as in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), when Harriet Jacobs expresses her gratitude upon receiving her freedom: “God raised me up a friend among strangers. Friend, the word is sacred.”7 The literature also contains evidence of religion’s absence and failure in their lives. Representative of the betrayal of religious hope are lines found in Countee Cullen’s poem, “Gods” (1925) which, in addition to disappointment in Christianity, expresses nostalgia for African spirituality: “God’s alabaster turrets gleam/Too high for me to win/Unless He turns His face and lets/Me bring my own gods in.”8

How I Got Over—Slavery and Freedom in African American Religion and Literature From slave narratives to fiction, from spirituals to rap songs, from political manifestos to sermons, meaning has been expressed scripturally. In the hands of black exegetes, be they theologians, writers, or the folk, the Bible (Hebrew and Christian) has served a variety of functions, primarily as a key to interpreting meaning as African Americans have moved through the history of the nation. The Bible is responsible for inspiring and informing literary expression but also for presenting problems for those steeped in proclamation and interpretation. As set forth in the Gospel of John, the Bible functions in African American culture as word— embodied divinity—animated by the engagement of literary and religious forms. In literary texts and oral traditions of storytelling, as ancient history and as present reality, African American writers have often answered questions about the present by citing biblical examples and images. The way the spiritual “Go Down, Moses,”9 adapts the Exodus story for relevance in

Redeeming the Human Reality

85

slavery is one compelling example. Likewise, African American theologians, particularly in the formation of liberation theologies in the 1970s, turned to literary sources to illustrate the tenets of those theological investigations and practices as Delores Williams did in 1993’s Sisters in the Wilderness. An ability to read the Bible for themselves and thereby “keep the white folks from meddling”10 in their interpretation of scriptures was the motivation cited in many slave and spiritual narratives for acquiring the skills of literacy. For example, in her visionary writings collected as Gifts of Power, Shaker minister Rebecca Jackson (1830–1864) credits a divine miracle for her acquisition of the ability to read.11 Yet from their first encounter with the Bible, African Americans have recognized the ways in which biblical principles and narratives have been manipulated to serve two contradictory functions: to sustain systemic racism but also to promote liberating activity. Henry Highland Garnet’s “Address to the Slaves of the United States” or Maria Stewart’s “Address Delivered at the African Masonic Hall,” among other abolitionist texts, represent a dominant theme in early black writing, neatly summarized by Frederick Douglass when he proclaims that between “the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ there is the widest possible difference.”12 Sometimes the perversion of Christianity is attributed to southern slaveholders and complacent northern whites, but African American authors also challenged their own people for their passivity in ignoring their claim to full humanity as set forth in scripture as in Galatians 4:7—“So through God you are no longer a slave but a child; and if a child then an heir.” African American literary and religious traditions have borrowed freely from each other; as a result they share characteristics that convey both textual and spiritual principles. Several tropes associated with biblical hermeneutics can be applied to African American literature. Among them is conjuring, which has long been associated with folk spiritual practices in southern black communities. Since Zora Neale Hurston’s portrayal of the protagonist in Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), conjuring has been linked to divine power as revealed in the Bible. Hurston depicts Moses as a Hoodoo medicine man who possesses “power compelling words” derived from the Bible, “the greatest conjure book of all.”13 The theologian Theophus Smith, in Conjuring Culture, argues that conjure is imaginative power exercised to transform the condition of black lives and that the Bible is central to this activity. Furthermore, the ways in which African American writers, like Hurston, freely adapted the most sacred text of western culture, illustrates a foundational aesthetic characteristic of African American culture. The technique of sampling or borrowing from the Bible derives from the ways in which African Americans approached the sacred text as a magical formulary or ritual prescription for re-envisioning and transforming history and culture. This eclectic application of the Bible was practiced first by the authors of the spirituals but cast in comic tones by folklorists like Hurston who in Mules and Men (1935), and other writings, recorded and established an aesthetic form and a theological hermeneutic for future collaborations between literature and religion. Conjure, in other words, is both a theological and an aesthetic metaphor for cultural and ideological transformation. Derived from the synchronization of retained African and acquired Christian practices, conjure—as an act and as a trope—empowers African Americans denied customary access to forms of power and invigorates sympathetic magic with the power to make things happen. As Hurston saw Hoodoo practiced in New Orleans, it was an intrinsic part of African American religion because it offered a means by which blacks could exert control over their interior lives. As a result, at the root of conjure is the African principle that does not distinguish between the sacred and the profane, thereby establishing from their origins a natural reciprocity between religion and literature in African American cultural production.

86

Kimberly Rae Connor

Speaking in tongues is a biblical image derived from the event of Pentecost when Christ sent the Holy Spirit to humanity, eliciting a cacophony of languages being uttered as evidence of spirit possession. As a literary device and theological principle, speaking in tongues refers to the intricate interplay of self and other, known and unknown, familiar and unfamiliar speech that characterizes African American writing. A form of double discourse, speaking in tongues is a spiritual, aesthetic, and practical expression. It engages language or words only known to the divine and the faithful; it adapts history and present reality to convey the language of possibility; and it empowers the speaker and hearers who understand the coded dialogue while simultaneously protecting them from the intrusion of the dominant culture. Speaking in tongues aptly sets forth the complexity and diversity of African American religious and imaginative lives. Speaking in tongues as heteroglossia—languages that speak to a wider world and common culture—affirms the common and universal principles of equality, liberation, and justice so prominent in black literature and theology. Speaking in languages known only to God—glossolalia—sustains the secret and ecstatic experience of Blacks that requires interpretation to others outside the experience. Furthermore, glossolalia gives evidence of what is different and diverse in American culture, both the generative distinctions that promote multicultural independence and the destructive distinctions that separate and exclude one from full engagement with a pluralistic society. All these distinctions are endowed with divine authority when the trope of speaking in tongues is applied. One of many examples of the principle of speaking in tongues can be seen in spirituals, which were designed to communicate on more than one level. Songs like “Steal Away”14 may have served as a means to convene secret resistance meetings, while “Deep River, My Home is Over Jordan”15 may imply a wish to cross over to Africa or the North. Included as a form of speaking in tongues is signifying, articulated by the theologian Charles Long in Significations (1986) as the most widely accepted interpretation of the religious practice of indirect verbal play. Henry Louis Gates’s adaptation of the trope of the talking book in The Signifying Monkey (1988), which examines the ancient poetry and myths found in African and Pan-American culture, represents an influential literary critical approach to speaking in tongues as a form of inter-textual transmission and revision of various biblical and African derived spiritual beliefs. The Jeremiad or prophetic denunciation of present conduct and the forewarning of eventual trouble, characterizes much of biblical history set forth in the Hebrew Bible where, along with other prophets, Jeremiah predicts the coming downfall of the Kingdom of Judah because its rulers have broken the covenant with the Lord. Prophecy highlighting the relationship between humanity and divinity is later iterated by the Gospel writer’s portrayal of Jesus as Christ. The books of the prophets and the words of Jesus serve as models for literary works in which the author bitterly laments the state of society and its morals in a serious tone of sustained invective with a corresponding prophecy of society’s imminent downfall. Although not limited to African American literary production, the form of a jeremiad and the power of its biblical precedent endowed liberation struggles like abolitionism and the civil rights movement with a divine sanction. As with other biblically derived tropes, the spirituals record the first jeremiads when they ask “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”16 In prose, David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States (1848), reminds his people that “God rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, having his ears continually open to the cries, tears, and groans of his oppressed people.”17 Later the pan-African writings of Marcus Garvey, as in his “Appeal to the

Redeeming the Human Reality

87

Conscience of the Black Race to See Itself” (1923), urged a return to Africa because “the evil of internal division is wrecking our existence as a people, and if we do not seriously and quickly move in the direction of a readjustment it simply means that our doom becomes imminently conclusive.”18 The jeremiad is memorably extended by James Baldwin in the essays collected in The Fire Next Time (1963) and other essay collections, which constitute a moral manifesto whose extraordinary power resides in Baldwin’s evangelical eloquence by which he enunciates systemic racism. Further, Baldwin links the “salvation” of American into “Another Country” (1962) to African American’s ability to educate white minds and hearts into a new maturity and decency. The modern jeremiad reaches its climax, perhaps, in the speeches and the sermons that were composed by Martin Luther King at the height of his eloquence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, best exemplified in the overpowering “Letter from Birmingham Jail,”19 when he challenges even those who profess to support the civil rights movement to understand why Negroes “can’t wait”20 in a magnificent, single, unbroken, paragraph-length sentence litany of sorrow.21 Spirituals and slave narratives are the two original genres of African American literary production that first engage biblical tropes and introduce aesthetic innovation. As such, they serve as models for subsequent literary production that can, in most cases, be traced back to the influence of one or both genres. Slave narratives and especially spirituals have transcended their particular context and now symbolically represent a direct challenge to forms of racial oppression with a corresponding universal hope of liberation from oppression—key tenants of black theology throughout the history of African American experience. Authors of slave narratives engaged Christian discourse as personal affirmations of faith but also as a rhetorical device to persuade other Christians to enact their religious principles in service of the abolitionist cause. In some cases, as with the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, rites of passage in Christian life are linked with stages of liberation from slavery by way of the attainment of literacy. His baptism is when he was taught by his mistress the rudiments of language; conversion is when he tests and improves his knowledge by way of public engagement; his confirmation occurs after reading anti-slavery tracts when he realizes he no longer could be a slave; and his ordination takes effect when he accepts a public career as orator and call to preach for human rights. Similarly the Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850), while constructed by an amanuensis, represents her rhetorical performances in public settings when she applied a strategy to combine biblical allusions with her own personal experience to convince people of the true meaning of scripture. Furthermore, like Julia Foote in A Brand Plucked from the Fire (1879), or the memoirs of other free black women like Zilpha Elaw (1846), or Jarena Lee (1836), and other authors of spiritual and slave narratives, Sojourner Truth claims “I talk to God and God talks to me,”22 to validate her arguments and claim the authority to preach. Slave narratives also represented the first articulations of the jeremiad but often with a twist. For rather than a pessimistic conclusion, they often ended in triumph after a successful escape as when Henry Brown boxed and shipped himself to freedom, a miracle he describes in Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown (1849). Furthermore, they were among the first instances of a social critique of Christianity, thereby giving permission for later challenges to the religion as practiced by the dominant culture in its efforts to disable the aspirations of African Americans. Richard Wright’s fictionalized autobiography Black Boy (1945) and James Baldwin’s novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953) illustrate this influence. By contrast, Margaret Walker’s Jubilee (1966) and other neo-slave narratives resoundingly affirm the spiritual legacy of the slave narrative tradition as a liberating guide although not without irony as seen in Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) and

88

Kimberly Rae Connor

Shirley Anne Williams’ Dessa Rose (1986), the two novels that ushered in a vibrant period, still ongoing, of literary reimagining the slave narrative. Finally, slave narratives have served as important documents that preserve folkways derived from African religious practices, thereby affirming the intentional survival of ancestral influences. For example, Frederick Douglass describes an instance of sympathetic magic when he was instructed by an elder to carry a root for protection from an overseer. Harriet Jacobs also cites the use of charms and fetishes among slaves and records details of a Methodist shout and Johnkannaus festival, both of which provide striking similarities to spirit possession in dances and other performances of African religious rituals. Although challenged in some academic circles for being disingenuous, in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789), the autobiographer provides considerable and accurate detail about his Ibo culture to demonstrate its equality with European forms of civilization, even referencing biblical analogies to explain the spiritual dignity of African beliefs in ancestor reverence, a sacred cosmos, dreams, and other practices. In 1927 James Weldon Johnson paid tribute to the “Black and Unknown Bards” who “sang a race from wood and stone to Christ”:23 the creators of spirituals, the form Johnson illustrates in images is the first instance of an ongoing pattern in African American literary production and spiritual development that extends, elaborates, and refines basic principles of creation and truth. Principally associated with African-American church congregations of the antebellum South and the earlier, more informal and sometimes clandestine gatherings of enslaved people, the creation of spirituals was the result of a process of mutual influence and reciprocal borrowing—the same spiritual and aesthetic principle applied to conjuring—from evangelical sermons and hymns, biblical stories, traditional African chants and praise songs, and the combined experiences of enslaved people in the South. Features of the spirituals that can be found in later literary production include a demonstration of the ways in which a simple lyric can serve several functions. In the spirituals, enslaved people critically analyzed their conditions, fashioned a creative theological response, indicted their oppressors without overtly denigrating them, re-asserted the influence of an African sensibility, and empowered themselves by exercising a form of resistance that would endure longer than the conditions to which they were subject. The theology of spirituals was based not in doctrine but on ethics, instructing enslaved peoples not what to believe but how to act. In creation as well as performance, spirituals exhibited the essential characteristics of spontaneity, variety, and communal interchange. The form of the spirituals was flexible and improvisational, thereby able to fit an individual slave’s experience into the consciousness of group, creating at once an intensely personal and vividly communal experience, a hallmark of African American writing that often was expected to uplift the race, as in Booker T. Washington’s Up From Slavery (1901). Call and response characterizes this dynamic relationship between the individual and the community. As practiced in spirituals, call and response embodies the foundational spiritual principle behind their performance, denoting the dual requirement of what is necessary for completion. Very much a ritual act, when spirituals were sung by enslaved people they amplified their desire for liberation and created conditions of sacred space and time wherein the biblical stories of which they sang were transformed and the history of the ancient past became the history of the present.

I Got a Right to the Tree of Life—Emancipation and Affirmation in African American Religion and Literature Synthesizing sacred and secular meaning, as described above, the spirituals drew images from the Bible to interpret their own experience, measuring it against a wider system of theological and

Redeeming the Human Reality

89

historical meaning. Later African American writing adapted biblical themes, performance techniques, and images derived from spirituals to create an ongoing theological aesthetic whereby the Bible and the spirituals became the glossolalia for informed readers. For example, Martin R. Delany’s Blake (1859), J. Saunders Redding’s No Day of Triumph (1942), and John O. Killen’s Youngblood (1954) incorporate spirituals to structure their plots and advance their themes. The most revered novel in the African American canon, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man (1952) employs the spirituals and folk forms they engendered as influences on the characters, plot, and figurative language. Toni Morrison freely adapts biblical stories and images in her fiction, while in Song of Solomon (1978), as in Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow (1983), striking moments of call and response are incorporated into the denouement of their plots. Margaret Walker’s poems collected in For My People (1952), also engage a biblical idiom. Along with slave narratives and spirituals, other pre-Civil War African American literary texts easily accommodate religious beliefs and images and complement their authors’ diverse subjects in many rhetorical forms: addresses and speeches, orations, sermons, petitions and pamphlets, letters, confessionals, and other autobiographies. Whether the Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral of Phillis Wheatley (1773), the letters of Benjamin Banneker to Thomas Jefferson (1791), the sermons of Absolmom Jones (1746–1818), or the speeches of Maria Stewart (1831– 1833), all these literary pioneers pondered, explained, exhorted and demonstrated that their sisters and brothers should seek edification—intellectual, moral, spiritual, and practical—in order to improve in all spheres of human development and to uplift the race. The spirituals also shaped the development of the sacred lyrics known as gospel. Thomas A. Dorsey (1899–1993), composer of such standards as “There Will Be Peace in the Valley,” is considered by many to be the “Father of Gospel Music.” As a young man he accompanied some of the most famous blues singers of all time, like Bessie Smith (1894–1937). He also promoted the career of Charles A. Tindley (1851–1933), composer of “We’ll Understand It Better By and By.” In his essay, “Rock, Church, Rock,” poet and novelist Arna Bontemps (1902–1973) observed how traditionalists in the black church considered the blending of the sacred and the secular as the devil’s music and initially shunned gospel music. But because the aesthetic and spiritual impulse behind the composition of gospel music was so authentic and characteristic of black creation, the form survived and continued to thrive in the works of James Cleveland (1931–1991) and others, providing further demonstration of the eclectic arrangement of language in African American literary forms. Spirituals also had a direct influence on blues lyrics. Described by James Cone as a secular spiritual,24 even when Robert Johnson (1911–1938) is lamenting a “hellhound” on [his] trail or W. C. Handy (1873–1958), the father of the blues, is wailing blues on “Beale Street”, blues forms served a functional role. They were created and performed in a ritualistic way to affirm the essential worth of black humanity. And in the case of Johnson and his mysterious death at the crossroads, a background myth supports the religious elements. In Stomping the Blues (1976), Albert Murray makes a case for the ways in which the blues, in composition and performance, complemented existing religious forms of worship but added an additional element that more completely described the reality of black life. While one would still get up for church on Sunday morning and face the tedium of work on Monday, on Saturday night Juke joints replaced churches and the blues substituted for hymns. It is the aspect of affirmation that connects blues theologically with spirituals: to preserve black humanity through ritual and drama and to transform—if only temporarily—existence. James Cone’s The Spiritual and The Blues (1972) articulates the ways in which theological principles are iterated in secular forms of black cultural production. The blues, he asserts, are not about but are the essence of the black experience. As

90

Kimberly Rae Connor

such the blues have become an idiomatic element in African American cultural production that combines art and life, the symbolic with the real, matter with spirit. The blues are an artistic response to the chaos of life that, although temporary and not directed toward salvation or an eternal reward, helps one cope and find meaning in an otherwise overwhelming set of circumstances. Furthermore, because “you’ve got to pay your dues to play the blues,” accompanying any invocation of the blues is a stamp of authenticity—a proclamation that what is being preached is true. Since disbelieving northerners challenged the veracity of slaves’ accounts of their experience, authenticity (or “keeping it real” in modern parlance) has been an enduring value in black cultural production. Although the institutional black church grew in visibility and influence, coincident to this development were the ways in which religious feelings and perspectives were expressed in black communities as a folk tradition. This is where the African, Christian and other elements combined, and where much of the retained religious feeling and lore resided. Following emancipation, communities dispersed and the church ceased to have an all-encompassing function. Furthermore, African Americans could finally speak in realistic terms of their desire for more secular goals such as material success, integration, or migration north for new opportunities.

We Shall Overcome—Justice and Hope in African American Religion and Literature As described above, since the beginnings of their literary production, African Americans have saved religious traditions and spiritual folkways and applied them for aesthetic pleasure. The early appearances of Africanisms notwithstanding, non-traditional forms of black religious life begin to appear in the literary canon when Hurston and others introduce an appreciation of the oral tradition sustained in folklore. Zora Neale Hurston bears the distinction of being among the first to preserve the spiritual expressions of black life that appear in more secular forms such as work songs and folktales. As gathered in Mules and Men (1928), Tell My Horse (1937), and The Sanctified Church (reprint, 1981), a collection of essays from the 1920s and 1930s, folklore and customs illustrate how religious ideas and practices endured and emerged from the experience of slavery. Principles of black folklore assigned by Hurston include the spiritual dimensions of identity formation and community building. Stories told by the folk in a signifying and competitive performance were often adaptations of biblical stories or original stories peopled with biblical figures. And because God “never finds fault with or censures the Negro,”25 God is portrayed in human terms that relate to their own experience and “the apostles walked and talked like section hands.”26 Additionally, the principle of applying to life and storytelling “the will to adorn,” as observed by Hurston, dignifies the creative and spiritual impulse in whatever form it takes and links the aesthetic and theological in a harmonious act of cultural production. James Weldon Johnson, who with his brother Rosamond is credited with saving and introducing to the public many of the spirituals, also wrote one of the most memorable sequences of African American poetry that also illustrates the power of folkways to preserve traditions, build community, and sustain hope. God Trombones: Six Negro Sermons in Verse, elevates the African American sermon to the level of lyric poetry while at the same time, in “The Creation,” paints a picture of life’s origins and the maker God as unmistakably black. A similar effect is achieved by Langston Hughes in Tambourines to Glory (1949). By the creation of heroes with extraordinary and often mystical abilities but who resemble ordinary people, like High John the Conqueror, folktales underscore the collaborative quality of

Redeeming the Human Reality

91

creation—between artist, community, and Creator—revealed in earlier aesthetic forms that also project a sense of religion that does not crush the individual but encourages originality. Also consistent with the past, storytelling sessions were public ritual performances that alluded to Biblical incidents, folktales projected moral lessons that show virtue rewarded or greed punished, consistent with conventional Christian doctrine. While folktales exhibited the characteristics of call and response and improvisation, they were also a ritual response to reality. In one creation story related by Hurston in Mules and Men, “How Black People Became Black,” the condition of black skin that leads to discrimination is explained by exploiting Negro stereotypes of laziness and greed, thereby using humor to soothe lingering hurts and to diminish the facts of life that could otherwise be overwhelming. Related to the signifying use of humor is the introduction of a trickster figure, derived from West African tales like those of Anansi the spider and reconfigured in black folklore as the devil or most memorably as Brer Rabbit. As with conjure, the trickster provides an example of spiritual power that is available to people often cut off from traditional forms of power. Through wits and craft one can change one’s reality or heal the indignities of life in a racist culture. Finally, as set forth in many African religious systems and aesthetic forms, where the goal of life is balance and harmony, African American folklore adopts religious doctrines that are at once realistic and hopeful; “God don’t like ugly and he ain’t stuck on pretty” or “God may not come when you want him but he’s right on time,” are common expressions of this sentiment. The ongoing influence of folk beliefs and practices can be seen in twentieth-century fiction. Hoodoo and other forms of sympathetic magic and spirit possession and African derived religious practices such as Rastafarianism, Santeria, Hoodoo, and Vodun appear in a variety of works including Mumbo Jumbo (1972) by Ishmael Reed, Damballah by John Edgar Wideman (1981), Ntozake Shange’s Sassafras, Cypress and Indigo (1982), Mama Day by Gloria Naylor (1988), Shirley Anne Williams’s Dessa Rose (1986) and Alice Walker’s Temple of my Familiar (1989). References to folk spiritual practices and beliefs, however, can be found as early as Black Thunder by Arna Bontemps (1936) and Ann Petry’s novel The Street (1946). Yet it was Alice Walker’s epistolary novel The Color Purple (1982) that had a singularly compelling impact on the perception and expression of a black theology rooted in folk forms and that later influenced the theology of womanists like Emilie Townes and Katie Cannon, who adopted for their femalecentric liberation theology the term coined by Walker and creatively embodied in the novel.

The Fire Next Time—Experimentation and Imagination in African American Religion and Literature The way in which Hurston drew attention to the African American cultural tradition as providing a means for survival and forms of creativity, also underscores how religious attitudes and values are conditioned by culture and in turn sustain culture. Ever evolving, value systems and ethical practices that emerge from folk traditions challenged accommodationism and materialism and reinforced the self-affirming, ethno-centric qualities of black religion and spiritual identity. Hurston, however, represented more than a southern folk revival. By proximity and patronage she is linked to Harlem, the site of a great cultural movement that emerged in 1920s. The Harlem Renaissance was the first organized attempt to initiate a cultural movement after slavery and it is associated with some of the legendary figures of African American literature, including Richard Wright and Langston Hughes. Part of the cultural revival involved the development of new religious belief systems that performed a function similar to folklore and that both inspired and brought forth a creative output. For example, the movement

92

Kimberly Rae Connor

led by Father Divine is cited as the source for Ras the Destroyer in Invisible Man. The Nation of Islam is prominent in the works of Amiri Baraka (1934–2014), Sonia Sanchez (1934–), and, of course, Malcolm X or El-Hajj Maleek El Shabazz (1925–1965). The Black Arts Movement of the late 1960s promoted the repudiation of European bases for aesthetics, including Judeo-Christian forms, which Larry Neal (1937–1981), a poet and leading theorist of the movement, viewed as old spirituality. African American writing and indeed life were in need of new spirituality specific to the black experience that sees the world from the perspective of the oppressed. Often associated with the Black Power political movement, in many respects this cultural movement was a spiritual antecedent of liberation theology that rooted divine power in black power. Less esoteric and more mainstream was the spiritual quest for ancestors highlighted by Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), which inspired a phenomenon of spiritual recovery of the past on the part of individuals and families. Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), may be the defining literary text in illustrating the unique relationship between religion and literature in African American culture. The novel is not traditionally religious in any sense and its protagonist, Janie, is far from conventional or pious. But throughout the story of her search for love and identity, both qualities are linked to a spiritual source that goes back to the origins of African American religiosity. She awakens to spiritual possibility through an appreciation of God’s creation; later that joy will be tempered with humility when she faces the dangerous aspects of natural power. Yet through her intimate identification with divinity through nature, or her beloved Tea Cake whom she describes as having “the keys to the Kingdom”27 Janie envisions a Kingdom of God that in its simplicity and sincerity embodies the truth of the Beatitudes: that the last shall be first, that the spiritual has more value than the material, and that what is blessed is not always found in a sanctified setting. Most important, perhaps, for a traditionally marginalized community, is the sense of accountability expected by the people from their God. While God’s eyes may always be on the people and God’s intervention in human affairs is possible, the people’s eyes are watching God. This secular presentation of a scenario of black life affirms the sacred grounding and the African origins of cultural production by African Americans. It defines the relationship between the individual and society and delineates the differences between civic and private responsibilities. It elevates the originality of the individual but only in the context of a community of kin. And it shows how that which serves a practical function, like the everyday use of a quilt, can also be a source of creative delight, spiritual edification, and an occasion to affirm the sacred origins of African America. If Hurston’s novel serves as the creative symbol of the relationship between African American religion and literature, the work of Nathan A. Scott, Jr. (1925–2006) represents the theoretical tradition of theological interpretation of the sacred literary output and as the progenitor of its pedagogy. More than any other African American of his generation, Scott—an ordained Episcopal priest with a Ph.D. in literature—lived and wrote on the boundary between religion and literature: between the sacred and the secular, ancient and modern, theology and culture, and the church and the academy. He wrote eloquently about the religious dimensions of African American literature when in 1979, he contributed an essay on “Black Literature” for The Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing. In it he credits African American writers with a sacred purpose, to move their “own people toward a deeper understanding of themselves.” He also encourages them, as rhetoricians, to be “agent[s] of self-discovery for the nation at large,” to assent to the belief that it is “within the power of a disciplined language to alter consciousness and thus redeem the human reality.”28 As a sacred act, literary production that upholds the relationship between religion and literature in African American culture is both ontological and teleological: it demonstrates a way of life and a reason to live.

Redeeming the Human Reality

93

You’ve Got to Pay your Dues to Play the Blues: Sample Assignments for Teaching African American Religion and Literature These assignments are crafted to encourage students to demonstrate their understanding of African American culture by enacting its foundational performative elements—responding in form and content to a call for engagement. Sing the blues (and protest injustice without fear), learn to spell (and cast an empowering spell), tell a story (and pass on the people’s history), and express yourself (improvise on the dominant culture’s head tune).

1. Stomping the Blues There is a basic metrical form to the blues whereby the first line represents and/or sets forth an idea or issue, the second line repeats this notion (sometimes with a slight variation) and the third and fourth lines develop or resolve the idea presented in the first and second lines. Also characteristic are stylistic features of the lyrics in which one borrows ideas and images from others, signifies on the topic under consideration, and innovates a resolution to a problem or a condition. The blues incorporates elements of all the musical forms we have encountered, the philosophical ideas we have investigated, and the literary tropes and images that we have explored. This assignment requires you to write a simple blues lyric that derives from the course readings. The stanza you compose should be followed by a brief interpretative paragraph that explains your intent and indexes the lyric to a specific reading assigned for the week. Here is an example of themes taken from the first week’s readings where we were introduced to basic themes and concepts: Been blown by four winds while making my way Seen four corners of the world while looking to stay But since I got no map, no compass, nobody to guide The journey don’t change much and I’m searching always The reference to four alludes to the philosophical structure Cornel West applied to African American thought and also to Asante’s notion of Afrocentricity, how African American thought travels back in time and space to Africa. The allusion to a lack of tools refers to the essay on entitlement and the final stanza observes the obvious fact of racial formation that race and ethnicity will always be an aspect of black philosophical reflection. Your explanation should be more specific and detailed, but I hope you get the idea of what is expected. An assignment like this challenges you to think in the ways African American creators have always had to think, engaging rational and imaginative capacities, speaking within a community and also to a world outside that community, and blending traditional thought with improvisatory activity: extending, elaborating, and refining reflections on race and reality.

2. Reciting the Alphabet Nightjohn is a 1996 film by Charles Burnett based on the 1993 YA novel of the same name by Gary Paulsen. The narrative relates a story about a young enslaved slave girl, Sarny, who lives a hopeless life on a Southern plantation. Her life is changed when she is taught how to read by a fellow slave, John, who during his secret, nighttime lessons, explicitly links literacy and freedom Her enthusiasm for literacy generates trouble for her and others in her community, but

94

Kimberly Rae Connor

eventually Sarny uses her ability to read against her slaveholder. She ends up being sold, but not before she shows her fellow slaves the letter ‘A’. “My lesson’s got no bottom at all. It stands on its own two feet.” This is Nightjohn’s description of the letter A. For this exam you need to develop other descriptions for the remainder of the alphabet. The descriptions must be pertinent to the issues we have explored in this class, concepts and ideas raised during our study of this era of American experience. I will also look for descriptions that derive specifically from the primary required readings. In these cases, please index your comments to their source. Most of your descriptions will probably be of a general nature, but try to think as specifically as possible. For each description, also provide a brief explanation. For example: A — “Stands on its own two feet and got no bottom at all.” This description explains what literacy can accomplish for enslaved people like Frederick Douglass. It helps to promote a sense of identity and pride, enables one to become self-sufficient, and its rewards and implications are limitless. B — “Reminds me of my wife.” The curves of the letter suggest a female form and the reminder of Nightjohn’s wife draws our attention to the cruelties of the slave system that often separated families as we read in Beloved and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. C — “Got its mouth open like it’s got something to say.” This represents how enslaved people were denied opportunities to voice their opinions, to express themselves, and even to comment on and protest their enslaved condition. It reminds us that even though slave voices were not often heard, slaves were individuals with something to say. Now you finish the rest of the alphabet! This is a challenging and creative task that may be made easier by collaborating with others. And be mindful what John tells Sarny: “All you got is what you remember.”

3. Spiritual Biography Prepare a brief spiritual biography of some figure in African American history who is relevant to our readings. This person can be of any historical period and any religious and/or spiritual inclination. You are free to choose a figure who most interests you personally rather than someone who I might introduce in class as a canonical figure. The key thing you must do is to explain how religion or faith function in this person’s life and how they expressed that faith in various dimensions of his or her life. Sift through all the biographical information and do not simply recite dates and events but highlight and then interpret those moments in this person’s life when his or her spirituality became a visible and influential aspect of his or her life. An example might be Muhammad Ali, how his faith in Islam transformed him from Cassius Clay, how it motivated his refusal to enter the draft, and how it has made him an internationally revered figure.

4. Cultural Review Select some African American cultural document, performance, or object other than those we discussed in class and describe how it reflects characteristics of an African American religious sensibility. You are free to choose for your subject that topic that most stimulates your own tastes. Your choices may be obviously religious (like a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., which

Redeeming the Human Reality

95

weaves social protest with religious values) or something more in the realm of pop culture, like a film, song, dance, play, novel or so forth. Examples might include The Color Purple where a narrative of female liberation is told through a series of letters to God or Alvin Ailey’s dance “Revelations,” where the dancer’s setting and forms of movement evoke periods of African American religious history.

Notes 1 James Weldon Johnson, “O Black and Unknown Bards,” in The Book of American Negro Poetry (Champaign, IL: Book Jungle, 2008), 92. 2 James Weldon Johnson and Rosamond J. Johnson. American Negro Spirituals (New York: De Capo Press,1969), 114. 3 Kayne West, The College Dropout. Roc-A-Fella Records, 2004. CD. 4 Toni Morrison, Beloved (New York: Vintage International, 2004), 88. 5 Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism (New York: Continuum, 1995). 6 W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (Project Gutenberg EBook, 1903). 7 Harriet Jacobs, Incident in the Life of a Slave Girl (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1861), 207. 8 Countee Cullen, Countee Cullen: Collected Poems (New York, NY: Library of America, 1925), 68. 9 Johnson and Johnson, American, 51. 10 Milton Sernett, African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 69. 11 Jean McMahon Humez, Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress (Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1987). 12 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (New York: Penguin, 1981), 153. 13 Zora Neale Hurston. Moses, Man of the Mountain (New York: Harper Perennial, 1939), vii. 14 Johnson, American, 18. 15 Ibid., 100. 16 Ibid., 136. 17 David Walker, David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 1848), 39. 18 Marcus Garvey, Appeal to the Conscience of the Black Race to See Itself (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1923), 138. 19 Martin Luther King Jr., Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: HarperOne, 2003), 289. 20 Ibid., 519. 21 Ibid., 292. 22 Sojourner Truth, Narrative of Sojourner Truth (New York: Dover Publications, 1850), 145. 23 James Weldon Johnson, “O Black and Unknown Bards,” in The Book of American Negro Poetry (Champaign, IL: Book Jungle, 2008), 92. 24 James Cone, The Spiritual and the Blues (NewYork: Orbis Books, 1972), 108. 25 Zora Neale Hurston, Mules and Men (New York: Harper Perennial, 2008), 254. 26 Zora Neale Hurston, The Sanctified Church (New York: Turtle Island Foundation, 1981), 56. 27 Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1937), 158. 28 Nathan Scott “Black Literature.” Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing. Ed Daniel Hoffman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 341.

Bibliography Anderson, Victor. Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism. New York: Continuum, 1999. Baldwin, James. The Fire Next Time. New York: Vintage International, 1993. —— Go Tell It on the Mountain. New York: Vintage, 2013. Bontemps, Arna. Black Thunder. Boston: Beacon, 1992.

96

Kimberly Rae Connor

—— “Rock, Church, Rock,” Common Ground, Autumn 1942: 75–80. Brown, Henry. Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself. Edited by John Ernest. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2008. Cone, James H. The Spiritual and the Blues. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1991. Cullen, Countee. Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. Edited by Major Jackson. New York, NY: Library of America, 2013. Delany, Martin Robison. Blake or The Huts of America: A Novel. Boston: Beacon, 1970. Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Penguin, 1981. Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Project Gutenberg EBook. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/408/ 408-h/408-h.htm#chap15 (Ret. 7/1/14). Elaw, Zilpha. Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. William L. Andrews. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. New York: Vintage International, 1995. Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African Written by Himself. Edited by Werner Sollors. New York: Norton, 2001. Foote, Julia A. J. A Brand Plucked from the Fire: An Autobiographical Sketch. Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar, 2009. Garnet, Henry Highland. “Address to the Slaves of the United States.” The National Negro Convention. Buffalo, NY. August 1843. Garvey, Marcus. An Appeal to the Conscience of the Black Race to See Itself. 1923. Selected Writings and Speeches of Marcus Garvey. Edited by Robert Blaisdell. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004. Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Haley, Alex. Roots: The Saga of an American Family. New York: Vanguard, 2007. Hughes, Langston. Tambourines to Glory: A Novel. New York: Harlem Moon, 2006. Humez, Jean McMahon. Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress. Amherst: University of Massachusetts, 1987. Hurston, Zora Neale. The Sanctified Church. New York, NY: Turtle Island Foundation, 1981. —— Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006. —— Mules and Men. New York: Harper Perennial, 2008. —— Moses, Man of the Mountain. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009. —— Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica. New York: Harper Perennial, 2009. Jacobs, Harriet Ann. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009. Johnson, James Weldon. God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. Edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin, 2008. —— “O Black and Unknown Bards.” The Book of American Negro Poetry. Champaign, IL: Book Jungle, 2008. Johnson, James Weldon and Rosamond J. Johnson. American Negro Spirituals. New York: De Capo Press, 1969 (reprint). Killens, John Oliver. Youngblood. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000. King, Martin Luther, Jr. Testament of Hope: the Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: HarperOne, 2003. Lee, Jarena. Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century. Ed. William L. Andrews. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Long, Charles H. Significations: Signs, Symbols, and Images in the Interpretation of Religion. Aurora, CO: Davies Group, 1999. Marshall, Paule. Praisesong for the Widow. New York: Penguin USA, 1983. Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: Knopf, 1977. —— Beloved. New York: Vintage International, 2004. Murray, Albert. Stomping the Blues. New York: Da Capo, 1989. Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day. New York: Vintage, 1989. Paulsen, Gary. Nightjohn. New York: Laurel-Leaf, 1995. Petry, Ann. The Street. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991. Redding, J. Saunders. No Day of Triumph. New York: Harper and Row, 1968. Reed, Ishmael. Mumbo Jumbo. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Redeeming the Human Reality

97

Scott, Nathan. A. “Black Literature.” Harvard Guide to Contemporary American Writing. Edited by Daniel Hoffman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979: 287–341. Sernett, Milton. African American Religious History: A Documentary Witness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. Shange, Ntozake. Sassafras, Cypress & Indigo. New York: Picador USA, 1996. Smith, Theophus H. Conjuring Culture: Biblical Formations of Black America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Stewart, Maria. “Address Delivered at the African Masonic Hall.” African Masonic Hall, Boston, MA. 27 February 1833. Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 1997. Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. ——. The Temple of My Familiar. Boston: Mariner, 2010. Walker, David. David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Edited by Peter P. Hinks. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. Walker, Margaret. For My People. N. Stratford, NH: Ayer Company Publishers, 1942. ——. Jubilee. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. Washington, Booker T. Up from Slavery. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. West, Kanye. The College Dropout. Roc-A-Fella Records, 2004. CD. Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. Charleston, SC: Nabu Press, 2011. Wideman, John Edgar. Damballah. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-talk. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2013. Williams, Sherley Anne. Dessa Rose. New York: Harper Perennial, 1986. Wright, Richard. Black Boy. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.

8 SCIENCE FICTION AND THE RELIGIOUS IMAGINATION A Pedagogical Approach Jennifer Arden Stone

Students might not see science fiction, or “SF” as it will be abbreviated henceforth, as a fruitful site of religious inquiry, yet SF has always engaged the religious imagination. Mary Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein, largely considered the inception of SF, investigated the question of materialism, whether a sentient being can exist without a soul, and later, the SF icon Ray Bradbury in “Christus Apollo” (1969) earnestly envisions Jesus wandering in the universe, spreading Christian salvation from planet to planet. True, some SF may appear fanciful on the surface, such as Wendall Phillips Garrison’s The New Gulliver (1898), which is set on Swift’s own island of Houyhnhnms and details its equine inhabitants’ embrace of religion, but such whimsy is belied by Garrison’s examination of Darwinism and the divine. Similarly, as Gabriel McKee notes in The Gospel According to Science Fiction (2007), “Regardless of where its authors stand on the issue of scientific knowledge and religious belief, SF has always considered this question: where will faith and religious experience fit into a future guided by science?”1 To William Harben in “In The Year Ten Thousand” (1892), the future pointed to universal atheism, and, unlike in Bradbury’s story, Harben’s Christ, though regarded as a “spiritual genius,” is only a mere mortal, mislabeled as the Son of God because, as the grandfather explains to his young grandson, “To the unformed minds of early humanity, there could be nothing without a personal creator.”2 Consider that any SF story is “loaded down with the DNA” of many creators because, as Wai Chee Dimock emphasizes, “the gene pool flourishing in any single text is populational rather than individual.”3 Much like the Bible itself, SF is an amalgamation of narratives whose intertextual megatext references not just other stories or writers, but an entire body of thought. Nonetheless, SF flouts conformity: “Unlike other popular genres,” notes Brooks Landon, SF “depends more on violating the protocols of genre than on maintaining them.”4 Therefore, it is difficult to point to one distinguishing characteristic. Must SF, as both Landon and James Gunn have insisted, concern itself with the impact on humanity of technological and scientific change, or is SF “only a commercial term” as Everett K. Bleiler cynically states, simply “an assemblage of genres and subgenres that are not intrinsically closely related, but are generally accepted as an area of publication by a marketplace”?5 To complicate matters further, some of my examples of SF are early nineteenth-century works, a fact that Bruce Franklin wouldn’t see as problematic since he describes SF as

Science Fiction: A Pedagogical Approach

99

“a cultural mode that developed as part of the industrial society,” but others, who believe that SF didn’t really come into being until Hugo Gernsback’s twentieth-century pulp magazine, Amazing Stories, might see as a knotty issue.6 Given that, I turn to the renowned SF author Damon Knight for my working definition: “Science fiction is what we point to when we say it.”7 That said, we can point with relative certainty to specific “reading protocols” which are characteristic of SF, such as Marc Angenot’s notion of the absent paradigm, “those semantic blanks. . .that challenge the reader’s imagination to construct a new and different world out of scattered hints and clues,” and Samuel R. Delany’s notion of SF’s subjunctivity, how “the language of an sf text works differently from language in realistic” or “mundane fiction.”8 As explained in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, Delany’s most famous example of subjunctivity—“Her world exploded”—might denote a “woman’s emotional state” in realistic fiction, whereas in SF it “could be a literal description of her home planet.”9 Teaching these protocols is a necessary prereading strategy for students new to SF so that they won’t be befuddled by the resulting “cognitive estrangement”—a term coined by Darko Suvin to indicate the “sense that something in the fictive world is dissonant with the reader’s experienced world.”10 My approach here recognizes that SF’s sinuous narrative elasticity is supple enough to include not only the fantastic, the technological, and the scientific, but the religious as well. Section one grapples with how SF explores the nuances of faith; section two examines gradations of evil in SF, and the final section demonstrates how to structure a course around the concept of the mad scientist, a familiar trope—tinged by both faith and evil—with its very origins in religious disputes.

On Faith Using the overview on faith from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as a guide, I begin by asking students to write a page defining faith by what it is and what it is not.11 After we share their preliminary understandings of the word, I explain that defining faith is no easy request. To ask students to contemplate the meaning of the word faith is to encourage them to recognize faith as both an abstraction and as an experience; the latter may involve how one lives faith subjectively as a practice, or an understanding, or an encounter, whereas the former involves how one conceives of faith objectively as a concept. Of course, there is overlap here as how one conceives is colored by one’s experience. For example, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson balked at a question by an interviewer—“But you have faith that someday we will know what dark matter and dark energy are?”—by interjecting, “If you want to use faith in that way, sure. But when faith is used in modern society it has a strong association with religion. The history of science shows that great mysteries get solved. It may be that there’s an answer that humans are too stupid to understand.”12 He rejects the notion here that his strong belief in science fits the dictionary definition of faith as “strong belief in someone or something” because his experience of science and faith as being at odds with each other colors his conception of the term.13 This tension between science and faith has always been a major theme of SF. Lester del Rey’s “Evensong” presents a nullified God, lone and hiding in a garden, who learns fear (of their savagery and “overweening pride”) and prayer (“to a nothingness he knew”) from the Usurpers, humans whose power via scientific technology has surpassed His to the extent that He bows “at last” as He is taken captive.14 Another story with “Death of God” underpinnings—the notion that God is absent or dead or otherwise disengaged—is Damon Knight’s “Shall the Dust Praise

100

Jennifer Arden Stone

Thee” which portrays how a world devoid of humans might “rise up” on Judgment Day. In the former story, science reduces God to a joke, as evidenced by del Rey’s poke at Genesis 2:2 in story’s last line after God’s capture: “And the evening and the morning were the eighth day.”15 In the latter, human suffering due to Earthly evil reduces faith to a joke, as evidence by the only sign of humans’ former existence, a message chiseled in all caps into a wall, “WE WERE HERE, WHERE WERE YOU?,” also the last line of the story.16 Each story echoes Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s suggestion that science trumps faith, though some stubborn humans may still be “too stupid to understand.” The tension between science and faith is treated quite differently in works which highlight the notion of the “precautionary principle,” the “revolutionary idea,” according to renowned Science Studies scholar Ziauddin Sardar, that “science doesn’t have all the answers.”17 Sardar would view Tyson’s certainty as “romantic” because Sardar questions the idea that science produces “universal Truth statements” given that it is a contested field with a record of both error and bias.18 Tyson’s perception of science as capable of getting all “the great mysteries solved” is put to the test in Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Nine Billion Names of God” (1953) in which Tibetan monks enlist the help of Western computer specialists to help them list all the names of God because the monks believe that once the names are listed, the Universe will come to a close. Clarke mocks the confidence of these Westerners and by extension their faith in science as the sole means to reveal the Universe’s mysteries, by highlighting their alarm when the stars begin to go out one by one. John Brunner’s Hindu-focused “The Vitanuls” (1967), which portrays a future world in which doctors from WHO have discovered an anti-senility drug which cures old age, then learn from a spiritual “sunnyasi” that the phenomenon of lifeless babies is the result of a limited number of souls on Earth. When asked by the WHO physician what to do, the aged sunnyasi says, “I must die.”19 Brunner’s story demonstrates an underlying assumption of the precautionary principle: “products of science can generate potentially dangerous outcomes.”20 Christian-based works like Frankenstein and Frank Norris’ “Lauth” (1893) (which treat the same question of the soul’s relationship to human existence) as well as Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) all take issue with complete faith in the infallibility of science, yet none of the works completely abandon the “science as progress” mantra. Nonetheless, each work shares Sardar’s call for the practice of a “post-normal science” wherein “the importance of uncertainty in the process and the practice of science” is recognized and “Truth is replaced by Quality as the organizing principle.”21 Those students, like Tyson, who view the “strong conviction” of faith as a religious conception only, often fail to recognize that their own experiences of secularism contain a system of strong beliefs as well.22 Arguing that narrative shapes human experience, Christian Smith insists: “Science as we know it can only ever proceed by first placing faith in a set of unprovable cosmological, metaphysical and epistemological assumptions and commitments,” from conceptions “about matter” to “what a good human life looks like” to the notion of science as “progress.”23 Similarly, Ziauddin Sardar notes that science has been “generally blind to the social character of its own practices” by failing to interrogate its own biases: gender, racial, Western, or religious.24 To illustrate the latter, I turn to a recent flyer circulated on campus, an ad for Darwin Day.25 During class, we explore how the ad tacitly employs the rhetoric of faith to defend the idea that science is the new “religion” so to speak, how it upholds an epistemology that lauds science as a stable knowledge base, ignores that the scientific march of progress had much dissent and error, and employs branding: the iconography of the ad suggests that Darwin IS science, much like Jesus IS Christianity. Next, we apply the same rhetorical exercise to the short story “The Birth-Mark” (1843) wherein Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the

Science Fiction: A Pedagogical Approach

101

rhetoric of faith to demonstrate that the scientist Aylmer and his wife Georgiana have embraced science as religion. To investigate further the supposed wedge between science and religion, we follow up with excerpts from China Miéville’s Kraken (2010) wherein the character Vardy, enraged that “his faith had been defeated by the evidence,” seeks to destroy specimens from Darwin’s ship HMS Beagle to “rewind the fact” of evolution.26 Next, I point them to literary theorist Stanley Fish’s blog post about scientific curiosity wherein he challenges Paul Griffiths, a Divinity scholar who questions whether scientific curiosity is a strength or a vice.27 Griffiths insists that curiosity not only led Adam to the forbidden apple of knowledge, but currently blinds actual scientists from heeding the warnings of fictional scientists like Frankenstein, and as a result, they “have no allegiance—to a deity, to human flourishing, to community—that might serve as a check on their insatiable curiosity,” a curiosity which has become, in fact, “their God.”28 After discussing Tyson’s conviction that science trumps faith and viewing a fascinating interview between Richard Dawkins and Jon Stewart from The Daily Show in which Stewart asks whether scientific discovery or religious fanaticism is more dangerous,29 I ask the students to gather more information on both the science vs. faith tension and the supposed dangers of scientific curiosity, then create a commonplace book page, a form of knowledge compilation involving the creation of a page filled with quotes, drawings, charts, and more.30 My teaching approach allows students to interrogate Griffiths’ assertions by turning to the Web to challenge, confirm, or complicate his characterization of scientists. After a lecture on the differences between vetted and unvetted sources, students wander into the thicket of the Internet. A recent student’s resulting page featured highlights from 1) a blog by Rabbi Evan Moffic “Can We Believe in God and Science?” (2014) linking DNA permutations of DNA to the “fingerprints of God”; 2) a 2014 study by the American Association for the Advancement Science (AAAS) indicating that only 27% of Evangelicals view science and religion as in conflict with each other; 3) a similar study by Elaine Howard Erklund noting that “nearly 50% of scientists identify with a religious label”; 4) a meme of Star Trek’s Spock bad-mouthing God as a “poor excuse for a supreme being” for allowing suffering; and 5) Bill Moyer’s interview with Tyson in which the astrophysicist faults those who cite God as the explanation for scientific unknowns, stating: “If that’s where you are going to put your God in this world, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”31 The student concluded that, while Griffith’s cautionary message that curiosity must be held in check by religious faith has resonance, his insistence that such curiosity becomes ruinous as a result of scientists’ supposed lack of religious allegiance—while supported in part by deGrasse Tyson and perpetuated by the Spock meme—lacks believability given the credibility of the impartial AAAS and Erklund studies. Exercises such as these are important for disabusing students of the view that science is devoid of a certain faith, but they don’t do enough to capture the essence of faith as “belief in the existence of God,” nor does it address the problem of faith as belief “without certainty,” a notion that can be very tricky for those whose experience of “strong” religious faith allows for the simultaneous presence of doubt.32 Consider Mother Teresa, known for her selfless commitment to Catholic service, who wrote in her journal in 1959, “In my soul I feel just that terrible pain of loss of God not wanting me—of God not being God—of God not existing,” and whose letters reflect a preoccupation with doubt which lasted until her death in 1997, or consider Jesus himself, who faced with the human agony of crucifixion, uttered the first line of Psalm 22—“Oh God, Oh God, why have you forsaken me?”—a psalm illustrating the struggle with doubt when faced with extreme hardship and ending with the promise of God’s salvation.33 To help students understand a faith that coexists with doubt, I turn to

102

Jennifer Arden Stone

Anthony Boucher’s “The Quest for Saint Aquin” (1970). Set in a post-apocalyptic world governed by a Technarchy, a priest named Thomas, upon orders from the Pope, sets out to find the corpse of an evangelist, Aquin, whose power as a preacher was so intense that his body never decayed after death. Drawing upon the Biblical story of Balaam, Boucher has the priest’s robotic transportation, a “robass,” continually prey upon his doubts. Besides its interesting take on why Aquin, a robot which knows its origins, would choose to believe in God—a question never taken up in Robert Silverberg’s “Good News from the Vatican” (1971) which features a robot pope—it is an earnest portrayal of a devout Christian who may struggle with doubt, but prays for guidance nonetheless, and guidance indeed comes, reinforcing his faith. Next, we examine the notion of faith as a possibility, but not a reality because of continual doubt, meaning agnosticism. We read texts which feature agnostics who are open to Biblical teachings, but don’t subscribe to them, like Jack Boughton from Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize winning Gilead (2004), a non-SF text I often teach beside Gregory Benford’s hard SF story, “Exposures” (1981).34 “Exposures” describes a mystery coming into being. The narrator is an astrophysicist accustomed “to the bitter cold cage at Palomar, the Byzantine marriage of optics at Kitt Peak, the muggy air of Lick.”35 He casually name-drops these world-class observatories for astronomical research just as he casually speaks of “using the Doppler shifts of known spectral lines” to deduce “the rotation rate of the NGC 1097 disk.”36 He is confidently in his element, so smoothly familiar with astral “velocity measurements” that he “think[s] of the bands of dust and rivers of stars as a neighborhood where you have grown up.”37 Thus, when he attempts to analyze a particular stellar cluster, he says with satisfaction, “Thus, do I know thee, NGC 1097,”38 mimicking the biblical passage from Mark 1:24 when Jesus is immediately recognized.39 And it is here that Benford’s mystery begins to unfold, as the full line from Mark 1:24 demonstrates: “Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” In this Bible passage, evil demons instantly recognize Jesus, but do not know whether he brings them salvation or destruction, so they beg to be left alone. In Benford’s short story, our nameless astrophysicist comes to realize that the exposure plates he thought he instantly recognized are “not NGC 1097” after all; in fact, the “aim of the satellite camera [had] strayed” because “someone had co-opted the space.”40 Who that someone might be is the very mystery that drives the plot of this Benford’s piece. This dry, fact-driven, atheist scientist who had been determined to “erase” the Episcopal faith of his childhood begins to entertain the idea that a mysterious supernatural entity is signaling communion with the human race. Unlike the biblical demons, our narrator never has full recognition: is it a divine messenger reaching out a “benign spiral arm”—cross-like—to warn of cosmic phenomena that could erase “all the problems life knows” on Earth?41 Or does the information, conveyed, our narrator says, “in this way so strange, so—yes, that was the word, so alien” suggest extraterrestrial beings benignly warning of “what an onrushing black hole could do to a fragile planet”?42 Or could their benign message via the exposure plates actually conceal a bloody alien invasion to come? In fact, he remains unsure if there is a messenger at all. Essentially, Benford’s narrator demonstrates the tension at the heart of Daniel Boscaljon’s notion of “vigilant faith” wherein “skeptics maintain both a passionate subjective conviction in the possibility of a full unveilation of truth and a critical attitude that ensures they keep searching [because] traces of God remain objectively uncertain.”43 Eventually, the diligent astronomer confirms that human error is not responsible for the camera angle shift that is leading to this new data, learning from his programming director that it is “comin’ in on transmission from orbit”

Science Fiction: A Pedagogical Approach

103

instead.44 And therein lies the rub: “the orbital staff were sure no such data had been transmitted” because the “’scope had been down for inspection” for “over two days.”45 So, even though the exposures plates inexplicably demonstrate that the “point of view has shifted” on the telescope,46 and though this shift cannot be tied to human action, the nameless narrator’s own point of view cannot be said to shift from unknowing to knowing, from uncertainty to certainty, because he actively entertains multiple explanations of truth here, simultaneously holding onto the possibility that his guide may be alien, divine, or simply a scientific explanation waiting to unfold via a future discovery. Repeatedly in the final vignette, he thinks the phrase, “I do not believe, but there is communion,” yet he accepts the Eucharist as he recognizes that neither science, nor religion, nor complete skepticism can give him the resolution he desires.47 We can view his act in light of uncertain piety, force of habit, and/or the hope for supernatural community. Communion here is simply the act of hopeful possibility from a believing unbeliever, a portrayal students often view as refreshingly free of any shame or negativity. Indeed, many students are surprised to find in SF such a realistic portrayal of the spiritual impasse of unresolved mystery.

On Evil Mystery is also at the core of the age-old question: Why does evil exist? Essentially, the enigma of evil underscores the robot’s comment in Boucher’s dystopic “The Quest for Saint Aquin” that it is “absurd” to believe a “God who is perfection created man who is imperfection.”48 This module explores how SF narratives define (or redefine) evil. I begin by giving students excerpts from the works of William James, Carl Jung, Baruch Spinoza, Martin Beck Matuštík, and St. Augustine to highlight the various ways that evil is understood theoretically.49 Next, we turn to narratives depicting characters who are presented with two undesirable, possibly evil, choices. First, students read several non-SF short stories from Ambrose Bierce’s In the Midst of Life (1909) which bring up questions of whether wartime exigency quashes familial or fraternal loyalty, whether the evil of murder can be reconciled during war, and whether compliance with duty overrides detrimental outcomes. The latter question is an opportune moment to introduce Hannah Arendt’s thesis of the “banality of evil,” how ordinary folks participate in evil by simply following orders. Two SF works underscored by similar ethical questions follow: Tom Godwin’s “The Cold Equations” (1954), in which a pilot must eject into space (and thus, kill) a stowaway teenage girl whose presence will take up fuel and endanger the spaceship’s ability to deliver medical supplies, and James Blish’s A Case of Conscience (1959), in which a Jesuit priest, Father Ruiz-Sanchez, directed by the Pope, performs an exorcism to destroy the alien planet Lithia because of fears that the existence of the Eden-like planet is a result of the machinations of Satan. Godwin’s story, according to Brian Attebery, “encapsulate[s] some central tenets of SF faith” as a “tight little allegory about reason and sentiment” in which “the pilot represents, not reason alone, but emotion tempered by rational considerations”; indeed, the pilot’s reasoning is so sound that the girl herself “accepts the need to sacrifice her own life to save others.”50 Attebery continues: Readers who are fond of the story read it as a validation of their own scientific understanding and of science’s willingness to test inherited values against empirical data. They view the equations that govern matter and movement as something like the Old Testament God: a stern and terrible judge that is also the source of all that is grand and

104

Jennifer Arden Stone

transcendent. To offer oneself as sacrifice to such a god is not such a terrible fate; to be the priest who interprets the equations is even better.51 Gabriel McKee, though, would see this “SF faith” as evil due to: 1) the absence of “morality” which cannot be “expressed in mathematical laws”; 2) the absence of “remorse or explanation” in nature itself; and 3) the absence of human compassion.52 He concludes that the “hint of Manicheism along with the apparent atheism” in the story—as “no God could create a universe that would allow an innocent to be killed”—illustrates a rationalism that is “nearly demonic” in its “cruelty.”53 Likewise, concern about Manicheism is at the heart of Father Ruiz-Sanchez’ panic about Lithia in Blish’s novel, a work Diane Parkin-Speer argues is a prime example of absence—as in St. Augustine’s privation theory—in her article “Alien Ethics and Religion verses Fallen Mankind,” which I share with the class when I teach Blish. While the previous five works provide an illuminating window into evils committed due to a sense of duty (military, religious, otherwise), they fall short by focusing exclusively on dilemmas which intrinsically have no ethical way out. As James McGrath says, “it is not enough to ask about the nature of evil—it is also necessary to reflect on appropriate ways to address it, to deal with it.”54 For that I turn to the TED Talk “The Psychology of Evil” by Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. Zimbardo applies Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil” to his own prison study and to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in which American soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners.55 Then, he posits his own definition of evil using an extended apple analogy: dispositional evil happens at the individual level of the “bad apple”; situational evil happens at the external level of the “bad barrel”; and systemic evil happens at the “legal, political, economic, cultural” level of the “Bad-Barrel Makers.”56 Next, he elucidates the devolution from “good apple” to “bad apple” through his “Seven Social Processes that Grease the Slippery Slope of Evil.” Lastly, he inverts Arendt’s thesis into the “banality of heroism” to remind us that “it’s ordinary people who do heroic deeds.”57 Zimbardo’s models are extraordinarily useful during class discussions about how evil functions because students have become so accustomed to accepting the villainy of some SF characters without question. For example, students initially label Dr. Jekyll from Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) as a “bad apple” for playing God by attempting to alter his body, “that immaterial tabernacle,” but they come to realize that he is driven to take such risks by the rigidity of Victorian culture as he is unable to reconcile his “certain impatient gaiety of disposition” with the social norm of a “commonly grave countenance.”58 Similarly, most students accept Paul Preuss’s negative rendering of Madame Curie in “Half-Life” (1989) until they consider his decision to include her allegedly deficient parenting style, such as when Curie supposedly thinks: “I suspect that. . .Eve—the musician, the writer—resents me for not telling her how to conduct her life so as to please me better. Irene never needed to be told.”59 The question then becomes not whether Curie is the “bad apple” at fault for not patenting her discoveries about radioactivity to prevent its later use in weapons of mass destruction, but whether Preuss himself is the “bad apple” for resorting to a gendered portrayal of Curie in his attempt to question the idea of scientific progress. To demonstrate that similar tactics were used against Curie during her lifetime, I bring in fictitious photos used to malign the scientist of a fake Curie in a lab with a crying child (implied to be her daughter) at her feet.60 And after we read Susan Glaspell’s SF play The Verge (1921) about a self-taught botanist, Claire Archer, who seemingly goes mad and kills her lover,61 I show students comedian Russell Brand’s “Revolution of Consciousness” video on YouTube in which he encourages revolution via “opting out” (of voting, of participating in politics as usual,

Science Fiction: A Pedagogical Approach

105

and of thinking according to social norms).62 Then, I ask students if Claire is, in fact, attempting a similar revolution. Most students intensely object to Claire as she violates nearly every social norm as a murderer, an adultress, and an indifferent mother, classifying her not as revolutionary, but as crazily evil. It is only after applying Zimbardo’s apple analogy that students realize that Claire is driven to be a “bad apple” when her attempts at revolution (by opting out of the duties of motherhood, choosing to practice science, and challenging assumptions about gender embedded in language itself) are thwarted by her family and friends who act in accordance with the systemic evil of patriarchy, the “bad barrel-maker.” Zimbardo’s conceptions of evil and his insistence on the “banality of heroism” prove the most fruitful during our final debate when I ask students to rank the heroism and villainy of the characters in Perdido Street Station, China Miéville’s award-winning SF masterpiece centering on the efforts of the rebel scientist Isaac to contain the evil slake moths he unwittingly sets upon the dystopic city of New Crobuzon in his attempt to create wings for the garuda Yag, whose wings were amputated due to a crime of “second degree choice theft with disrespect.”63 Some students argue that Yag is heroic by refusing the request by the renegade Jack Half-a-Prayer at the end of the novel to join forces against the corrupt city. When Yag’s amputated wings are revealed to be his punishment for raping a fellow garuda, Isaac abandons him, yet Yag still refuses Half-a-Prayer’s offer, a sign some students insisted of both Yag’s refusal to engage in future evil, and most importantly, his redemption, a claim that led the class into a heated debate. Students ponder whether Yag is guilty of temporary evil, and thus can be rehabilitated, or simply is evil, and thus beyond recuperation. Their adamant answer is that once a person commits rape, even if it is a one-time incident as in Yag’s case, he is marked as a rapist and must be treated as a “bad apple” forever. This begs the question: Are there some evils, like rape, for which redemption is not possible, and if so, how does that reconcile with Christian forgiveness or salvation?

On “Mad” Scientists Beginning by pondering the nature of human evil, students write a one-page paper responding to Nelson Bond’s “The Cunning of the Beast” (1942) wherein God is the mad scientist Doctor Yawa Eloem (Bond’s obvious riff on the Hebrew names for God, Yahweh (or YHVH) and Elohim). In an attempt to increase physical mobility of his species via the cultivation of a service species (akin to St. Bernard rescue dogs or helper Capuchin monkeys), Yawa creates the credulous “Adam” and the clever “Eve” who develop two evil quirks: an obsession with explosives and a need to strike out at others. Driven by the agonizing death of a friend, Yawa has the usual good intentions—to use science to prevent similar tragedies because he is concerned about the “welfare of his own race”64—but he commits two key failings of the mad scientist: working in solitude and ignoring initial advice from a colleague not to dabble in “feats which only the gods may accomplish with impunity.”65 This is Genesis-inspired animal husbandry coupled with technological anxiety, as the god-like Yawa and his fellow residents of the planet Kios wear gear which resembles robots. Their natural forms have evolved beyond flesh, limb, and bone into simply spirit and flame, forcing them to “encase” themselves in metal “carriers” to perform physical tasks without getting extinguished. Thus, when Eloem “boasted he would mold a creation in his own image,” the resulting human “air-breather” on “two hind limbs” is essentially a duplicate of a prosthesis only.66 While the Kiosians use their metal carriers for defense against the physical elements, Adam and Eve embody the weaponry itself, suggesting that an attraction to violence is embedded in the very DNA of humankind. In exploring the origins of both madness and evil,

106

Jennifer Arden Stone

Bond moves beyond mere fable by revealing the patriarchy underscoring Genesis (why is Eve, a woman, the catalyst for cunning?). This story also highlights nicely the intersection of SF and religion by way of the trope of the “mad” scientist, a theme that allows you to implement pedagogical strategies and select primary texts from each of the previous sections and to examine cinematic interpretations of scientists, such as examining the parallels between the film Prometheus (2012) and the novel Perdido Street Station.67 Notice that the term mad is in quotation marks. This is to draw attention to the vital question of whether a particular fictional scientist (or actual scientist) is uncontrolled, passionate, or “crazy”—as my students often rather inelegantly put it—or rather misrepresented, such as Marie Curie in “Half-Life” or misunderstood, such as Claire Archer in The Verge. The matter of a scientist’s categorization often comes down to debates over scientific intent vs. unanticipated outcomes. To ensure that these debates are not just a pooling of ignorance or unchecked opinion, I ground these discussions via writing prompts based upon 1) Gabriel McKee’s The Gospel According to Science Fiction (2007) and Paul J. Nahin’s Holy Sci-Fi! Where Science Fiction and Religion Intersect (2014) which both examine how Christianity functions in SF texts; and 2) Roslynn D. Haynes’ From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature (1994) which traces the history of the “mad” scientist figure in Western literature and cinema, unpacking the cultural myths associated with the image of the scientist over time. Haynes chronicles six recurrent stereotypes: the obsessed alchemist; the stupid virtuoso; the Romantic unfeeling scientist; the heroic adventurer; the helpless scientist; and the scientist as idealist. Societal anxiety shapes each of these categories. Initially, the fear is that science (or alchemy as it was identified then) will debunk the Catholicism; later, it is the fear of science itself, either run amok or in the grasp of evil doers.68 Students do a final group project in which they teach a film of their choosing to the class, carefully selecting significant scenes to 1) compare to our readings; and 2) illuminate a precise literary or religious concept.69 Certainly, such an assignment runs the risk of being trivial. To ensure academic rigor, I put the following questions in the assignment guidelines: • • • • • • • •

Are science and religion necessarily at odds? How might a science-focused film borrow from the language of religion, or make an appeal to the sacred, without necessarily subscribing to religious faith? Does this film take up the issue of “playing God”—how so? What separates humankind from other creations? What is our moral or religious obligation to other creations? How does technology allow us to exceed the limits of the human body? What is at stake ethically or religiously? With regard to Others (animal, alien, or otherwise), how does alterity help us to understand an alternative viewpoint or ourselves? How might Otherness relate to the question of the soul? With regard to science, does exigency nullify other risks to the individual or to society? In the name of progress, what is expendable? Do any characters fit the stereotypes of the “mad” scientist?

The final question, while not readily apparent on the surface, directly relates to religion, as the concept of the mad scientist has its very origins in religious disputes. According to Haynes, “In order to understand the development of the scientist as a literary character, it is necessary to

Science Fiction: A Pedagogical Approach

107

begin with the [medieval] alchemists and the particular historical events surrounding their appearance in Europe.”70 The basic tenets of medieval alchemy have their roots in the early cultures of China in the fifth century BCE and Egypt in fourth century CE, as the Chinese associated possible human immortality with the making of gold and conceived of a recipe for the “elixir of life” to achieve such immortality, and Aristotle in Alexandrian Egypt postulated the transmutation of matter; but it was the Arabs in eighth century CE, notes Haynes, who coined “the term alkimia (al, the; khem, Egypt) from which alchemy is derived” and were the first who “integrated these diverse alchemical ideas, and associated them with religion.”71 Indeed, there was “no conflict between alchemy and religion” in the Muslim faith, notes Haynes, because faith itself was the “very basis of theoretical science” as understood by the great alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan, who insisted that the secrets of alchemical perfection could only come if “one accept the religious belief of the one God, Allah, the source of all.”72 Continues Haynes: For many centuries, alchemy remained under Islamic influence, but following the expulsion of the Moors from Europe and the return of the Islamic schools to the Christian direction, the rare manuscripts they held, including those on alchemy, were translated from Arabic into Latin, providing the sourcebooks for medieval alchemists. It was at this point in European thinking that alchemy became associated with the black arts: heresy and magic. Alchemists were regarded as being at best sinister and most likely in league with the devil, an impression that was accentuated by the medieval [Catholic] suspicion of [any] knowledge. . .[which] constitute[d] a rival authority. Soon the practice of secrecy, originally evolved to guard the formulas of the initiates, became necessary for sheer survival. Many alchemists lived in isolation, using cryptic or cabalistic language, to escape persecution….73 From the image of the Catholic monk, surreptitiously transcribing Arabic to Latin, building upon the entangled legacy of Chinese, Egyptian, and Islamic practices, arose the “alchemist figure”—isolated from society, endowed with special powers, shrouded in mystery, emboldened by the lure of riches, and seeking God-like knowledge via experiments at odds with the Church’s teachings—and the enduring stereotype of the “mad” scientist was born into the very DNA of the Western literary body. Similarly, much of SF is undeniably entwined with the body of Christian religious discourse. Because SF—which regularly interrogates the question “What if?”—inherently balances skepticism and belief to be an effective read, it is a genre particularly well-suited for religious inquiry.

Notes 1 Gabriel McKee, The Gospel According to Science Fiction (Louisville: Westiminster John Knox Press, 2007), 154. 2 William Harben, “In The Year Ten Thousand,” quoted in Everett F. Bleiler, with Richard J. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1990), 392. While the vast body of SF includes many religious traditions, for the purposes of this essay, religion will denote Christianity, unless stated otherwise. The reasons for this limitation of scope are that I consider myself too unfamiliar with non-Christian religious practices to explore them with authority, and I focus primarily on British and American SF authors who tend to draw from Western philosophies. 3 Wai Chee Dimock, “Low Epic.” Critical Inquiry 39 (2013), 621. 4 Brooks Landon, Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars (New York: Routledge, 2002), 32. 5 Ibid.; see also Bleiler, Science-Fiction, xi.

108

Jennifer Arden Stone

6 H. Bruce Franklin, Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1966), 1. 7 Damon Knight, quoted in John Clute and Peter Nicholls, eds. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (London: Orbit, 1993), 314. 8 Angenot and Delany each quoted in Evans et al., The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (Wesleyan: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), xvi. 9 Delany, Ibid. 10 Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction, quoted in Farah Mendlesohn, “Introduction: Reading Science Fiction,” Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction. Edited by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 5. 11 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. “Faith,” accessed April 10, 2018, https://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/faith/. Students return to this freewrite later, expanding upon and revising it into a polished essay at the end of semester. They draw upon the class readings to support their definition (possibly modified) of the term. 12 David Freeman, “Why Revive ‘Cosmos?’ Neil DeGrasse Tyson Says Just About Everything We Know Has Changed.” Huffington Post, March 4, 2014. 13 Merriam-Webster.com, s.v. “faith,” accessed February 1, 2014, https://www.merriam-webster.com/ dictionary/faith 14 Lester Del Rey, “Evensong,” in Other Worlds, Other Gods: Adventures in Religious Science Fiction, ed. Mayo Mohs (London: New English Library, 1971), 253–255. 15 Ibid., 255. 16 Damon Knight, “Shall the Dust Praise Thee?” in Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 260. 17 Ziauddin Sardar, Introducing Philosophy of Science: A Graphic Guide (London: Icon Books, 2011), 163. Sardar’s graphic novel is a wonderful resource on how the practice of science has changed since the work of Thomas Kuhn, Karl Popper, and Paul Feyerabend, and its pictorial renderings on the practice of science are particularly useful for Power Point presentations. 18 Ibid., 163. 19 John Brunner, “The Vitanuls” in Other Worlds, Other Gods, 195. 20 Sardar, Introducing Philosophy of Science, 161. 21 Ibid., 161, 156–157. 22 For more on secularism as form of faith, see Daniele Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory (2000) or Talal Asad’s Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (2003). 23 Christian Smith, Moral Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 25. 24 Sardar, Introducing Philosophy of Science, 31. 25 This is an idea I gleaned from Prof. Lori Branch, University of Iowa. Similar ads may be found online by searching for “Darwin Day.” 26 China Miéville, Kraken (New York: Del Rey-Random House, 2010), 497. 27 Stanley Fish, “Does Curiosity Kill More Than the Cat?” New York Times (New York, NY), September 14, 2009. 28 Ibid. 29 Dawkins, Richard. “Exclusive—Richard Dawkins Extended Interview.” The Daily Show video, 7:31. September 24, 2013. 30 Google Images has several examples of stellar commonplace book pages. 31 Moffic, Rabbi Evan. “Can We Believe in God and Science?” Huffington Post, February 6, 2014; Neil DeGrasse Tyson, “Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Science, Religion and the Universe.” Moyers & Company video, 26:46. January 17, 2014. 32 Merriam-Webster.com, s.v. “faith.” 33 James Martin, “A Saint’s Dark Knight” in New York Times (New York: NY), August 29, 2007; Matthew 27:46, The Bible, King James Version. 34 Hard science fiction emphasizes technical accuracy (including its corresponding language) and can be challenging to the reader unfamiliar with scientific discourse. 35 Gregory Benford, “Exposures” in The Norton Book of Science Fiction, ed. Ursula K. LeGuin and Brian Attebery (New York: Norton, 1993), 446. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., 454. 38 Ibid., 446.

Science Fiction: A Pedagogical Approach

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73

109

King James Version. Benford, “Exposures,” 448. Ibid., 454. Ibid., 455. Daniel Boscaljon, Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in a Secular World (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013), 139. Benford, “Exposures,” 450. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., 456. Anthony Boucher, “The Quest for Saint Aquin” in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964, ed. Robert Silverberg (New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC., 1998), 213. For an excellent resource of short excerpts, poems, and more dealing with theodicy, the problem of evil, I recommend the interdisciplinary collection The Problem of Evil: A Reader, ed. Mark Larrimore (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001) Brian Attebery, Decoding Gender in Science Fiction (New York: Routledge, 2002), 180. Ibid., 181. McKee, The Gospel According to Science Fiction, 126. Ibid. Religion and Science Fiction, ed. James F. McGrath (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2011), 6. The video contains graphic photos of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, so I tell my students that, if they are the types who cannot “unsee” something, they may read the transcript of the TED Talk instead, available at the same website. Philip Zimbardo, “The Psychology of Evil.” TED video, 23:07. February 2008. Ibid. Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, ed. Martin A. Danahay (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2005), 78. Paul Preuss, “Half-Life” in The Norton Book of Science Fiction, 781. Roslynn D. Haynes, From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 297. 1 Susan Glaspell, The Verge (Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1922) Russell Brand, “Time for a Revolution of Consciousness.” YouTube video, 4:51. Posted October 2013. China Miéville, Perdido Street Station (New York: Del Rey-Random House, 2000), 63. Nelson Bond, “The Cunning of the Beast” in Other Worlds, Other Gods, 42. Ibid., 24. Ibid., 27. Films that have worked well in past courses on the “mad” scientist are: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920); Frankenstein (1931); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941); Doctor Faustus (1967); The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996); I, Robot (2004); and Prometheus (2012), to name a few. Usually, I only show brief clips of these films given the time constraints of a 16-week course. Haynes, From Faust to Strangelove. Each group presents over the course of an entire class period, taking up three to four class sessions overall. Ibid., 9. Ibid., 10. Ibid. Ibid.

Bibliography Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press, 1963. Asad, Talal. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003. Attebery, Brian. Decoding Gender in Science Fiction. New York: Routledge, 2002. Benford, Gregory. “Exposures.” In The Norton Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ursula K. LeGuin and Brian Attebery, 445–457. New York: Norton, 1993. Bierce, Ambrose. In the Midst of Life. New York: Modern Library, 1909.

110

Jennifer Arden Stone

Bleiler, Everett F., with Richard J. Bleiler. Science-Fiction: The Early Years. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1990. Blish, James. A Case of Conscience. New York: Del Rey-Random House, 1959. Bond, Nelson. “The Cunning of the Beast.” In Other Worlds, Other Gods: Adventures in Religious Science Fiction, edited by Mayo Mohs, 19–44. London: New English Library, 1971. Boscaljon, Daniel. Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in a Secular World. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013. Boucher, Anthony. “The Quest for Saint Aquin.” In The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929– 1964, edited by Robert Silverberg, 378–394. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC., 1998. Bradbury, Ray. “Christus Apollo.” In I Sing the Body Electric and Other Stories, 315–321. New York: Harper Collins, 1969. Brand, Russell. “Time for a Revolution of Consciousness.” YouTube video, 4: 51.Posted October 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0X6wWNvkA Brunner, John. “The Vitanuls.” In Other Worlds, Other Gods: Adventures in Religious Science Fiction, edited by Mayo Mohs, 171–196. London: New English Library, 1967. Burton, Richard and Nevill Coghill, dir. Doctor Faustus. 1967; Culver City: Sony Pictures Entertainment, 2004. DVD. Clarke, Arthur C. “The Nine Billion Names of God.” In Star Science Fiction Stories No. 1, edited by Frederik Pohl, 188–196. New York: Ballantine Books, 1953. Clute, John, and Peter Nicholls, eds. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. London: Orbit, 1993. Dawkins, Richard. “Exclusive—Richard Dawkins Extended Interview.” The Daily Show video, 7: 31. September 24, 2013. http://www.cc.com/video-clips/l8mvyu/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewartexclusive—richard-dawkins-extended-interview-pt–1. Del Rey, Lester. “Evensong.” In Other Worlds, Other Gods: Adventures in Religious Science Fiction, edited by Mayo Mohs, 249–256. London: New English Library, 1971. Dimock, Wai Chee. “Low Epic.” Critical Inquiry 39 (2013): 614–631. Evans, Arthur B., Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk, eds. The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Wesleyan: Wesleyan University Press, 2010. Fish, Stanley. “Does Curiosity Kill More Than the Cat?” New York Times (New York, NY), September 14, 2009. Fleming, Victor, dir. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. 1941; Burbank: Warner Home Video, 2004. DVD. Frankenheimer, John, dir. The Island of Dr. Moreau. 1996; Burbank: Warner Archives, 2017. DVD. Franklin, H. Bruce. Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1966. Freeman, David. “Why Revive ‘Cosmos?’ Neil DeGrasse Tyson Says Just About Everything We Know Has Changed.” Huffington Post, March 4, 2014. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/04/neildegrasse-tyson-cosmos-god-alien-life-multiverses-interview_n_4790408.html. Garrison, Wendell Phillips. The New Gulliver. Marion, MI: Marion Press, 1898. Glaspell, Susan. The Verge. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1922. Godwin, Tom. “The Cold Equations.” Astounding Magazine, 1954. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birth-Mark.” The Pioneer, March 1843. Haynes, Roslynn D. From Faust to Strangelove: Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. Hervieu-Léger, Daniele. Religion as a Chain of Memory. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000. Knight, Damon. “Shall the Dust Praise Thee?” In Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison, 323–329. New York: Doubleday, 1967. Landon, Brooks. Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars. New York: Routledge, 2002. Larrimore, Mark, ed. The Problem of Evil: A Reader. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. Martin, James. “A Saint’s Dark Knight.” New York Times (New York: NY), August 29, 2007. McGrath, James F., ed. Religion and Science Fiction. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2011. McKee, Gabriel. The Gospel According to Science Fiction. Louisville: Westiminster John Knox Press, 2007. Mendlesohn, Farah. “Introduction: Reading Science Fiction.” In Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, by Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn, 5–15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Science Fiction: A Pedagogical Approach

111

Miéville, China. Kraken. New York: Del Rey-Random House, 2010. —— Perdido Street Station. New York: Del Rey-Random House, 2000. Moffic, Rabbi Evan. “Can We Believe in God and Science?” Huffington Post, February 6, 2014. https:// www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-evan-moffic/can-we-believe-in-god-and_b_4734731.html. Nahin, Paul J. Holy Sci-Fi!: Where Science Fiction and Religion Intersect. New York: Springer, 2014. Norris, Frank. “Lauth.” Overland Monthly, March 1893. Parkin-Speer, Diane. “Alien Ethics and Religion versus Fallen Mankind.” In The Transcendant Adventure: Studies of Religion in Science Fiction/Fantasy, edited by Robert Reilly, 93–107. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1985. Preuss, Paul. “Half-Life.” In The Norton Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ursula K. LeGuin and Brian Attebery, 780–793. New York: Norton, 1993. Proyas, Alex, dir. I, Robot. 2004; Century City: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, 2005. DVD. “‘Religious Understandings of Science’ Study Reveals Surprising Statistics.” Huffington Post, February 19, 2014. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/religious-understandings-of-science_n_4811085. html. Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. Sardar, Ziauddin. Introducing Philosophy of Science: A Graphic Guide. London: Icon Books, 2011. Scott, Ridley, dir. Prometheus. 2012; Century City: 20th-Century Fox Entertainment, 2012. DVD. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. London: Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mayor & Jones, 1818. Silverberg, Robert. “Good News from the Vatican.” In The Norton Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ursula K. LeGuin and Brian Attebery, 242–250. New York: Norton, 1993. Smith, Christian. Moral Believing Animals: Human Personhood and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, edited by Martin A. Danahay. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2005. Tyson, Neil DeGrasse. “Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Science, Religion and the Universe.” Moyers & Company video, 26: 46. January 17, 2014. http://billmoyers.com/episode/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-science-reli gion-and-the-universe/. Wells, H. G. The Island of Doctor Moreau. London: Heinemann, Stone & Kimball, 1896. Whale, James, dir. Frankenstein. 1931; Universal City: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, 1999. DVD. Wiene, Robert, dir. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. 1920; Chatsworth: Image Entertainment, 1997. DVD. Zimbardo, Philip. “The Psychology of Evil.” TED video, 23: 07. February 2008. https://www.ted.com/ talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.

This page intentionally left blank

PART III

Thematic Approaches to Religion and Literature

This page intentionally left blank

9 OPENING THE SECULAR Teaching Religion and Culture through Fiction Daniel Boscaljon

My approach to teaching Religion and Literature has been shaped through my experiences in teaching at the University of Iowa from 2003–2012, where overcoming student resistance to meditative thinking, a thinking that Heidegger defined as the essential human capacity in contradistinction to calculative thought, required creative explanations.1 The humanities in general, and interdisciplinary modes of teaching in particular, aptly provoke our potential to induce students to engage in this open type of thought. Because I pursued advanced degrees in both Religious Studies and in English, I was given the opportunity to teach undergraduates in both departments. My status as a Teaching Assistant or Instructor meant that my courses were introductory level: therefore, the content was determined, at least partially, by external demands. Because these were General Education courses, administrators and students held fair expectations that the content of the class adhere to strict disciplinary boundaries. Students also frequently anticipated that the introductory course provide them with the opportunity for an easy grade. Thus, teaching Religion and Literature required that I could show diverse groups how interdisciplinary coursework meets disciplinary requirements better than a “traditional” approach. Within the disciplinary contexts of both Religious Studies and English, I have found that emphasizing secularism provides a successful pedagogical framework. Accounting for the secular justifies including novels in a Religious Studies classroom, because students can accept that ostensibly “secular” artifacts in truth reflect profoundly religious concerns through a nonprivileged medium. Likewise, students in my literature courses have enjoyed discussing themes generally reserved for places of worship (love, evil, redemption, sacrifice, guilt, finitude, hope): they can accept that religious texts and theological concepts are necessary (but not sufficient) for the most robust appreciation of the literary material. As a teacher in both disciplinary frameworks, I approach Religion and Literature as an opportunity to expose students in either disciplinary context to an understanding of how religion retains a place of importance within a larger (and still secularized) setting and how to read literature as participating in the creation of a secular culture. My theological training is predominantly Christian, and therefore my approach to secularization adheres to the models of secularization developed largely in response to Christianity. The books I teach

116

Daniel Boscaljon

reflect a similar orientation to this tradition—I gravitate toward authors informed by the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, who appreciate both the gifts and limitations bestowed by monotheistic traditions. The hermeneutical skills gained through this process are, however, applicable to those studying any literary text in any given tradition. Contrary to occasional marketing campaigns, neither all universities nor all departments within them embrace interdisciplinary learning, and therefore not all instructors have the freedom to teach dedicated Religion and Literature courses. Nonetheless, integrating “religion” into English courses and literature into “Religion” courses is both possible and desirable. Not only do students in these classes develop a deeper appreciation for the discipline ostensibly taught and an additional sense of the value of interdisciplinary thought, but these students glean an expanded sense of the human potential to create meaning, powerful meanings that increasingly obviate the traditional boundaries that once distinguished the “sacred” from the “profane.” Further, my hope is that students engaged in studying Religion and Literature grasp the crucial function of creativity in the work of exploring how human existence is meaningful, whether this work appears in sacred scriptures, novels, poems, or class discussions. Emphasizing the secular allows students to grasp an expansive definition of the sacred, one respectful of but not restricted to traditional boundaries, and thereby empowers them to become more intentional interpreters, disclosing appearances of the sacred in their daily lives.

Teaching Literature in Religious Studies My use of the term “secular” follows Charles Taylor’s sense of the word, indicating a shift to assuming religion as an optional worldview following the privatization of religion within “buffered” selves shielded from external supernatural forces.2 Because visions of the “secular” as its own framework for thinking (as opposed to an assumed “neutral” perspective) are newly emergent within daily conversations, and because Enlightenment values of individual autonomy and “objectivity” continue to dominate Western thinking, students still arrive in the classroom frequently assuming that this viewpoint is unbiased. Fundamentalist claims concerning culture wars frequently lead those who were raised (to some extent) within religious (or atheist) settings to assume that this “secular” perspective is antithetical to a “religious” one. This means that almost all students underappreciate the more robust possibilities offered by religion and its symbols. In many ways, my approach to teaching Religion and Literature in a Religious Studies classroom builds on Paul Ricoeur’s work in “Religion, Atheism and Faith.”3 Ricoeur’s essay probes through Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger in an attempt to find a faith that persists beyond atheism’s legitimate criticisms of religion. I believe that Ricoeur’s insight is valid,4 and that literature offers windows through which such a faith emerges, both in terms of the narrative construction and in terms of the narrator/protagonist/poet serving as an exemplar. Approaching religion through literature thus offers students respectful alternatives to dogmatic admonitions, showing the value of thinking creatively through a crisis of faith. Assuming the adequacy of Taylor’s definition of the secular imaginary, I find that most of my students (no matter their religious upbringing) share the sense that religion is one alternative belief system among many (secularism, after all, requires its own leaps of faith and offers its own value system). Presenting students with fiction forces them to attend to

Opening the Secular

117

this hermeneutical presumption as an important element in how they think about religion, and also makes them more mindful about how cultural artifacts participate in larger social assumptions. I open my classes by claiming that reading “secular” fiction will teach them not only about the particularities of a given religious tradition, but perhaps more importantly about how they can learn to think responsibly about religion and its role in society. The use of literature in the classroom demonstrates the potentialities of religion that survive in a secular culture, and attune students to how grace can be received even through words whose divine provenance is not officially sanctioned. Further, using literature to teach religion demonstrates the dialectic between religion and “secular” cultures: far from enemies or rivals, students are able to see how religion endows “secular” works with a vast appreciation for human culture and how “secular” works help to alter a cultural imaginary and ways that religion is practiced and understood. My experience teaching literature in a religion course has been as a Teaching Assistant in two different courses at the University of Iowa: Religion and Society and Quest for Human Destiny. Both classes allowed Teaching Assistants fifty minutes a week in conjunction with two lectures delivered by a tenured professor. Religion and Society integrated a discussion of the reading materials into the lectures, while Quest allowed Teaching Assistants the liberty to teach the novels selected by the professor in what amounted to a parallel class. The challenge in each was to convey to students how these courses, which were two of the department’s four large introductory classes, constituted the study of religion. In both cases, the reading list, which included My Name is Asher Lev (Religion and Society) and The Catcher in the Rye (Quest), sparked some student skepticism about the “religiousness” of the course. Chaim Potok’s My Name is Asher Lev was the third major work and the only novel read in Religion and Society—it followed The Republic (Plato) and The Undiscovered Self (Jung), texts chosen to provide students with a theoretical backdrop for the understanding of natural religion as the pursuit of the rationally determined good and to offer insight concerning the existential importance of knowing the self. Students, through Plato, were exposed to the thought of God in the form of justice as it appears in community, and, through Jung, the notion of God as it occurs within the psyche in the form of the self. Potok’s novel, which focuses on the conflict that the titular character has in navigating two distinct cultural worlds (Hasidic Judaism and modern art), was the first introduction to a particular revealed religion during the semester. The lectures during this part of the semester largely focused on informing students about Hassidism and art, each of which were described as alternative modes of encountering God in the modern world. During lectures, David Klemm revealed how the novel positioned the protagonist between the communal and individualistic modes of experiencing God articulated earlier in the semester. When teaching the novel in discussion sections, I highlighted how Potok used his richly drawn characters to represent competing modes of balancing the goods of the individual and the community with an ultimate goal of revealing how secular narratives introduce readers to structures of thinking capable of embracing the tension among diverse—even opposed—kinds of goods without succumbing to binary logic. To do this, I used a semiotic square to help students understand why the longer forms of narratives were especially useful in providing dynamic contrasts. Developed by Greimas5 and popularized by Jameson,6 these squares take polar oppositions, or contraries, developed in literary themes (individual vs. society) and pair them with their contradictories (not-individual vs. not-society) to show relationships among characters who unite or expose the thematic tension.7

118

Daniel Boscaljon

Rikvah Lev Individual

Society

Jacob Kahn

Aryeh Lev

Not-Society

Not-Individual Asher Lev

During our final discussion of the novel, students in each of my sections were able to see how Asher’s father Aryeh embodied the perspective favoring society instead of individuals, while Jacob Kahn, Asher’s art teacher (and rival father figure) could be categorized as embodying the position in which the individual was prioritized against the community. With some prompting, students identified Asher’s mother Rikvah as occupying the paradoxical tension that respected both individuation and society (appreciating the homologies integrating religion and art). Most students agreed that Asher fits at the bottom, the space of mutual negation (rejecting both individual and society), as he moves away from his mother and the exact desires of Jacob and Aryeh. Of course, this discussion does not reveal the “truth” of the novel; instead, the process gives students a hermeneutical tool that allows them to engage in interpretation as a work instead of as a moment of inspiration. In addition to opening a space to discuss the larger themes of how to understand tensions surrounding individual and communal religious goods, Potok’s book allowed students to understand the tensions produced as a traditional religious community grapples with the fact of the surrounding secular world. The particularities of Hasidic worship and the demands of modern art provided very concrete examples that most students could identify with, although it was distant enough from most students’ experiences to avoid having discussions become dominated by reactionary impulses. Potok provides two clear ways to understand the value and nature of the secular in its twentieth-century American manifestation. At the level of plot, students quickly understood that Lev’s artwork, although appropriating religious iconography, cannot actually be considered “religious” relative to the standards of his community, but clearly is identified as religious by those outside of the community. Students thus saw how “secular” artworks may remain informed by external religious traditions from which they depart, allowing something “religious” to emerge in what are precisely and necessarily secular spaces distinct from particular traditions. If Asher’s art led students to appreciate the paradoxical merger of the secular and the religious, Potok’s novel, as a whole, showed how secular narratives are capable of holding in tension a plurality of competing religious goods (the revealed and the secular) without resolving them. The novel ends on a melancholy note that blends the triumph of art’s transcendence with a recognition of human finitude and the frailty of biological life. Potok urges readers to recognize that because time is short, we must consider our values and actions thoughtfully— even as Potok encourages readers to sympathize with Asher’s struggle to differentiate himself from his fathers and mother, he leaves as an open question whether Asher chose wisely. The narrative, in other words, creates a reflexive space for thinking that allowed me to guide students through the judgments one can make on whether or not Asher ultimately acts with authenticity, whether or not his art reveals the truth. Potok’s compassionately rendered characters and powerful prose allow students to enjoy the novel, and open them to being enriched by it, in a way that at the very least parallels a religious experience if not replicating it—but without violating the assumptions of the secular.

Opening the Secular

119

Catcher in the Rye, taught in Quest for Human Destiny, allowed me to more directly grapple with issues related to secularism. Because the majority of my students were familiar with the book, I spent less time covering problems with plot and more time focused on the problems with secularity in a text whose connection to traditional religions seems even more distant than Asher. In tandem with class lectures, which focused on showing attitudes toward technology (which, in this class, was depicted as culminating in Nazi Germany), students were also exposed to pagan and Biblical literatures that offered an interpretative framework for the questions of the class. Salinger’s novel does not feature an obvious emphasis on religion (Biblical or pagan in nature), and thus my work teaching the novel began with student confusion. Being confused is, of course, the state that many undergraduate students find themselves in on any given day. I began discussions of the novel by inviting confusion, asking different students simple questions that allowed the class to meditate on the variety of assumptions that excluded the book from “religion,” thereby exposing the relativity and arbitrariness that haunts this definition. I then could show how confusion about “religion” highlights a tension throughout the book, as Holden encounters a variety of perspectives regarding how to integrate the spiritual and the physical realms—a key question at the heart of many philosophical and theological struggles. Constructing a square based on the terms “physical,” “spiritual,” “not-spiritual” and “notphysical,” I allowed students to offer up which characters fit in which positions.

Jane, Sally Physical

Spiritual

Sunny, Faith Cavendish Not-Spiritual

Sisters Not-Physical

Fish, Eskimos, Mummies

Sunny and Faith Cavendish were quickly identified as belonging to the “physical, notspiritual” side, and the sisters in the book (Phoebe and the nuns) retained their status as “spiritual, not-physical” in Holden’s orientation to them. Holden’s journey through the text, moving from one extreme to another, showed how binary resolutions were ultimately unsatisfactory. I then led students to talk about the paradoxical perspective, characters who integrated “physical and spiritual” at the top of the square—namely Jane and Sally, whom Holden recognizes as living an integrated mode of existence that he finds desirable without knowing how to achieve within himself. After discussing these characters, I turned to the bottom of the square, merging “not-spiritual, not-physical,” which stumped students until I offered up three of the novel’s oddest symbols as possibilities: the fish frozen in the lagoon and the Eskimos and mummies at the museum. Through questions, I opened the possibility that each symbolizes a mode of suspended animation, a preservation through time that enables a reduced vision of eternity. The other characters that fit into this bottom category, after all, are James Castle and the dead—presences that are neither physical nor spiritual but persist as uncertain, spectral remnants. Having offered a structure to better understand Holden’s struggles, I then provided students with the tools to recognize the important way that Salinger promotes the need for religion in a secular world. “Religion,” in this case, is not reduced to the Catholicism of the nuns that

120

Daniel Boscaljon

Holden respects but cannot pursue (any more than he can participate in lovemaking purely physical in nature): instead, Salinger points to how Holden creatively works through a variety of innovative models capable of providing solace. Holden’s motivating fear involves the passage of time in a secular world, especially as it results in the decrepitude of old age and, ultimately, death. Fearing technological models—even the carousel, which offers the promise of a dynamic mode of repetition of the same—as much as a reduced physicality and spirituality, Holden demonstrates the need to look toward a carnal spirituality not beholden to any one religious tradition. This humanized religious perspective attends to the natural and provides a solution to the fear of finitude for those who lack the innocence that religious devotion demands. Put otherwise, I show how technology, sexuality and spirituality all provide sufficient answers to resolve the problem of death, but that Holden (and Salinger) show the flaws in each of these approaches as a way to struggle with the passing of time in the secular world. By the end of the discussion, students understood the need for an expanded sense of what “religion” could mean, especially relative to the secular. Students also had a better understanding of what a “secular” novel could teach about religion that was not present in a traditional religious text. Both Potok and Salinger offer resources for prompting students to consider the gifts of secularism, and allow for classroom discussions focused on how secular artifacts (art, technology, etc.) provide consolation analogous to traditional religious offerings. In each case, foregrounding the work of the secular pushed students to grapple with their own assumptions about the importance of religion as a particular response to deeply felt human needs and also as a more general guide for understanding the importance of intentionally and consciously creating a meaningful existence in conjunction with—but not controlled by—tradition and community.

Teaching Religion and Literature in Literature Courses Although interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities remain importantly distinguished from the boundaries that disciplines tend to erect for themselves, these convenient fictions nonetheless do create important differences: teaching Religion and Literature in an English course is not identical to teaching it in Religious Studies courses. Although both disciplines allow me to explore how literature modulates, appropriates, and communicates religious themes within a secular world, my work in English—divorced from the need to introduce some of the disciplinary concerns attending religion as a field of study—allowed increased flexibility in discussing the creative theological work undertaken by creative writers. I designed all of my introductory English classes around major themes, some of which touched loosely on “religion” (such as my classes on Insanity, Love, and Human Finitude). During these classes, I would offer brief lectures or excerpts from religious texts or theologians to explore how secular works reflected religious concerns. Based on my success in encouraging students in my General Education Literature courses to wrestle with the themes I find central to understanding secularized religion, I taught two courses in which questions of secularization were central to the syllabus: Introduction to Literature: The Death of God in America and Heroes and Villains: The Problem of Evil. My goal for these classes was to expose students to the crisis that secularism precipitated and the importance of developing a nuanced understanding of the value of religions (after atheism). I will focus on the introductory course. I designed The Death of God in America course to move students toward a better appreciation of how literature provides an access to a faith that presupposes a negation of theistic religious beliefs and practices. Building on my work in nineteenth-century American

Opening the Secular

121

Literature, I encouraged students to engage in close readings intended to verify (or falsify) my opening assertion that major works in the American canon opened post-biblical conceptions of a faith without God. These readings hinged on the student ability to locate how “God” was depicted as dead, absent or otherwise unpresent, how traditional religious practices were divorced from authentic encounters with the sacred, and to explore (with the authors) some lingering possibilities for faith despite this. I began by offering students brief, excerpted definitions of faith (based on work from the Bible, Kant, Kierkegaard, Tillich and Caputo) that showed the range of theological options available from the modern Christian period. Because this was a General Education literature course, I anticipated (correctly) student worries and complaints about learning “religion” by providing two immediate points of context. I told students that the study of American literature presupposes a conversational background in Christianity, to which the majority of the authors in question were responding. Secondly, I told students that the focus of study—the death of God and the possibilities of the post-secular— required some religious information, but that the point was, in fact, to show possibilities for faith that remained distinct from either God or Christianity. The work throughout the semester involved reading texts and working through their poetic and narrative theo-logics, literary definitions of God, that opened the possibility of a faith after atheism and secularism. I argued that these American texts were peculiarly atheistic in working to undermine specifically Christian assumptions about God, and then opening readers to consider possibilities beyond these limitations. I began the course with class sessions that involved close readings of shorter texts (Dickinson’s “Those—dying Then” (Fr1551)8 and other poems, as well as Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”), building up to work with longer books (Brown’s Wieland, Melville’s The Confidence-Man, O’Connor’s Wise Blood, Moore’s Watchmen9). This allowed students to improve their basic grasp of close reading techniques, increased their familiarity with the possibilities of thinking religiously in a secular world, and allowed them to creatively think through possibilities for faith after Christianity. My goal in providing brief religious and theological works in this course was to help students distinguish between philosophical discourse that attempts to engage a reader’s rational faculty, and creative discourse that attempts to inspire readers at a level beyond, but not against, reason. The question of what form of discourse was the most compelling, and why, reinforced student understanding of what distinguishes theological, philosophical, and religious modes of creation. The additional philosophical content also provided students with a standard against which to measure the variety of literary works. No definitive answer to the question of the “best” mode of discourse exists, of course, and although some students were frustrated by my emphasis on remaining resolutely unresolved about the “truth,” most students enjoyed learning the value in keeping the question open, using their readings to develop a more nuanced appreciation of this question rather than settling on an “answer.” One of the early readings in my Death of God in America course is Dickinson’s Fr1551, which provided a suitably challenging and rewarding example of secularism and the need for interdisciplinary interpretation strategies. The poem is worth quoting in its entirety here: Those—dying then, Knew where they went— They went to God’s Right Hand— That Hand is amputated now And God cannot be found—

122

Daniel Boscaljon

The abdication of Belief Makes the Behavior small Better an ignis fatuus Than no illume at all— I began class discussions by having a handful of student volunteers read the poem aloud, and then allowed the class to reflect on the experience of a poem as something heard instead of something merely seen, touching briefly on how each student’s choice of when or how long to pause for Dickinson’s dashes allows the event of each particular reading to suggest a slightly different poem. I also allowed some time for students to use their phones or computers to retrieve definitions of “abdication,” “ignis fatuus” and “illume,” so that everyone could appreciate the apparent content of the poem. I then asked students to articulate the contrast that Dickinson sets up between the stanzas. In classes where I teach this poem, I have found that a student invariably will build on my opening discussion of secularism and point to lines 4–5 to explain how an inability to find God in the world leads to an abdication of Belief—that not believing in God means that God cannot be found, which in turn means that behavior becomes small. I respond to this answer by asking for the most important term in the second stanza (someone generally suggests “Belief”), and then ask for the contrasting term in the first stanza. After a student identifies “Knew,” the discussion becomes more interesting. Reinforcing Taylor’s notion of secularism as the emergence of an option, I continue questioning students until one remembers the distinction between faith and knowledge established on the first day of class and thus grasps that “Those—dying then” lacked Belief. The certainty of the afterlife, in other words, produces small behavior. The inability to find God, on the other hand, opens a space for a more robust faith. Most students agree that although the initial interpretation may not be “wrong,” the second interpretation does a better job of articulating what the poem might mean as an integrated unit. Having established the contrast between belief and knowing, I encourage students to articulate the final lines of the stanza—to provide the place for the “ignis fatuus,” or illusory belief. Some students offer the possibility of specific religions, but most can see how any religious language potentially serves as a false light. From here, I ask students what differentiates an ignis fatuus from a true belief, and a volunteer will sooner than later note the difference as a question of how one interprets the light—not a matter of its content. Depending on the class, I occasionally will ask about the place of faith, the lived experience of uncertainty that contrasts with a more reified state of “belief.” This interpretation hinges on reading “abdication” as part of “Belief,” a mode that also makes behavior small (although certainly better than the death that comes with “knowing”). Whether or not I introduce this third possibility, I refocus students on the question of the secular—the time following amputation when God cannot be found—and ask whether Dickinson offers something capable of surviving the critique of atheism. This discussion—contrasting knowledge, belief, and faith—provides students with a concrete demonstration of some of the philosophical and theological texts that begin the course, especially as I emphasize how these terms provide parameters for a more clear discussion of the poem’s work. Additionally, this discussion helps students understand the subtleties of Dickinson’s Fr236 (“Some keep the Sabbath. . .”) and other texts encountered throughout the semester. When teaching Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown,” for example, I showed how Brown’s knowledge concerning the worthiness of institutional authorities (religious, political, patrimonial), like his belief in God, crumble when God cannot be found. Moving into Melville, I remind students of ways that knowledge “makes the Behavior small” when discussing the need for certainty and Colonel Moredock, Indian Hater (and the general

Opening the Secular

123

antipathy toward charity without profit). In Wise Blood, the ignis fatuus illuminates Enoch Emery’s motivations as he attempts to find an icon suitable for his friend Hazel Motes: although Enoch’s exact religious beliefs remain opaque, students can see how his behavior is no smaller than that of Motes. In each of these texts, students understood how the literature communicated examples of how to live faithfully without God. My approach in my class on Evil differed markedly. Instead of focusing on how literary artifacts communicate theological possibilities shorn of traditional religious content, I framed the class as a conversation concerning how literature adapts and modifies traditional religious characters and themes. The goal of the course was to provide students with a survey of different perspectives on the good that appeared, indirectly, through meditations on what constituted a “villain.” I began this class discussing the figure of the Satan as it alters from one who tests (Hebrew Bible) to one who tempts (New Testament), distinguishing the desire to unearth courage or faith from the drive toward destruction.10 This allowed me to prepare students to read villains as ambivalent and occasionally difficult to identify. Beyond discussing the sympathetic and problematic natures of both Victor Frankenstein and his creation or the way that Hesse (Demian) and Kazantzakis (Last Temptation of Christ) seem to render the notion of Good and Evil impossible to differentiate, I ensured that students understood the cultural and theological changes that the literature both reflected and foretold. In other words, rather than showing how Kazantzakis’s God correlated to Tillich’s sense of the demonic-divine, I wanted to show how rewriting the gospel accounts provided readers with an intuitive understanding analogous to Tillich’s philosophical theology, helping readers gain an experience of the truth of this god in the face of more dogmatic or philosophical presentations. Although most students were surprised to find Kazantzakis’ novel relevant and beautiful, and learned through it to embrace the power of language, Albert Camus’ The Fall remained the conceptual favorite for the semester.11 Featuring the narration of the unforgettable Jean-Baptiste Clamence and a successful second-person address, The Fall integrates the banality and horror of evil on small and vast scales, ranging from road rage to the terrors of World War II. More than a litany of events, however, Clamence calls upon the reader to look at the causes of evil in terms of human confrontations with guilt and a biased need for judgment. With an exceptional fidelity to the secular Western world that remains anchored to a biblical tradition, Camus’ novel offers students an example of the enduring value of religious concepts even in godless times. As an example, Clamence symbolically points to the death of God by discussing a painting, following this with a discussion of the Cross that indicts its functional—not redemptive—use in a secular world. Throughout, students accepted that Clamence was some sort of satanic figure and struggled to identify what type of fall the figure of Clamence experienced (within the text) and provoked (relative to the reader). Because this is a short novel, I generally teach The Fall in the space of two 75-minute class periods. During the first class, I focus on the narrative qualities that make this story unique—the nature of the second person address, the frequent recourse to doubled motions, the implication of the “fall.” With a bit of prompting, students identify the profusion of “religious” terms and symbols that are given at a secularized level that fails to wholly eliminate a “religious” dimension. The titular “fall,” for example, ostensibly refers to a woman who leaps from a bridge—but just as pointedly looks to the narrator’s failure to assist the woman, and the introduction of guilt into his life at that point. The Christian sense of the fall is necessary for an understanding of the book, but Camus’ wholehearted embrace of the secular, rendered most pointedly in a loss of God (replaced by a forgery that nobody suspects) means that a merely religious understanding is inadequate. As occurs when I teach Dickinson or Melville, students in my class understand how literature uniquely opens the

124

Daniel Boscaljon

potentiality for faith to move beyond atheistic critiques, transforming the secular world into a space related to but distinct from the religious imaginary that preceded it. In this particular case, they also learned how authors can play with religious figures in ways that connect their works to a religious tradition from which they then depart. By the end of the semester, students in Religion and in Literature courses—even at the introductory level—generally appreciate both the challenges and benefits of interdisciplinary hermeneutics (although they may not ever use those particular terms), and how uncertainty provides a valuable approach for reading and interpreting literature. They also acquire a fairly involved appreciation for the nature of the secular, and how certain literary texts produce an indirect understanding of a faith capable of surviving the critiques of atheism. As a theologian who admires traditional religions and as a literary scholar awed by the power of creative thought, I desire that students leave my classes impressed with the capacity for creative interpretations to reconfigure the world. Because the secular world promotes forgetfulness concerning the value of non-quantifiable moments and paradoxical truths, my hope is that teaching Religion and Literature enables my students to see the ongoing desirability of creating truth and meaning in the world. Rather than viewing religion as “unfactual” and therefore wrong, or interpreting secularism as reductionist and therefore boring, students from my Religion and Literature courses are invited to hesitate before concluding anything as certain and thus confidently to magnify the possibilities for beauty and courage as they move through life.

Notes 1 Martin Heidegger. “Memorial Address,” in Discourse on Thinking (New York: Harper Perennial, 2000). 2 Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2007). 3 Paul Ricoeur and Don Ihde. “Religion, Atheism and Faith,” in The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974). 4 I explore this in more detail in Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in a Secular World (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2013). 5 A. J. Greimas and François Rastier. 1968. “The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints.” Yale French Studies (41): 86–105. 6 Fredric Jameson. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981). 7 I offer only one of several squares that I developed for this novel. I frequently use this technique as a way to help students progress beyond binary oppositions, as well as to generate discussions about how to interpret the relationship between narrative tensions and the themes or characters that embody them. Thematic squares also help students outline their written work by showing interrelations between similar (but distinct) characters or concepts. 8 All Dickinson poems cited in Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Ralph W. Franklin (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005). 9 Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen (New York: DC Comics, 2007). Although Moore and Gibbons are both British, the story is clearly set in America and takes up the themes relevant to the course. 10 For a compelling version of this argument, see Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan (New York: Vintage Books, 1996). 11 Albert Camus, The Fall (New York: Vintage, 1991).

Bibliography Boscaljon, Daniel. Vigilant Faith: Passionate Agnosticism in a Secular World. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013. Brown, Charles Brockden. Wieland; or the Transformation and Memoirs of Carwin, the Biloquist. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Opening the Secular

125

Camus, Albert. The Fall. New York: Vintage International, 1991. Dickinson, Emily. The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Edited by Ralph W. Franklin. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005. Greimas, A. J., and Rastier, François “The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints.” Yale French Studies (41) 1968: 86–105. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Heidegger, Martin. “Memorial Address,” Discourse on Thinking. New York: Harper Perennial, 2000. Hesse, Herman. Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclairs Youth. London: Penguin Classics, 2013. Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981. Kazantzakis, Nikos. The Last Temptation of Christ. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. Melville, Herman. The Confidence-Man; his Masquerade. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Moore, Alan and Gibbons, Dave. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 2007. O’Connor, Flannery. Wise Blood. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979. Pagels, Elaine. The Origin of Satan. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. Potok, Chaim. My Name is Asher Lev. New York: Knopf, 1972. Ricoeur, Paul. “Religion, Atheism and Faith,” The Conflict of Interpretations: Essays in Hermeneutics. Edited by Don Ihde. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1974. Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1970. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: or, the Modern Prometheus. London: Penguin Classics, 2013. Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2007.

10 INTERROGATING FAITH Using Literature to Teach Religion and Nature Nancy Menning

Nature is vexingly interdisciplinary.1

It is hard to do everything all at once. For good reason, our academic institutions chunk the world into disciplinary specializations, focusing our students’ attentions on effective ways of exploring carefully bounded dimensions of human experience and objective reality. We want our students to master disciplinary content with appropriate levels of methodological and theoretical rigor. Beyond our disciplinary goals, we also want to prepare our students for the demands of engaged citizenship and other modes of virtuous action in the world. Reflecting on the complex and messy problems that threaten our collective wellbeing—racism, economic disparities, and global climate change are examples—we recognize the inherent limitations of narrowly focused academic specialization. Literature returns some of the fullness and complexity of the world to my students’ awareness, even as they seek to master disciplinary knowledge and skills. Alongside our immersion in traditional curricular content, well-chosen literature provides an opportunity to lift our eyes from the rutted disciplinary path beneath our feet and to see the world and the precise focus of our studies anew. Reading and interpreting literary expressions of religious thought and practice in a course on Religion and Nature, for example, reminds my students of the richness and complexity of lived experience while pushing their thinking beyond popular caricatures of religion, oversimplified abstractions of the natural world, and stereotyped assumptions about the relationships between religions and the environment. If I want my students to be theoretically and methodologically adept at analyzing and interpreting human religiosity, they need more than survey courses on the major world religions, a methods-and-theory overview, and a handful of topical courses. They need practice encountering the richness of lived human experience and interpreting the multifaceted religious dimensions thereof. Literature excels at providing these opportunities. So much of the curriculum is about correct answers and rules, but literature teaches qualitative relationships and insists on multiple perspectives and interpretations. Reading literature allows the students to surrender to the unexpected and to step into a new world of symbolic thought. Each curricular context presents its specific challenges. In the environmental humanities classroom, the challenge is to draw out the particular contributions of the humanities to issues

Interrogating Faith

127

more commonly approached via the natural sciences and perhaps economics. We live in a culture that valorizes the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) disciplines and questions the relevance of the humanities. More accurately, the value of the humanities is simply unthought, the humanities having vanished from general awareness. When I tell my students in a first-year seminar that we will be exploring humanities perspectives on the natural world, only the brightest music major understands that I’ve said something other than “humanity’s perspective” on the natural world. Only by the end of the semester, after many classroom activities and one-on-one meetings during my office hours, does the environmental sciences major write that the most important thing he took from the seminar was the realization that he had a humanities perspective on nature and was now able to clearly express it. In this cultural context, the environmental humanities classroom faces a substantial hurdle to even open up a space in which to do its work. Not knowing what the humanities are, students struggle to define and analyze the contributions humanities disciplines make to environmental reflection. And yet, over the last half-century, the field variously named ecotheology, religion and ecology, or religion and nature has produced a voluminous literature describing and analyzing the continuing relevance of religiosity to environmental thought and practice.2 Practitioners of religious traditions have always interpreted the natural world, transformed elements of the natural world into religious symbols, oriented religious practices in space and time, and imagined ethical relationships with the more-than-human world. The influence goes the other way as well: the processes and entities of nature also stimulate religious reflection and influence the development of religious practices and religious environmental ethics. Within an overarching cultural context and economic climate that valorizes the STEM disciplines, how can educators help students grasp the enduring relevance of the environmental humanities? How might we encourage them to consider religious interpretations of the natural world? And how might we promote the understanding (and for some students, perhaps, the development) of religiously grounded environmental ethics? Merely asserting the importance of the humanities is unlikely to transform hearts and minds. To challenge students in the environmental humanities classroom to engage the complexity of real-life reflection on the natural world, I have them read Leap, a work of creative nonfiction by Terry Tempest Williams.3 Students respond well to personal narratives and Leap recounts a period in Williams’s life when she was reflecting deeply on the way her Mormon upbringing shaped her perceptions of the natural world. While Williams intends her text as a critical interrogation of her Mormon faith, the book also demonstrates a mature and vulnerable self-reflection, employing diverse conceptual resources that students can recognize as related to familiar academic perspectives: the humanities, the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the creative arts. Importantly, Leap does not offer a dichotomous choice between religion and science. Williams offers a more richly textured reflection. As such, Leap helps students not only exercise skills in thinking creatively and critically about religious and scientific claims about the natural world, but also develop skills in integrative thinking.

Cultivating Integrative Thinking In the classroom, Leap can disrupt existing mental models about the relative authority of religion and science to explain and interpret the natural world. As a scholar of the environmental humanities within the discipline of religious studies, I have long pondered the challenges of integrating religious and scientific perspectives on nature. My current approach to this work in the classroom is influenced by my college’s recent implementation of a new core curriculum

128

Nancy Menning

emphasizing integrative thinking. Among other requirements, our students are expected to select among a set of broad themes and then take courses addressing that particular theme from each of four broad disciplinary perspectives: the humanities, the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the creative arts. In e-portfolios encompassing (and reflecting on) work from their entire college experience, students are expected to integrate the four perspectives to articulate a broadly interdisciplinary understanding of the chosen theme. Within this curricular context, I envision using Leap in a Humanities perspective course in the “Quest for a Sustainable Future” theme.4 Sustainability has many dimensions, not all of which are narrowly “environmental.” My focus in the environmental humanities, however, is on the natural world. As noted above, it can be difficult for students to grasp the concept of a “humanities perspective” on anything, much less the natural world. When I narrow the scope of the humanities to the discipline of religious studies, however, I also activate mental models my students hold about the relative authority of science and religion to interpret the world and guide human action. Some students enter the classroom believing that science is the sole authoritative source for information about the natural world. Some would grant science the primary role in describing and explaining the natural world, but then allow religion to articulate values that shape ethical responsibilities. Others may believe that religion is fundamentally in conflict with science. At best, it may seem to some, religious motivations can be strategically leveraged to advance environmental goals that are set by scientific, political, or economic interests. Ideally, students will be (or will become by the end of the semester) self-aware of the structure of their habitual mental models, articulate about the distinct contributions religion and science make in shaping our perceptions of nature, and skilled at integrating scientific and religious perspectives on the natural world. A rich literature describes diverse possibilities for relating science and religion, and the particular mental model any individual student holds can influence his or her learning in the classroom.5 Some mental models are more problematic than others. Those who believe that authoritative knowledge about the natural world comes solely from the natural sciences are unlikely to grasp the full potential of the humanities or succeed at integrative thinking. In Leap, Terry Tempest Williams models deeply integrative thinking about the natural world that students can describe, analyze, and emulate. In a religious studies course in the environmental humanities, my students will spend most of the semester focusing on explicitly religious perspectives on environmental thought and practice. Leap, however, is a particularly rich resource for demonstrating the integrative possibilities of mature reflection, as Williams moves deftly between “religious” and “scientific” perspectives.

Teaching Leap Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge—especially its epilogue, “The Clan of One-Breasted Women”—is a classic text of environmental literature and is frequently used in the environmental studies classroom.6 It is particularly helpful in drawing out correspondences between people and nature, in that it tells an interwoven tale of the death of Williams’s mother and the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge on the northern edge of Great Salt Lake. While Refuge reflects Williams’s Mormon upbringing and identity, her later book Leap is the stronger text for exploring integrative thinking and critical reflection.7 Leap is distinctive in William’s body of work. It holds a middle ground or transitional space between Refuge, in which Williams is relatively uncritical of her Mormon upbringing, and Finding Beauty in a Broken World, a later text that reveals Williams as virtually post-Mormon in her self-identification and

Interrogating Faith

129

sensibility.8 In Leap, Williams engages both faithfully and critically with her religious tradition. Precisely for this reason, the text is particularly appropriate for the religious studies classroom. Leap recounts Williams’ seven-year fascination with Hieronymus Bosch’s (c. 1453–1516) painting Garden of Earthly Delights, a triptych with the two outer panels representing Paradise and Hell while the central panel depicts the Garden of Earthly Delights.9 As an adult, Williams stumbled upon the triptych in Madrid’s Prado Museum. She was familiar with the two outer panels from her childhood, but the central panel was new to her. Encountering the whole painting for the first time, she writes, “I am stunned. The center panel. The Garden of Earthly Delights. So little is hidden in the center panel, why was it hidden from me?” (7). Over the course of seven years, Williams returns repeatedly to the Prado to visit the painting, and her encounter with it provokes critical reflection on her passionate commitment to the environment in light of the Mormon church’s relative silence on environmental matters, symbolized by the absence of the central panel from her upbringing. Williams structures Leap in four sections, first exploring the three parts of the triptych— Paradise (the left panel), followed by Hell (the right panel), then Earthly Delights (the center panel)—and concluding with a section titled Restoration, which refers (in part) to the professional restoration of the medieval painting. Williams explores the painting’s history and imaginatively enters the individual panels of the painting, allowing these experiences to draw forth memories of her personal history and reflection on our contemporary environmental context. The final section narrates her experiences and reflections as the painting is removed from the Prado gallery, where it had hung on display, to an interior workshop of the museum to be professionally restored. Following these four main sections, the book includes notes, a bibliography, acknowledgments, and permissions. On a gatefold following the last page of the book is a color reproduction of Bosch’s Garden of Delights, representing the artistic work when its wings are open.10

Paradise Teaching within the context of the new integrative core curriculum, I imagine reading Leap in four sections (as the text itself is partitioned) distributed across the course of the semester.11 The first chapter, “Paradise,” is short and stunningly rich. Merely forty pages in length, it merits careful attention to scaffolding the various reading skills necessary for success with the text as a whole: attention to detail, close reading, and active reading. All of us make assumptions about religion in general and specific religions in particular. To refine our collective understanding of the Mormon tradition, we explore the specific references to Mormon history, belief, and ritual practice in this opening chapter, including passages referring to founding prophet Joseph Smith’s mystical experiences in the sacred grove (21–23); doctrinal beliefs in eternal progression (35–38); and central practices of ritual life, such as the sacrament of bread and water (14), baptism and confirmation (9–10), patriarchal blessing (28), and temple marriage (37–38).12 Mini-lectures clarify these sections while classroom discussions encourage students to draw contrasts and comparisons with other religious traditions and with their own assumptions about Mormonism and/or Christianity. Attention to textual detail here not only advances knowledge of a specific religious tradition, but also develops skills in reflecting on and articulating the assumptions we project upon a text and the challenges a text makes to our preexisting frameworks of understanding. These analyses are good practice for subsequent reflection on how Leap challenges our existing mental models of the relationships between religion and science.

130

Nancy Menning

Shifting my students’ attention to the relationship between “scientific” and “religious” reflection in Leap, we look at the juxtaposition of objective description and religious interpretation to develop skills in close reading. For example, this passage begins descriptively enough: “It is Monday. The Prado is closed. An old woman dressed in a turquoise sweater and a black skirt with black stockings and shoes is breaking bread for the pigeons. There must be fifty pigeons cooing and circling around her. I see her every morning” (13). Williams then shifts seamlessly to religious language: “She finishes her sacrament for the birds and always leaves with a couple of loaves under her arms” (13). Sacrament here refers to the bread of the communion ritual of the Mormon church and the reference to loaves remaining suggests various gospel passages in which Jesus feeds multitudes and more fragments are gathered up afterward than were thought to exist at the outset. Other passages in this opening section that merit this attentiveness to the fluidity of Williams’s transition between objective description and religious imagination include contiguous passages that link eternal progression and Darwinian evolution (35–36); the Edenic Tree of Knowledge and Latin taxonomic nomenclature of specific tree species (34–35); and a display of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden amidst other exhibits at Madrid’s Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (32–34). The adeptness with which Williams moves across apparent boundaries is also demonstrated by her effortless transition from observing the Bosch painting to imagining herself within it. “On this particular day in the Prado, I begin my observation of the triptych with binoculars. I want to see what birds inhabit the Paradise of Bosch” (15). Williams continues with a close description of the birds observed (which will conclude with a naturalist’s checklist), but then the reader suddenly finds Williams within the painting itself: “Close to [three white egrets] is a spoonbill. I walk slowly toward this long-legged bird. . .” (15). In classroom discussions, I encourage students to reflect on how foreign this seamless integration of perspectives is in our “disciplined” and compartmentalized academic experiences. I give them permission to begin watching for connections in their own lives, integrating their own curricular, extracurricular, and non-curricular experiences. Having engaged Mormon history, thought, and practice and reflected on Williams’s ability to move fluidly across perspectives, we conclude our work with this opening section of Leap with some active reading exercises. Williams describes Leap as her “interrogation of faith” (5). She recognized the outer wings of Bosch’s triptych—Paradise and Hell—as images of Good and Evil that hung above her childhood bed, and questions why the central panel—the Garden of Earthly Delights—was hidden from her (6–7). From the first page, Williams has revealed herself as a Mormon. She has repeatedly demonstrated her skills as a birdwatcher. She writes about a summer working near Yellowstone National Park as a young adult (23–29) and my students are not surprised to hear that she worked as a naturalist-in-residence at the Utah Museum of Natural History for over a decade before turning to writing fulltime. So I ask students to write responses to the following questions: How religious is Williams? How scientific is she? What is the problem she seems to be trying to solve in this book? In the closing pages of this section (41–42), Williams imagines herself as Eve, walking toward the Tree of Knowledge, taking the apple, eating, and walking out of Eden. The passage resonates with an early passage about picking cherries as a child (8) and a later passage about a religious vision she experienced as a young woman (25–29). Where is this going?, I ask my students. What do you imagine will happen to Williams in the rest of the book? How will her hunger for knowledge affect her Mormon faith? These questions challenge students to demonstrate understanding of the text by predicting where the narrative is leading while also strengthening skills in providing precise textual evidence to support analysis of key concepts.

Interrogating Faith

131

Hell In the second chapter of Leap, Williams turns her attention to the right panel of the triptych: Hell. Having left the illusion of Eden and the childlike innocence of an unquestioned obedience to authority, Williams is disoriented and dismayed at the world she now finds herself within. In the opening pages of this chapter, she writes of madness, fear, anxiety, doubt, dizziness, torture, noxious smells, and clanging noises. The real world offers no respite from the imaginative hell of Bosch’s painting as Williams outlines a litany of land use abuses in western states (53–54) and recounts news coverage in media outlets including USA Today, Time, Newsweek, National Public Radio, The Economist, Pesticide & Toxic Chemical News, and local newspapers (56–60). Summarizing the disturbing elements of these news accounts, Williams writes: “Images of blank stares, monkeys leading humans by the hand, hybrid frogs, the shining ears of mice, poison cocktails and drinking water that glows, and refugees who cover their mouths with rags are just some current events” (60). Hell exists not merely in Mormon theology and in Bosch’s artistic imagination; hell is here on earth. In this chapter, we see Williams begin to affirm her bodily experience and focus her spatial–temporal commitments to the here and now. Mormons orient their bodies in the grave with an eye toward resurrection in the afterlife; Williams articulates a preference to reverse that orientation and asserts that she is content to “be soil” (85). Williams and her husband burn their marriage certificate (117–118), rejecting the temple ceremony that bound them “not until death do you part, but for time and all eternity” (38, emphasis in the original). Rejecting ideas of heaven and hell, Williams “gambles” that there is just this earth and this one lifetime, then offers a prayer “that we might find our own prophets in poetry and paintings who are not afraid of the questions that plague us” (78). With this chapter, our work moves out of the classroom. In journal entries written as part of their homework assignments, students respond to and reflect on this eighty-page chapter in Leap, guided by the following questions: • • •

Note the many references to emotions in this chapter (as well as your own emotional response to the text). Why are emotions so much more prevalent in this chapter than in the previous chapter? Which specific passages in this chapter best demonstrate Williams’s ongoing “interrogation of faith”? Note the many passages where Williams refers to either the mind or to eyes. Why does she emphasize eyes and minds in this chapter?

As we near the end of our scheduled time with this chapter of the text, I ask students to write a reflection, supported by specific textual evidence from this chapter, responding to the following question: How does Williams conceive the “problem” in this chapter of the text and what “solution” does she propose? In what sense is “religion” part of the problem and/or part of the solution? In what sense is “science” part of the problem and/or part of the solution? The final exercise with this chapter of the text is a group activity that comes back into the classroom and directly explores the challenge of integrative thinking.13 To prepare, I ask the students to re-read the passage about Damien Hirst on pages 61–71. In this passage, Williams refers to a number of art installations by Hirst involving dead animals, including one called “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living.” When the students arrive in class, they are placed in small groups and given this challenge:

132

Nancy Menning

Damien Hirst’s “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living” is an art installation of a tiger shark mounted in formaldehyde solution. Williams writes (63): “As a naturalist who has worked in a museum of natural history for over fifteen years, how am I to think about a shark in the context of art, not science?” Hirst’s work appears, appropriately enough, in an art gallery. “If it were in a museum of natural history,” Williams writes (64), “it would be called an exhibit, an exhibit where the organism is featured as the animal it is. Call it art or call it biology, what is the true essence of shark?” Then she asks this important question (64): “How is the focus of our perceptions decided?” Working in your assigned small group and completing your work before the end of the class period, write collaborative responses to these two questions: (1) What insights does Williams offer us in this chapter about how “the focus of our perceptions” is decided? (2) How do you think Williams would answer the question of how the focus of our perceptions ought to be decided? The text quoted in the assignment, with its distinction between an art gallery and a museum of natural history, will lead some groups to posit that our perceptions are shaped by our context. That is certainly true. The religious studies classroom offers a different context for reflection than the environmental science laboratory. In this exercise, I also hope that students will see that Williams is challenging us to make active choices, informed by our discerning reflections, about how we will understand the world and orient ourselves within it.

Earthly Delights Williams turns now to the central panel of Bosch’s triptych, the panel hidden from her in her childhood. This panel of the painting depicts androgynous people and hybrid beings interacting with birds and other animals, feeding one another strawberries, cherries, and other berries. The images are sensual, reflecting a shift from the mind to the heart (136). Whereas Hell was dominated by fearful emotions, the Garden of Delights highlights bodily pleasures. Having just escaped Hell, Williams writes: “I desire to live differently” (141). She approaches this task not by rejecting the religion of her childhood, but by seeking to reform or transform the history, beliefs, and practices of her Mormon tradition, as suggested in this re-imagining of the Mormon sacrament of bread and water: “Communion in El jardín de las delicias is administered through the birds, one berry at a time” (136). In this chapter Williams writes about Bosch’s historical moment on the cusp of the Protestant Reformation (143) and asks in an endnote if we might not be, in our time, “on the threshold of an ecological reformation” (293). Much historical and imaginative ground is covered in these hundred pages. I find it helpful to focus my students’ attention on passages most directly relevant to our interest in the integration of scientific and religious perspectives. I start by pointing them to a passage describing Bosch’s time period (the Late Middle Ages) as characterized by a “wonderful blend of emerging science, art, and religious traditions” (199). Another passage refers positively to a “marriage of science and religion” (187), followed a page later by reflections on the middle path between extremes as “a walk with wisdom where conversations of complexity can be found” (188). I ask my students to consider whether there is a middle path between science and religion that can nurture wisdom and complexity. We then look at a key passage that illuminates Williams’s project to reform or transform her religious tradition. She writes that the founding prophet Joseph Smith “believed that the scientific method could be applied to religion, that spiritual knowledge is not something to be acquired simply through books or being told something is true, but rather

Interrogating Faith

133

obtained through actual experience” (145). We analyze the linkage asserted here between personal experience and scientific method. With these passages in mind, I ask my students to interpret Williams’s question (148, emphasis in original): “How can I open the traditions of religion to my own experience?” We discuss her description of viewing the performances associated with the sesquicentennial of the Mormon Exodus from the Midwest to Utah (175–181), reflecting on her simultaneous attachment and detachment from her religious heritage. We consider the contrasts she draws between Joseph Smith (whom Williams clearly favors) and Brigham Young, the prophet who brought the Mormons to Utah (144–145). We draw connections between her descriptions of Smith and Young and her depiction of the rabbit of religion being overtaken by the owl of spirituality (211–212). The rabbit—associated with Young—symbolizes the collective religious life, with its obedience to authority, compliance with established morality, and allegiance to a formal creed. The owl, in contrast, is aligned with Smith and is described as solitary, attentive, engaged, and courageous. The rabbit and owl suggest a natural model, which Williams makes explicit: “Back to the owl and the natural history of predator-prey relations. Religion is a rabbit. Spirituality is an owl. An owl will overtake a rabbit” (212). I close this unit by asking my students to write about two passages from this chapter of the book. The first is a passage Williams quotes from her grandmother’s journal (181–182, emphasis in original): There is more faith in honest doubt than in all the unexamined creeds of past and present. In this sense, each of us must articulate their own religion—that is, their own concept of what is of supreme worth in living, their own mode of expressing that concept in their own commitment in daily life to the values he or she believes to be basic. In the second passage, Williams offers a reflection on her core commitments (147): In trying to wrap my arms around my own religious beliefs, I am aware I pick and choose what feels right to me, adapting as I go, adopting what I like and discarding what I don’t within my own ethical framework, which is a simple one, to help more than harm and contribute to the well-being of my community with love, good works, and compassion. I accept the Organic Trinity of Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal with as much authority as I accept the Holy Trinity. Both are sacred. Reflecting on these passages, I ask my students: Is Williams’s process of forming her own religion as subjective as she portrays it, merely a matter of choosing “what feels right to me, . . . adopting what I like and discarding what I don’t”? Or is her effort to revive Mormonism by opening the tradition to experience more substantial than a mere picking and choosing? Here, I press my students to cite precise textual evidence to support their arguments. I also ask them to appraise Williams’s assertions about science and personal experience. If “actual experience” is a way of referring to “scientific method” (as suggested in her characterization of Joseph Smith), how “scientific” is Williams’s personal “religion”?

Restoration At the end of the semester, as students complete the ultimate thirty-page section (“Restoration”), they can appreciate fully the two images that frame Leap. The first is a physical residential

134

Nancy Menning

move from Salt Lake City to Castle Valley, Utah. The deeper resonances of this geographical move are suggested by the descriptions Williams gives of these two places. Salt Lake City is described as “the City of Latter-day Saints,” “near the shores of Great Salt Lake with no outlet to the sea,” surrounded by mountains of granite in which are stored—hidden—the Mormon genealogies (5). Castle Valley is located in Grand County, near Moab and Arches National Park; Williams notes that this exposed landscape, termed Paradox Basin, is characterized by collapsing salt domes, shifting sands, flash floods, and winds that create arches through which one can walk (266). During her seven-year engagement with the Bosch painting, Williams makes this geographical move, with its deeper resonances of moving from safekeeping to exposure, solidity to fluidity, insularity to openness. The second framing image highlights the tension between obedience and free will. In the opening pages of the first section of the book, Williams recounts picking cherries with family members in a Wasatch Front orchard when she was ten years old. While Williams and her cousin perched in the branches of an orchard tree, her great-uncle, standing on a ladder nearby, posed them a question (8): “What principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ means the most to you?” he asked, filling his bucket. Mormon children are used to these kinds of questions practiced on them by their elders, who consider this part of their religious training. “Obedience,” my cousin replied, pulling a cherry off its stem. “Free agency,” I answered, eating one. In the opening pages of the final chapter of the book, Williams stands before the empty wall where the painting had hung and faces the shadow her body casts. Drawing on the Jungian archetype of the shadow, the projection onto others of aspects of oneself that have been repressed in the unconscious, Williams writes (242): “I will hurl my darkest self on to someone else and compensate for what I choose not to see inside my own heart. We live in the company of projected shadows. We are free to blame, to take no action, to create nothing from our own highest selves.” Following this passage about her shadow on the Prado wall, Williams recalls the interchange in the cherry orchard recounted in the opening pages of the book, thereby reintroducing the tension between obedience and free agency. Obedience, Williams realizes, can be understood as a respectful, unconditional willingness to listen to another—a willingness to trust. She recognizes that, by associating her own authority too strongly with the General Authorities of the LDS Church14 and by opposing free agency to obedience, she has stifled her creativity. Noting that the root of the term religion may refer to the action of binding together in order to make whole,15 Williams articulates her own desire for wholeness (243): “In this dualistic world, I have seen obedience on one hand, free agency on the other. How do I bring these two hands opposed together in a gesture of prayer?” This second framing image, symbolized by the tension between obedience and free agency in the cherry orchard story, provides insight into the deeper psychological resonances of the geographic move presented in the first framing image, highlighting questions about the relationships between authority, obedience, trust, and free agency. I see a parallel between the desire to merge obedience and agency in a gesture of prayer and the desire to integrate religious and scientific perspectives to foster environmental sustainability. My students and I explore how the art of restoration necessarily combines humanistic (even religious) and scientific perspectives. When Williams sees Bosch’s painting under the

Interrogating Faith

135

unforgiving lights of the museum’s workroom, she realizes that it is just “painted wood” and that her love has blinded her from perceiving the painting’s widespread “deterioration” (246). The two women restoring the painting have extensive training in the art and science of restoration. They “took courses in chemistry, photography, microscopy, musicology, and art history, as well as rigorous coursework on both contemporary and historical restoration techniques and theories” (248). Ultimately, they describe the work of restoration as a “spiritual process” involving complete commitment, sustained dialogue, and respectful service (258). I offer my students this final writing challenge: What needs to be “restored” in your mental model of the relationship between science and religion? How can you merge “obedience” and “agency” to advance the quest for a sustainable future? Draw richly on the insights in Leap to “interrogate” your life, examining and evaluating the relationships you habitually draw between science and religion in light of the implications for environmental sustainability.

Conclusion Literature is a fruitful resource for exploring the multifaceted conceptual sources and embodied experiences that structure human perceptions. Leap, in particular, illustrates and stimulates critical thinking about religion and science. The central question of Leap, as articulated by Williams, is: “How do we breathe life into the orthodoxies that we are a part of?”16 Perhaps orthodoxies is plural here because Williams is thinking of her Mormonism and the other religiosities of her readers. Perhaps we can reimagine this question in the environmental humanities classroom as referring to the distinct “orthodoxies” of science and religion and the complicated ways they shape and inform our perceptions of the natural world and our imagination of the proper human place within it. My college’s new core curriculum emphasizes integrative thinking, which does not suggest a dichotomous and polarized choice between science and religion. Rather, we want to help our students develop skills in analyzing particular problems, such as the quest for a sustainable future, by integrating knowledge that comes from diverse disciplinary perspectives—including the natural sciences and the humanities—both to illuminate the issue and gesture toward possible solutions. Leap helps cross the religion and science boundary, thereby illustrating the value of literature in teaching the environmental humanities in a culture that valorizes the sciences. Students need to get out of the silos of their minds (nurtured by the silos of our disciplines) and gain experiences that will help them see the integrated nature of existence and become aware of the way they often fragment and compartmentalize their own lives. To the extent literature reveals to us the complexity of human experience and mature reflection on experience, we can begin to see the integration that is always at the heart of experience. In Leap, Williams gives us a rich example of this integrative and reflective work. Deep learning results when students realize that their existing mental models are inadequate and they have the support they need to construct new ones.17 As described here, my approach to teaching Leap is intended to disrupt—or at least bring to awareness—existing mental models and to provide a context in which new models may be constructed. While one model of the physical universe may be said to be inaccurate and another to be more consistent with contemporary understandings in physics, with respect to the relative authority of religious and scientific perspectives on the natural world there is no single right model. Many perspectives are possible. But the ability to recognize and be able to shift between models is a mark of intellectual maturity. We should wish this for our students.

136

Nancy Menning

To bring these mental models to awareness in the environmental humanities classroom in our current historical, societal, and educational context, we must trouble the assumed relationships between religion and science with respect to interpreting the natural world. Leap is an “interrogation of faith” in the sense that Williams, moved by her initial encounter with the Bosch painting, is provoked to reflect critically on her experience of (and love for) the natural world in light of Mormon history generally and specifically her own personal experience as a member of the LDS Church. Her intent is not to play received tradition against her own experience, but to risk questioning both tradition and experience so as to enliven both and achieve a measure of integration. If Leap is taught as an “interrogation of faith” (and faith alone)—as Williams herself describes it—the danger is that students will think the critical eye is on Mormonism and that “Science” will win the day. My approach to teaching Leap seeks to dissuade students from taking that easy interpretive path. Ultimately, I want students to analyze and evaluate how humanities perspectives—in particular, religious perspectives—shape human perception of the environment, alongside (not instead of and not as an afterthought to) science. Few students will enter an environmental humanities course believing that science alone is sufficient for a full understanding of the natural world, but many will see it as foundational, with other perspectives—perhaps drawn from the humanities—added on only after the sciences authoritatively describe the objective reality. I want to cultivate a deepened awareness and capacity for introspection in students that recognizes that our perception of the natural world is mediated by many narratives and experiences— religious, scientific, and otherwise—each with its distinctive authoritative force. While Leap alone will not convey this insight, by the end of an environmental humanities course I would hope that students would begin to recognize that claims for the relative authority of one source over another are culturally constructed and, moreover, less assertions about truth than claims about identity and struggles for power.

Notes 1 Glen Love, Practical Ecocriticism: Literature, Biology, and the Environment (Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 2003), 25. 2 John Grim, Russell Powell, Matthew T. Riley, Tara C. Trapani, Mary Evelyn Tucker, “Religion and Ecology”. In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Ecology, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/docu ment/obo-9780199830060/obo-9780199830060-0103.xml (accessed 26 Jan. 2014). 3 Terry Tempest Williams, Leap (New York: Pantheon, 2000). 4 Other themes include Identities; Inquiry, Imagination, and Innovation; Power and Justice; Mind, Body, Spirit; and A World of Systems. 5 For example, see Pratchayapong Yasri et al., “Relating Science and Religion: An Ontology of Taxonomies and Development of a Research Tool for Identifying Individual Views,” Science & Education 22, no. 10 (2013). 6 Terry Tempest Williams, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (New York: Vintage Books, 1991). 7 Subsequent citations to Leap are given as parenthetical citations. 8 Terry Tempest Williams, Finding Beauty in a Broken World (New York: Pantheon, 2008). 9 Larry Silver, Hieronymus Bosch (New York: Abbeville Press, 2006). 10 When the shutters of the painting are closed, the exterior of the closed panels depicts the earth on day three of the biblical creation, as given in Genesis 1. The earth appears as a flat landscape with vegetation, lacking animal and human life, and enclosed in a sphere. Outside the sphere, an image of the Creator God appears in the upper left corner. 11 Here, I am imagining a new 200-level course on Religion and Nature, created for the new integrative core curriculum, and taught for the first time in Fall 2014. 12 Discussion of these passages provides a great opportunity to point students to the richness of Williams’s endnotes, which elaborate these religious beliefs and practices. I also take this opportunity in the

Interrogating Faith

13

14 15 16 17

137

classroom to distinguish between Williams’ style of citation in Leap and appropriate citation styles for academic writing. This is the kind of assignment I give students when I need to be away at a conference for a regularly scheduled class period. I release the group assignments and activity description just before class begins via the course website and require submission by email attachment at the conclusion of the class period. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the General Authorities are those members who serve in the highest administrative ranks of the Church’s ecclesiastical hierarchy. Williams draws here on just one of several possible etymological roots of the word religion in modern western languages. See Ernst Feil, ed. On the Concept of Religion (Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University, 2000). Quoted in David Thomas Sumner, “Testimony, Refuge, and the Sense of Place: A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams,” in A Voice in the Wilderness: Conversations with Terry Tempest Williams, ed. Michael Austin (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2006), 111. Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 26–32.

Bibliography Bain, Ken. What the Best College Teachers Do. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Feil, Ernst, ed. On the Concept of Religion. Binghamton, NY: Binghamton University Press, 2000. Love, Glen. Practical Ecocriticism: Literature, Biology, and the Environment. Virginia: University of Virginia Press, 2003. Silver, Larry. Hieronymus Bosch. New York: Abbeville Press, 2006. Sumner, David Thomas. “Testimony, Refuge, and the Sense of Place: A Conversation with Terry Tempest Williams.” In A Voice in the Wilderness: Conversations with Terry Tempest Williams, edited by Michael Austin, 100–114. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2006. Williams, Terry Tempest. Finding Beauty in a Broken World. New York: Pantheon, 2008. —— Leap. New York: Pantheon, 2000. —— Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Yasri, Pratchayapong, Shagufta Arthur, Mike U. Smith, and Rebecca Mancy. “Relating Science and Religion: An Ontology of Taxonomies and Development of a Research Tool for Identifying Individual Views.” Science & Education 22, no. 10 (2013): 2679–2707.

11 CONTESTING AND CONTEXTUALIZING ISLAM IN AMERICA Teaching Three Cups of Tea Michael Baltutis

In the Summer of 2011, I was invited to co-teach the First Year Honors Seminar at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, my home institution. The theme for that year was Ethics, and I decided to use Greg Mortenson’s 2006 Three Cups of Tea (hereafter, TCT) as the core text for my four-week section. I had not yet read Mortenson’s book, a non-fiction travelogue about a man who builds schools for girls in rural Muslim Pakistan, but I had certainly heard of it; nearly everybody in America had by that time, as the paperback had spent some four years on the New York Times bestsellers list, and Greg Mortenson had become something of an American sensation due to the charitable work that he promoted, through both his book and his extensive (and lucrative) speaking tour. Though I had earlier eschewed Mortenson’s book when planning a World Religions course some two years before this—I didn’t want this type of narrative, in which a white American male travels to a developing country to educate its young female citizens, to be my students’ only experience with Islam—I felt that this same book might be a perfect means to allow students to wrestle with the ethical and Religious Studies issues underlying such a narrative construct: the ambiguity of literary genre and the fine lines between travelogue, autobiography, and fiction; the effects of colonization and post-colonial power in South and West Asia; and the ability of, and the incentives for, authors to fabricate a heroic narrative in the supposed interest of performing humanitarian work abroad. Moreover, Mortenson’s narrative had recently been exposed as full of half-truths, and Mortenson himself had been accused of completely fabricating several of its key episodes. Thus, the undisclosed fictitious nature of Three Cups of Tea, combined with its wide popularity and the assumption that Greg Mortenson was doing good work, made it an important book to teach: though many students had heard of it, and some of their parents had read it, very few were aware of any controversy at all, and even fewer had read the critiques that had undermined it. My success teaching TCT in the Honors seminar led me to incorporate TCT into a new course entitled Religion and the Other, a course I developed for the university’s new general education program. This course is offered annually for first-semester students, and its theme of Intercultural Knowledge encourages instructors and students to construct meaningful dialogues around the question, “How do people understand and bridge cultural differences?” In this institutional setting, I have used Mortenson’s book to highlight the consistent ways that he

Teaching Three Cups of Tea

139

constructs opposing identities of himself and of the Muslim Others among whom he regularly works, thus allowing students to observe the ways that commonly held stereotypes are constructed and reinforced, especially in literature that is intended to be read as factual, autobiographical, and beneficial to the world.

Narrativizing and Problematizing Humanitarianism Mortenson’s book could only be taught—and TCT could only have been written—in the aftermath of 9/11, when the millions of Muslims living in the United States increasingly came under surveillance from agents of the American populace, government, and media.1 At the forefront of this anti-Islamic wave was (and still is) the American Freedom Defense Initiative and two of its officers, Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer. Geller, author of Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance (2011) and a writer for the “Atlas Shrugs” weblog, wrote in a recent article, “Anywhere Muslims emigrate, there is conflict, there is jihad. Anywhere there are Muslims, there is conflict.”2 Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of such works as Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World’s Fastest-Growing Faith (2003) and Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs (2008). In America, the content of these anti-Islam books is reinforced by popular web sites (such as The Counter Jihad Report), by the FBI and its training regimes,3 and by state governments seeking to eliminate sharia law. Finally, and on a more populist level, American citizens have been resisting the construction of Islamic cultural and religious spaces throughout the United States. The Park51 project (a.k.a. “the Ground Zero Mosque,” a term coined by Pamela Geller) on the lower east side of Manhattan has continued to meet with popular opposition despite its initial and repeated local support, while citizens in other parts of the country have taken the law into their own hands by attempting the destruction of one mosque in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and succeeding with another in Joplin, Missouri. TCT enters this contentious fray by proposing an alternative to the American government’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to its “war on terror” throughout the Muslim world, and to the popular American anti-Islamic sentiment described above. By 2006 the growing American discontent with the “blood and treasure” lost in these seemingly unwinnable wars created space for the construction of alternative ideologies and strategies, and Mortenson’s book represents just such an attempt. In fact, this alternative strategy can be seen in the book’s subtitle, changed from the original, “One Man’s Mission To Fight Terrorism and Build Nations . . . One School at a Time,” to “One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time.” This change in subtitle reflects not just a change in mission and ideology but also an assertion of identity: Mortenson is not associated with the American government— a point he makes several times in his book—and is working independently of the government’s personnel, finances, and materiel.4 To this end, Mortenson established the Central Asia Institute (CAI), with the following organizational mission: “To empower communities of Central Asia through literacy and education, especially for girls, promote peace through education and convey the importance of these activities globally.” Mortenson’s humanitarianism, fueled by a changing tide in American politics and funded by a broad swath of American donors inspired by Mortenson’s positive message, is established throughout the narrative of TCT.5 In the book’s fifth chapter, for example, “580 Letters, One Check,” Mortenson tells the story of his early attempts to obtain funding for his mission to build schools for girls in Pakistan by sending out letters to famous Americans; as the title of the chapter makes clear, the attempts to fund-raise resulted in only one donation, a $100 check from

140

Michael Baltutis

Tom Brokaw (52). This episode further establishes the two types of donations that Greg sought: large donations from rich and famous individuals like French computer scientist Jean Hoerni, who funded Greg’s work for years, and small contributions from the general public that mainly came from book proceeds. Mortenson narrativizes this latter form of popular humanitarianism throughout TCT, thus providing a model for the type of donation that would fuel his mission. For example, when Greg is having difficulty drawing a famous benefactor to his cause, his mother, an elementary school principal in Wisconsin, writes Greg a letter stating that “her students had spontaneously launched a ‘Pennies for Pakistan’ drive . . . [f]illing two forty-gallon trash cans with 62,345 pennies” (52). Greg provides a second example of small giving when he and Tara Bishop are married after only knowing each other for six days; on a celebratory San Francisco cable car ride, fellow riders “showered them with cigars, money, and congratulations” (134). Finally, and the most important example of popular giving in TCT is one of the book’s central and most controversial episodes (163–173). While en route to Waziristan, Greg is kidnapped by members of the Taliban after being explicitly told by his Balti mentor and local father figure, Haji Ali, to only go to places where he already has contacts. While being held captive, Mortenson, who has already learned how to pray as a proper Muslim, asks for “El Koran . . . miming a man of faith paging through a holy book” (167). Amidst a host of details, each of which is too good to be true, and following eight days in captivity, Greg is released as the Wazir members of the Taliban throw a party in Greg’s honor, stuffing hundred-rupee notes into Greg’s pockets: “For your schools!” Greg’s Pakistani savior tells him, “So, Inshallah, you’ll build many more!”.6

Misrepresenting and Misunderstanding Muslim Men and Women The kidnapping episode is built, as the bulk of TCT is, on a series of blatant untruths, glaring generalizations, and subtle deceptions that call into question Mortenson’s entire mission. Moreover, these details play into a larger narrative of alterity, as Mortenson uses his book as a means to construct the identities of both himself and, just as importantly, of the Muslim Others with whom he works. Rather than attempting to sympathetically remove obstacles to “a real and substantive engagement with the Other,” Mortenson’s narrative further entrenches a series of differences between himself (and, by extension, his readers) and Muslims living on the other side of the globe (Cabezon 2006, 26). Mortenson establishes, in his narrative of the kidnapping episode, a sort of contradiction that he masterfully and strategically manipulates throughout the book: whereas his character is that of an American who respects diversity—especially the local Islamic Balti culture where he works—the local people become “rural, ignorant, and extremist,” as sociologist Nosheen Ali notes in her masterful 2010 critique of TCT (2010, 546–549).7 It is through a close reading of these episodes that my students begin to understand precisely what type of narrative Mortenson is working to construct and the reasons that Americans gave so generously to his humanitarian mission. Mortenson strews examples of all three of these characteristics – “rural, ignorant, and extremist” – throughout the book, but there are several key moments where all three come together. Of these examples, most deal with food and women and provide a tight set of themes that students can then easily follow throughout the book, thus allowing us to view the ways that Mortenson (re-)constructs a Pakistani Muslim identity that readers will find to be all-too familiar. In one example, when Greg is invited to accompany a local ibex hunt, he opines that Western mountain climbers had “more complicated motives” than the Balti hunters and that ultimately these hunters “weren’t so different from the ibex they pursued” (117). (Mortenson

Teaching Three Cups of Tea

141

uses similar animalistic language when he says that the lowland Pakistanis “looked like a different species” than the Pashto-speaking Kohistanis (79) and later when he states that the graduates of local madrassa schools “breed like rabbits” (244).) In many other places, Mortenson depicts Balti women hiding behind their veils or otherwise making themselves difficult of access.8 In one brief episode, he connects this invisibility of Muslim women to polygamy and, by one short leap, to Islam itself. Mortenson notes how his local manager, Changazi, who “skimmed off every transaction” in pursuance of the construction of Mortenson’s school in Korphe, supported a wife and five children “stashed” at home in the distant town of Rawalpindi, with a second wife “tucked away” in nearby Skardu, while also “tucking into a smorgasbord of the female tourists and trekkers who were arriving in Skardu in ever greater numbers” (109–110). Greg notes how Changazi “squared his dalliances with his devotion to Islam” by consistently petitioning his local mullah for permission to make a muthaa, a temporary marriage. Greg’s desire for gender equality leads him to ask whether women can also be granted a muthaa. The response that Mortenson has Changazi provide, “No, of course not,” serves to support Greg’s mission to bring education to Pakistan’s girls by establishing Islam as one of institutional sources of gender inequality in Pakistan. Examples of the convergence of these three Balti and Islamic characteristics build to a crescendo as Mortenson approaches the key kidnapping episode. Immediately preceding his kidnapping, Mortenson portrays his soon-to-be kidnappers with the same animal-like characteristics that he attributed to the Balti ibex hunters; as they begin their meal, they “attacked [the dish of lamb] with their long daggers, stripping tender meat from the bone and cramming it into their mouths with the blades of their knives”; Mortenson notes, as an aside, that “this was the most primal, barbaric meal I’ve ever been a part of” (162). Following this “barbaric” meal, Greg is kidnapped, and he describes his main kidnapper as “a wild man with a matted beard and gray turban [who] was shouting in a language [Greg] didn’t understand” and who “smoked bowl after bowl of hashish” (163, 165). These examples are key for understanding Mortenson’s portrayal of the deleterious effects of Islam on the people (especially the women) of the region, of the potential for acts of international terrorism given the local barbarism they display, and thus of the need for Greg’s educational project.

Intervening in the Text, Clarifying the Genre These examples of the “rural, ignorant, and extremist” characteristics of Pakistani Muslims are initially lost on my students as they, like millions of Americans before them, get caught up in the heroism that Greg displays as he builds—“[f]or the first time in recorded history,” he writes (195)—a school for girls in Pakistan.9 Though I can assume that some amount of the content of TCT is true, I no longer feel confident determining which parts are true and which are not; thus, my task becomes one of teaching a book whose premises are essentially false, whose underlying motives are deceptive, and whose writing (to be brutally honest) is of a very low quality. Though TCT might easily be considered an example of “bad literature,” I have not been dissuaded from using it; rather, due to its great popularity and its relevant political message in contemporary America, I have felt an even greater obligation to use this book as a means to introduce students to the motivations behind, more generally speaking, the production of literature. Working with the assumption that nothing in Mortenson’s life is accurately represented in TCT allows the class to focus on the content of the narrative, just as we would with a work of fiction. But that only comes later.

142

Michael Baltutis

To begin the class, I ask students to focus on three narrative constructions that Mortenson employs throughout the text: that of his own character, that of the Pakistani Muslims who appear throughout, and that of the humanitarian work he performs. Responses to these three issues—offered within the context of lectures, student-led discussions, and written responses— allow us to better understand how Mortenson draws in his (largely, White) American audience to financially support his cause. In response to the first issue, Mortenson’s narrative construction of his own character (whom I’m referring to as “Greg” throughout this essay), students are initially drawn to Greg’s ambition to help those less fortunate; one student wrote, for example, “I loved Greg’s determination and dedication to everything he sets his mind to. He reminded me a lot of myself.” One relevant facet of Greg’s character, variably described throughout TCT, is his appreciation of cultural diversity. Having been brought up in Tanzania as a member of “the African Mortensons” (39) —a missionary family that built both a school and a hospital— Greg mastered the Swahili language and Tanzanian culture and thus became “oblivious to race” (36). Mortenson transfers this acceptance of diversity from Swahili to Islam, when Greg asks Manzoor the tailor to teach him how to pray: “Are you a Muslim?”, the tailor asks; “I respect Islam,” Greg replies (62). Yet Mortenson foregrounds the very Whiteness of his project by twice constructing incidents where he was beaten up by young African-American males; in the first, a “tall, sinewy basketball player wearing a Cadillac hood ornament around his neck on a gold chain” challenged Greg’s African identity (39); and in the second, four young boys, made to speak in an obvious caricature of an African-American speech pattern, rob Greg at gunpoint on the streets of Berkeley, earning for themselves the only two dollars Greg carried with him (105). The second issue, the narrative construction of the Pakistani Muslims with whom he works, highlights the book’s most blatant examples of Islamophobia and is exemplified in the kidnapping episode, detailed above, where he conspicuously misidentifies his caretakers as his kidnappers (Krakauer 2011, 18–19). As I deal with this theme throughout this essay, I will move here to the third construction, that of the humanitarian work he performs, certainly the most nuanced and pervasive of these three issues. Near the end of the second week, and in the midst of their long-standing love affair with Greg Mortenson and his mission, I begin to slowly pull back the curtain by drawing attention to a number of episodes from the book that allow us to question Greg’s understanding of his mission. I will outline three of these interventions here. The first provides what I feel to be an extraordinarily illuminating display of Greg’s lack of self-consciousness, as he communicates his internal struggle over whether or not to build a bridge that the people of Korphe have requested of him, rather than the school that he has promised them and which he would then have to build later. This section is worth quoting at length. Mortenson fretted about the effect his bridge would have on the isolated village: The people of Korphe had a hard life, but they also lived with a rare kind of purity,’ Mortenson says. ‘I knew the bridge would help them get to a hospital in hours instead of days, and would make it easier to sell their crops. But I couldn’t help worrying about what the outside world, coming in over the bridge, would do to Korphe.10 (112) In the flow of Mortenson’s hardly believable narrative, the bridge conveys to Korphe the worst of all possible characters: Haji Mehdi, the chief of a neighboring village. Upon his arrival, he castigates the people of Korphe for allowing Greg to build a school, since, as Mortenson has Haji Mehdi say, “Allah forbids the education of girls” (152). Though twelve rams are demanded

Teaching Three Cups of Tea

143

and given as the price for allowing the school to be completed, Greg and Korphe get the last laugh: “Long after all those rams are dead and eaten this school will still stand,” Haji Ali affirms. “Haji Mehdi has food today. Now our children have education forever” (153). In this episode, Greg tells American readers precisely what they have paid to hear: that Greg is truly concerned about the future of Korphe and that conservative Islam will not triumph over the (Western) education of Pakistan’s girls. Greg’s lack of self-consciousness in this episode is so clear as to be deceptive: while he admits to “fretting” over the construction of a bridge, he has no qualms and expresses no concern over constructing a school whose primary goal is to educate—and thus to change the lives of—Pakistani children. The introduction of this detail marks my first significant contribution to the class, as I had previously left the analysis of the book up to the students and to those details and episodes they found important. This detail allows me to provide what is typically the first dissenting voice, questioning both Greg’s motives and his narrative and thus allowing us to begin to separate Greg the character from Mortenson the author. During the next class period, I introduce a second dissenting detail that occurs during Greg’s kidnapping by the Taliban, a story that is, in my opinion, the most egregiously concocted story of the entire book. (This story concludes, as I mentioned above, with the Taliban celebrating Greg’s educational mission by stuffing his pockets with money.) The cell in which Greg was kept contained a November 26, 1979, English language issue of Time magazine. This issue (“The Test of Wills”) has Jimmy Carter and the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini on the cover and contains several articles on the Iran hostage crisis. Reading through the articles, Greg notes the “photos of helpless blindfolded Americans at the mercy of fanatical, taunting crowds” (165). Mortenson rightly questions the situation of this magazine in his Waziristan prison cell: “Had this particular Time magazine been put here as a message of some sort? Or was it a hospitable gesture, the only English reading material his hosts had on hand?” (165). My explicit posing of this question to my students—Who placed it there?—often breaks new ground, as the students admit that they felt uneasy as they read this episode: though there was something unbelievable in it, they simply weren’t aware that they were allowed to question the veracity of this, or any other, episode in the book. After some discussion, I provide my own response to this question, as I further separate author from character: I assert that Greg Mortenson, the author of TCT, placed it there, and then I defend the author’s strategic placement of that particular magazine in his prison cell. Within a work of fiction, I argue, the insertion of such a historical episode tells us much about how Mortenson desires his audience to see him: that is, like the American hero-victims who were taken from the American Embassy and held hostage for over a year between 1979 and 1981, all this in a country newly taken over by an Islamic theocracy with its “fanatical, taunting crowds.” Initially confused by my position, students quickly mass against Mortenson; my assertion of the narrative value of this implausible detail becomes part of an increasingly futile line of argumentation that I offer in his defense: if this detail is not true, many students wonder aloud at this point, what else might be untrue? My third major intervention is the one I perceive to be the most important and serious of the lot, as I attempt to discern the ways that Mortenson sells his mission to the American public— and, thus, to my students. Towards the end of TCT, he spends significant time contrasting his schools to the “Wahhabi madrassas” built throughout Pakistan and contrasting himself to the builders of these madrassas (242). Mortenson likens these madrassas to beehives, with “many students hidden inside” and refers to them as “the most virulent incubator of religious extremism,” schools that provide “millions of Pakistan’s parents with their only opportunity to

144

Michael Baltutis

educate their children” (242, 243). Mortenson places this “beehive” metaphor into the mouth of his assistant, Apo, but allows Greg to provide a cutting analysis of the financial sponsors of these programs with which he assumes his largely American audience will agree: This wasn’t just a few Arab sheikhs getting off Gulf Air flights with bags of cash. They were bringing the brightest madrassa students back to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for a decade of indoctrination, then encouraging them to take four wives when they came home and breed like rabbits…. They’re churning out generation after generation of brainwashed students and thinking twenty, forty, even sixty years ahead to a time when their armies of extremism will have the numbers to swarm over Pakistan and the rest of the Islamic world.11 (244–245) Mortenson’s language in his account of the regional and potentially international domination of Islam is little different from the paranoid language of the conservative authors described in the introduction to this essay. Also, and somewhat ironically, his descriptions of the funders of these madrassas are little different from the descriptions he offers of himself: like the “Saudi sheikhs” who carried billions of dollars of oil money in their suitcases (292), Mortenson describes Greg as carrying wads of cash—“a big roll of rupees,” “stacks of small rupee notes,” and “a brick of American dollars” stuffed into the many pockets of his photographer’s vest—that he distributes for the construction of his own schools (123, 245, 325). The issue of the madrassas becomes one of the most memorable portions of Nosheen Ali’s “Books vs. Bombs. . .”, which students read in the fourth and final week of this unit. After describing American interventionist politics in Afghanistan and Pakistan and describing “TCT [as] a text in which such uncomfortable truths are not present, and indeed, details in general do not matter” (2010, 546), Ali addresses Mortenson’s over-simplification of madrassas, citing studies that show that only 3.8% of Pakistani students attend madrassas and some of those students also attend another public or private school (2010, 548–549). This statistic constitutes for my students one of Ali’s most important counter-claims regarding the educational situation in Pakistan and a major impediment to their continued support of Greg Mortenson. John Krakauer’s 2011 “Three Cups of Deceit. . .”, the final reading of the unit, is equally scathing, though for different reasons. Krakauer (whom Mortenson mentions as one of his earliest supporters and donors [2006, 275]) focuses on the inconsistencies of the CAI’s financial records that hide the millions of dollars that went to support the Three Cups of Tea book tour.12 Krakauer begins his essay, however, by focusing on Mortenson’s narrative fabrications, and he employs the language of mythology to attempt to understand Mortenson’s narrative choices throughout Three Cups of Tea. In reference to the book’s opening story where Greg stumbles into Korphe, Krakauer asserts, “It’s a compelling creation myth, one that he has repeated in thousands of public appearances and media interviews. The problem is, it’s precisely that: a myth” (2011, 6). I find this a productive rhetorical strategy, which I support in my class through several definitions of myth. First, my own: “A myth is a story—neither fiction nor non-fiction—that is part of a larger culture and that tells us something about ourselves.” And second, that of Bruce Lincoln, who defines myth as “that small class of stories that possesses both credibility and authority” (2011, 24, emphasis in original). This language of myth provides us with an opportunity to move beyond the fictitious nature of the book and ask, in Lincoln’s terms, why it possesses such credibility and authority; in other words, why did we all buy (purchase and believe) this book?

Teaching Three Cups of Tea

145

Conclusion Greg Mortenson’s regular depictions of Muslims as unkempt terrorists and of himself as a paragon of diversity presents a duality that exists broadly within America today: in a post-9/11 (and post-TCT ) world, we are still coming to grips with a new wave of diverse immigrants whom we have reduced to the “foreign” religion they practice. Though Greg’s massively popular mission to bring education to the children of Pakistan has provided an alternative to the war on terror that the American government has been engaged in since 9/11, it is intensely flawed. More than the untruths strewn throughout TCT or Mortenson’s financial missteps as the head of the CAI, I feel it is important for students to realize the flaws in the mission itself, and it is here that another type of mythology emerges. Mortenson’s project provides an example of what writer Teju Cole refers to, in an another article that students in this class read, as the “White-Savior Industrial Complex,” “the fastest growth industry in the West . . . [that] supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening” (Cole 2012). Cole coined this “Complex” as a response to the KONY 2012 campaign, in which a small group of tech-savvy American young men sought to bring attention to the African warlord Joseph Kony. The underlying view of this Complex—“The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm . . . [and] to satisfy the needs—including, importantly, the sentimental needs—of white people and Oprah”—brings Mortenson’s mission within its scope as well. The key to this Complex, Cole argues, is that it willfully ignores the social, political, and economic factors that led to the initial “problem to be solved”—factors often exacerbated by the home country of those working to “solve” these problems.13 Not surprisingly, by the end of this unit students are ready to vent their anger at Greg Mortenson for the financial missteps, narrative untruths, and contrived mythology to which they had been unwittingly subjected. More importantly, however, they display a shocking degree of honesty and humility, publicly stating their feelings of embarrassment and of betrayal for having trusted Greg Mortenson; one student went so far as to say, “I don’t know what to believe anymore.” After sympathizing with and supporting Mortenson’s mission to bring education and civilization to a forgotten corner of America’s post-9/11 “war on terror,” students in these classes gradually realize that their perceptions of Islam, of literature, and of themselves have been similarly constructed by an American media whose over-simplified and profit-driven world readily projected Greg Mortenson as a “white savior,” though one who might no longer be worthy of either our admiration or our donations.14

Notes 1 The 2013 publication of Malala Yousafzai’s I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban must, I argue, be read against Mortenson’s narrative; both authors, for example, vociferously argue that education is the primary antidote to terrorism. 2 Pamela Geller, “11 killed as axe-wielding Muslims attack police station in China,” Atlas Shrugs, November 17, 2013. The title of Geller’s blog refers to Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel that advocates rational self-interest and that has become influential among America’s conservative right. 3 Spencer Ackerman, “FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical.’” Wired.com. September 14, 2011. 4 The 2009 “Young Reader’s Edition” of TCT carries a subtitle of “One Man’s Journey to Change the World . . . One Child at a Time.” 5 To differentiate the several facets of Greg Mortenson, I will use “Greg” to refer to the central character of TCT, and “Mortenson” to refer to the book’s author.

146

Michael Baltutis

6 Mortenson includes another episode, much later in the book, set at a sporting goods store in Minnesota in which a young employee, speaking in a heavy “surfer” accent, donates his ten dollars in beer money towards Greg’s cause (228). 7 Ali’s critique is masterful, in my opinion, primarily because its publication in 2010 predates the public exposé of Mortenson’s book in April 2011. 8 Some examples include Sakina, “who smiled shyly, tucked her burgundy headscarf between her teeth, and hid behind it” (113); Shakeela, “who covers her face with her shawl in embarrassment” (207); the fifteen-year old Fatima Batool who “lets her white shawl fall over her face, taking refuge within the fabric” (223); Jahan, who previously wanted to “hide [her] face”, but now feels more “clear and clean” after her graduation from Greg’s school (313); and women who “cloaked themselves within white burkhas” (326). 9 Greg also credits himself with constructing the “first uplift water scheme in this history of northern Pakistan”, a project that the Northern Areas Administration and the United Nations’ High Commission for Refugees both refused to take up (221). 10 Krakauer cites a memo from Mortenson that shows that he had always intended to build this bridge as a necessary corollory to the construction of the Korphe school (2011, 72–73). 11 Mortenson similarly describes Osama bin Laden, in an unrelated episode, with “attaché cases crammed with untraceable hundred-dollar bills, and a retinue of fighters. . .” (155). This quotation also includes more of the animalistic language that Mortenson has used elsewhere: the “rabbits” in this passage describes the sexual appetite of the male Muslim graduates of the madrassa but also refers back to the residents of Korphe (a village whose “unwashed humanity” Greg smelled before he saw), who reside in a “tightly packed warren of square three-story homes, built without adornment” (25). 12 As of 2012, the CAI had net assets of more than $22 million. On the CAI website (www.ikat.org), Greg Mortenson is currently listed as “Co-founder, International Program Director”; David Starnes is the current Executive Director, a position that Mortenson held until 2011. 13 Cole (2012) lists such factors as the “militarization of poorer countries, short-sighted agricultural policies, resource extraction, the propping up of corrupt governments, and the astonishing complexity of long-running violent conflicts over a wide and varied terrain.” And Ali provocatively suggests that “one might more appropriately declare the US [rather than Pakistan’s Northern Areas] as the ‘region that gave birth to the Taliban’” (545). 14 Mara Ahmed’s 2008 film The Muslims I Know provides an excellent medium for showing the ways that we are socialized by the American media to see Islam and Muslims in certain stereotyped ways.

Bibliography Ackerman, Spencer. “FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical.’” Wired.com. September 14, 2011. Ahmed, Mara (dir.). The Muslims I Know. Neelum Films, 2008. Ali, Nosheen. “Books vs Bombs? Humanitarian Development and the Narrative of Terror in Northern Pakistan.” Third World Quarterly 31, 4 (2010): 541–559. Cabezón, José Ignacio. “The Discipline and Its Other: The Dialectic of Alterity in the Study of Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74, 1 (2006): 21–38. Central Asia Institute. www.ikat.org (accessed November 12, 2013). Cole, Teju. “The White-Savior Industrial Complex.” The Atlantic, March 21, 2012. Counter Jihad Report, The. http://counterjihadreport.com/(accessed July 2, 2018). Geller, Pamela. Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Washington DC: WND Books, 2011. Krakauer, Jon. “Three Cups of Deceit: How Greg Mortenson, Humanitarian Hero, Lost His Way.” San Francisco: Byliner, 2011. Lincoln, Bruce. Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1992. Mortenson, Greg, and David Oliver Relin. Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time. New York: Penguin, 2006.

Teaching Three Cups of Tea

147

––– Three Cups of Tea: Young Readers Edition: One Man’s Journey to Change the World. . .One Child at a Time. New York: Dial, 2009. Spencer, Robert. Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions about the World’s Fastest-Growing Faith. New York: Encounter, 2003. ––– Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2008. Yousafzai, Malala. I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2013.

12 RELIGION AND THE SELF Life Writing as a Literary Form and Religious Practice John D. Barbour

When I arrived at St. Olaf College in 1982, I was assigned to “God and Faith in Autobiography,” a course on classic and modern Christian autobiographies. The only autobiographies I had read were Augustine’s Confessions and Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections. The next summer I participated in an National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar with James Olney and a dozen literary critics on “The Forms of Autobiography” and quickly got interested in this just-emerging new field. The genres of autobiography and memoir became central in my teaching and scholarship. I have written books and essays about religious and ethical themes in autobiography and taught three courses: “God and Faith in Autobiography,” “Women’s Spiritual Autobiographies,” and “Religious Autobiographies by Multicultural Americans,” which focuses especially on African Americans and Native Americans. I also use life narratives in other teaching, such as a seminar on conversion and a course on the ethics of travel. This chapter first interprets life writing as a literary genre and religious action and then discusses the three courses focused on life writing. I hope these reflections will be helpful both to instructors devoting an entire course to this genre and to those using life writing texts in other kinds of religious studies courses.

Life Writing as Genre and Religious Practice It is helpful to orient students to life writing by first discussing what it is and how it has religious significance. In the first class of a course dealing with these texts, I start by exploring the variety of literary forms and the distinctive qualities of this genre. The best working definition is Philippe Lejeune’s: autobiography is a “retrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning his own existence, where the focus is his individual life, in particular the story of his personality.”1 Yet this definition leaves out works of poetry like Wordsworth’s The Prelude, thematic essays like Montaigne’s, collaborative works, and books where the focus is as much on family, religion, or other people as on the author. There is no agreed-upon critical terminology for the genre known variously as life writing, autobiography, memoir, creative non-fiction, or “the fourth genre” (along with poetry, fiction, and drama). I use the term “life writing” as an umbrella term to refer to all kinds of narratives about an author’s own life. The term “autobiography” properly refers to a written representation of an entire life, although every

Religion and the Self

149

work inevitably selects only parts of a life. A “memoir” is a personal narrative that focuses on one period or aspect of the author’s life or a theme such as illness, a journey, a relationship with a parent, religious experiences, or the significance of racial, gendered, or religious identity. Life writing takes many forms: conversion stories, personal essays, illness and recovery narratives, diaries, journals, letters, family memoirs, witnessing and testimonial accounts of historical events, and memoirs that take their shape from a particular passage in the author’s life, for instance wartime experience, bereavement, child raising, coming out as gay, or addiction and recovery. The only thing these diverse literary forms have in common is the author’s attempt to represent the self, and an implicit or explicit claim of truthfulness (which is itself a much-contested notion, as in recent discussions of “truthiness”). Although in class (and in this chapter), I use the terms life writing, autobiography, and memoir without exacting concern for their nuances, I want students to realize how many ways there are to write about one’s life, and to think about why an author chose a particular form. I hope they will discover memoir’s great potential for creativity and beauty as we engage in traditional literary analysis of each text’s formal features and rhetoric. In recent years the media of self-representation have expanded from traditional printed books to comics, graphic novels, film and video, tape-recorded oral narratives, personal websites, confessional radio and television programs, personal email, and digital formats such as websites, blogs, and Facebook. In my courses I don’t explore these new media, but other teachers might make more use of them, exploring how these ways of representing the self create meaning. There are many resources that can help teachers of religious studies to better understand the forms of life writing. Of several new journals dedicated to this kind of writing, I recommend especially Biography, A/B: Auto/Biography, and Life Writing. A helpful reference work is The Encyclopedia of Life Writing.2 The International Auto/Biography Association organizes interdisciplinary and international conferences on life writing. Scholarship on the many forms of life writing has expanded and deepened in many academic disciplines, including sociology, psychology, and the fields within the Modern Language Academy.3 What is the religious significance of life writing? This genre is an invaluable way to understand how historical religious traditions have shaped individual lives. This is especially true for Christian tradition. The classic personal narratives of Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Ignatius of Loyola, John Bunyan, C. S. Lewis, and Dorothy Day, for example, provide compelling accounts of Christian faith in varied cultural contexts. More secular works by writers somewhat distanced from Christian tradition, such as Benjamin Franklin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Leo Tolstoy show how Christian values and beliefs influenced individuals who were critical of many aspects of Christianity. First-person life writing is less common in the history of many other religious traditions, including Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Narratives from oral traditions raise questions about the nature of collaborations between so-called “informants” and editors who were missionaries, teachers, or anthropologists with their own agendas. The practices of life writing outside the West raise the complex issue of whether autobiography depends on a Western conception of the self. While autobiography arose and flourished in the West, the last few decades have witnessed individuals throughout the world publishing books that claim to represent the author’s life, and often, too, his or her religious community. The world-wide “memoir boom” is not simply a quirk of the publishing industry, but rather a striking cultural development that invites literary analysis and religious reflection. This present situation has helped scholars recognize how lives have been represented in the history of non-Western traditions.4 Outside the West, texts describing an author’s religious experiences and practices are usually less concerned with

150

John D. Barbour

portraying uniqueness or singularity than they are with exemplifying a collective sense of identity or a community’s shared values. Teachers of religious studies must learn to recognize the diverse forms of writing about the self in the world’s religious traditions and help students to discern both similarities and differences in comparison to the classical Western tradition of autobiography. Life writing represents the past; it also reveals a kind of religious practice in the author’s present moment, that is, in the act of writing. What makes an autobiography or memoir religious is the author’s attempt to describe and evaluate his or her life from the perspective of present convictions about what is ultimate or sacred. Such writing may attest to a significant religious event and experience in various ways. The author may praise God, confess sin, exhort readers—or, like Augustine, do all of these things. Autobiography often reveals a struggle with conscience in the attempt to be truthful.5 Life narratives may test the adequacy of a religious community’s norms, affirming certain communal values and criticizing others. A writer may wrestle with doubts about theology, assessing how well doctrines make sense of personal experience. In all of these ways, writing one’s life story is more than a matter of recording the past; it is an attempt to find meaning that will orient the writer’s future living. When teaching these texts, one should focus as much on the writer at the moment of narrating the story as on the writer as depicted in the past. Why is he or she writing? To answer this question, students should look for “the story of the story,” both as the author describes the genesis of the book and the process of writing, and as the author may suggest in oblique ways. Life writing is an attempt to convince readers of the value of a certain kind of life, even when an author like Augustine depicts his past self as a bad example, as vandal of pears, egotistical teacher, and sex-obsessed lover. An author may challenge and try to reorient readers’ beliefs about what is worthy of ultimate loyalty and trust. A memoir writer may intervene into a culture that denies value to his or her life by implicitly asserting: “I have worth, and I can speak for myself.” Memoir has historically functioned as a gateway through which various marginalized and minority populations have entered not only the literary world, but public consciousness. This has been the case for women’s mystical writings, letters, and conversion narratives, and for African Americans as far back as antebellum slave narratives. Memoir played an important role in a succession of civil rights movements including political struggles by American racial minorities, the women’s liberation movement, efforts to gain gay rights and recognition, and consciousness-raising and rights struggles on behalf of persons with disabilities such as deafness, mental illness, and other handicaps and conditions. The political struggles of marginalized peoples around the world, including India’s dalit and tribal groups, the Aboriginal communities of Australia, and many others, are expressed in literary works that portray the value of their religious and cultural traditions and the threats of modernization, Western culture, and globalization. Life writing should be conceived of and taught not simply as a genre of literature, then, but also as a form of cultural action or practice that is increasingly significant and controversial around the world. Unlike most other literary genres, it is accessible to people who are not professional writers, and its meaning is rooted in and speaks for the lives of ordinary people who do not write. The heart of life writing is convictions about what gives life meaning, which is a religious question. I want my students to make this issue central in their thinking about the text. One reason for the prevalence of life writing in the modern world is anxiety about personal identity as individuals encounter the possibility of a secular orientation, the loosening of communal loyalties, and the challenge of other faiths and worldviews in an increasingly mobile

Religion and the Self

151

and interdependent global culture. Religious commitments can help or hinder the search for selfhood in various ways. Memoir writers show the ways that personal identity is shaped by one’s membership in a community of origin and also the ways in which identity is singular, distinctive, unique, and a matter of choice. Life writing reveals interplay and tension between communal norms for life stories and acts of individual differentiation. Both of these pressures— adherence to communal norms and personal searching—shape an author’s convictions about what is ultimate. For instance, in The Long Loneliness Dorothy Day tries to reconcile her loyalty to the Catholic Church with her views dissenting from the Church’s official positions on the 1930s labor movement, the justice of participation in the Second World War, and other ethical issues. In Dakota, Kathleen Norris shows both the destructive effects of her Presbyterian tradition’s view of sin and also her alternative understanding of sin. Without converting to the Catholic Church, Norris challenges Protestant readers to recognize what is missing in their own tradition as she grows increasingly appreciative of what she learns in monasteries.6 These life writers discern how their formative religious tradition’s symbolic resources and mythic narratives illumine personal experience, as well as ways that their tradition fails to help in the task of self-understanding or needs to be criticized in terms of other values. I usually teach some texts by authors who are quite critical of religious institutions and communities yet may be considered spiritual autobiographers. There is religious meaning in a writer’s identification with traditional beliefs and institutions, and also in the searching for orientation and meaning that may lead to a highly individualized spirituality. Particularly in the West, spirituality usually means the personal, experiential aspects of religion rather than an organized community’s doctrines, institutions, and rituals. Spiritual autobiographies are shaped by particular religious traditions, but the author is usually dissatisfied with or looking beyond institutionalized forms of worship and belief. For instance, one genre of spiritual autobiography is American nature writing by such authors as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, and Terry Tempest Williams. Another form of spiritual autobiography is writing by contemporary women who attempt to reconcile their apprehension of what is holy with patriarchal religious institutions, and to discriminate within their formative tradition that which is a source of oppression and that which is a liberating resource for women. Spiritual autobiographies are usually ambivalent about the author’s original religious tradition, sorting out those elements that the author rejects and those that personal experience helps them to appreciate. Such writers seek an individual path, a personal approach to what is holy, although they also hope to find community. Spiritual autobiographers cannot be taken simply as illustrating a religious community’s beliefs and values, nor can they be understood except in the context of a formative tradition. Instructors teaching many kinds of religious studies courses should consider using spiritual autobiographies in order to show how religious traditions continue to shape the lives of people not formally affiliated with institutions. Spiritual autobiographies show that relationship to a religious tradition changes and grows over time, can include doubt and ambivalence, and is not antithetical to individual selfhood. All of these ways of understanding memoir as an event in an author’s present situation emphasize the kind of religious action and cultural work that life writing does for the author and in relation to readers. By conceiving of life writing as a religious practice, we attend to how a text both reflects and tries to influence a culture’s deepest values and core convictions about life and what gives it meaning. Two two-part questions should orient the teaching of life writing texts. What is going on in the writer’s present moment, and in what sense is it a religious activity? What does the author think makes life meaningful, and how is this connected with convictions about what is ultimate, sacred, or most worthy of commitment?

152

John D. Barbour

Pedagogical Choices for Particular Courses “God and Faith in Autobiography” is a course that satisfies St. Olaf College’s general education requirement in Christian theology. This means that for the syllabus I choose works closely related to Christianity and I am particularly interested in how theological beliefs play a role in the author’s life. These life writers engage in a critical assessment of Christian beliefs, so the texts cannot be taken simply as illustrations of doctrines. I always start with Augustine’s Confessions and have taught texts by Abelard and Heloise, John Bunyan, C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Day, Edmund Gosse, Leo Tolstoy, Kathleen Norris, Sara Miles, Heidi Neumark, Langdon Gilkey, Mary McCarthy, James McBride, Ann Lamott, and others. I usually finish with Gilkey’s Shantung Compound, which retrieves and reinterprets Augustine’s focus on sin and providence. It is important that students see how each writer wrestles with Christian tradition, revising, rejecting, or reinterpreting different aspects of it. I hope to reach students who are alienated from Christianity or religiously indifferent, showing them that intelligent people have found wisdom and a resource for self-understanding in Christian ideas. I also hope to challenge uncritical believers of every sort, helping them to see that their version of faith is not the only one, and that Christian beliefs and practices raise a number of problems explored by autobiographers. I want students to think about the nature of faith as inclusive of but more than cognitive beliefs about God. We consider doubt and critical questioning, the role of emotion, and the ways that faith is bound up with a person’s relationships and community contexts. Is faith a matter of choice? How does the author portray its relationship to reason? How does faith change in the course of a lifetime? Other themes that run through the course are the search for vocation, attitudes to the institutional church, and the influence of parents, authority figures, and role models, even when writers rebel against them. Since so many Christian autobiographies are conversion narratives, we consider various ways in which conversion is experienced and depicted, including writers who go through a deconversion and those who emphasize a lifelong process of continuous conversion, such as Kathleen Norris and Sara Miles. Another thematic concern that shapes my teaching is assessment of claims about the human condition. In contrast to many secular authors who emphasize their uniqueness or singularity, Christian autobiographers almost always discern in their own lives truths about human existence and the human relationship to God. They want their life story to illuminate the reader’s experience. This sometimes takes the form of an explicit claim, such as Gilkey’s assertion that his two and a half years in a civilian internment camp in China during the Second World War “reduced society, ordinarily large and complex, to viewable size, and by subjecting life to greatly increased tension laid bare its essential structures.”7 Or it may be an implicit suggestion, such as C. S. Lewis’s interpretation of the elusive experience of joy, Dorothy Day’s reflections on “the long loneliness,” or Kathleen Norris’s account of the nature of human community as revealed in small town life in Dakota—for don’t we all live in “small towns”? Do these texts throw a new light on the reader’s life? Are there ways in which their generalizations and claims about human existence gloss over important differences due to gender, race, historical context, or alternative understandings of how God works in human experience? The written requirements for this course are a midterm exam, a research paper, and a takehome final essay exam that asks students to compare how three texts treat some common issue, such as vocation, suffering, the Church, doubts about Christian claims, or assertions about the human condition. I also ask students to write a short autobiographical account of some aspect of their lives—one incident, not the whole life! This helps them to appreciate the skill, insight, and

Religion and the Self

153

integrity of the great life writers. This autobiographical assignment is required, but ungraded: a happy release for students and the instructor. Other teachers, who feel more qualified to assess personal writing than I do, might want to make it a substantial part of the course grade. A pattern recurring in many of the texts I teach is the writer’s portrayal of a childhood understanding of Christian faith, a period of rebellion, and a return to a reinterpreted form of faith that is shaped by the desire to respond to the criticisms that once made the author an agnostic or atheist. I trace this pattern in the memoirs of C. S. Lewis, Dorothy Day, Edwin Muir, and Langdon Gilkey in “Apostasy and Apology in Christian Autobiography.”8 One sees the same basic trajectory of rejection and return in Norris’s Dakota and Miles’s Take This Bread. Some other texts, in contrast, depict a deconversion with no return to a religious tradition. I always include a text by an agnostic or atheist, such as Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood or Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son (although this book, which ends with Gosse’s disavowal of his father’s Plymouth Brethren beliefs, suggests his openness to a more liberal and ecumenical understanding of Christianity). Why do some people leave behind their childhood religion, while others want to stay connected to it, if in a new way? How much do we choose our faith, and how much do we find ourselves chosen, claimed, acknowledging a power we cannot deny? What do we do with our doubts and skepticism? These questions are not simply academic for twenty-year-old students thinking about their upbringing, whether it is secular, Christian, or in another religious tradition. Nor are these questions merely theoretical for me. I often find myself using first person pronouns, either singular or plural. Using life writing texts in any religious studies course invites students to think about their own lives. This can help bridge some of the gap students often feel between the academic study of religion and their own religious questioning. I try to connect the texts we read with our own lives, starting with my own. I sometimes suggest how these texts engender my own reflections or self-scrutiny, hoping to encourage students to be creative readers of both texts and their own lives by giving them an example that they can react to in various ways. I may simply state that Augustine’s account of stealing pears prompts memories of one’s own first awareness of wrongdoing. Kathleen Norris’s ideas about spiritual geography engender thinking about what spaces are sacred or formative for each of us. (For me, growing up as a faculty brat across the street from Carleton College, it was the climbing trees, hiding places, skateboard sidewalks, and Frisbee fields of a college campus, which formed an enormous and intricate playground.) I hope the autobiographies we read and discuss will give students touchstones that they may remember later in life, as they try to understand their own religious journeys. We learn to read ourselves by reading how others have written their selves, their lives. This approach to pedagogy thus raises the complex question of how, if ever, it is appropriate for students and the professor to speak of their own faith and beliefs. What is the relationship between teaching autobiography and teaching autobiographically? My context in a liberal arts college related to the Lutheran Church gives me somewhat greater freedom to “go personal” than some other institutional settings, I think, although the classroom’s power dynamics and students’ vulnerability mean that a professor’s self-disclosure about matters of religious faith is always a questionable enterprise.9 According to some theories of religious studies and many views of religious commitment, academic study and personal faith are utterly distinct, if not irreconcilable. In contrast, I think these perspectives on religion are different yet often related. St. Olaf’s identity as a college of the church encourages appropriate discussions of how learning and faith have influenced each other in our own lives. I see my role as not only teaching about religion and fostering a conceptual understanding of Christian thought, but also engendering a habit of thoughtful reflection about one’s own religious beliefs and personal values. For this

154

John D. Barbour

training in how to “profess religion,” that is, the goal of increased clarity and articulateness about beliefs and their expression in one’s life, it is hard to imagine a more rich, challenging, and inspiring subject matter than the genre of life writing. A second course I teach, “Religious Autobiographies by Multicultural Americans,” explores how religion has shaped the sense of identity of people of color in the United States. This course explores how Christianity has been viewed both negatively—as “the white man’s religion,” an instrument of domination—and positively as a resource for challenging patterns of injustice. Unlike “God and Faith in Autobiography,” this course does not count for the College’s theology requirement. It explores the role of several religious traditions, such as the Nation of Islam and Islam for Malcolm X, Lakota religion for Black Elk, and the Chinese “talk stories” that function as myths in Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior. Other texts on the syllabus include The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, N. Scott Momaday’s The Way to Rainy Mountain, and Paul Radin’s “as told to” life story, The Autobiography of a Winnebago Indian, which describes the ritual use of peyote. There are several handy anthologies of excerpts from Native American and African American texts.10 If you teach Black Elk Speaks, be sure you understand how this work reflects John Neihardt’s point of view as much as Black Elk’s.11 While many experts on Native American religions would avoid this controversial text, I think that, when placed in critical context, it raises crucial questions about “the white man’s Indian” and Black Elk’s intentions and religious orientation. These autobiographical texts are invaluable for exploring the intersections of race and religion in American history, whether in a course devoted to this topic or as a unit of a course on American religious history, thought, or culture. In the land where democratic ideals stress that personal identity is largely a matter of individual achievement and aspiration, people of color have reminded the nation of how much one’s destiny is defined and determined by ascriptions of race. Much of America’s greatest autobiographical writing is closely tied to reflections on the role of race in our history. The two most original and distinctively American forms of autobiography, the Indian captivity narrative and the slave narrative, are both preoccupied with matters of racial self-definition and link these concerns to religion. Slave narratives criticize the use of Christianity to uphold slavery and invoke a standard of authentic Christian faith to condemn slavery, even when, as in the case of Frederick Douglass, the author is ambivalent about Christianity. The slave narrative is the prototype for countless stories of liberation from other forms of social injustice based on class, racial, religious, or gendered identity. As much as Puritan confessions and conversion narratives, slave narratives and Indian captivity tales demonstrated how to use biblical stories as the basis for interpreting personal life, and they were also easily adaptable to secular outlooks. Autobiographical occasions of self-definition and selfassertion in response to racial prejudice have deeply influenced American literary and religious self-consciousness and remain a paradigm for many contemporary life writers. The first person voice can be intimate, drawing the reader into empathy and imaginative solidarity with the author, and also challenging, angry and accusing. The Autobiography of Malcolm X remains a provocative text that requires the instructor to deal with white students’ defensiveness or withdrawal. James McBride’s The Color of Water speaks in a more contemporary way to students’ sense of racial identity as often mixed and complicated rather than simply one thing. McBride’s subtitle, “A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother,” conveys both his multi-racial background and the way that in the United States racial identity may be ascribed and simplified by the color of one’s skin. His depiction of his mother’s Jewish past and Christian present raises important questions about mixed religious backgrounds. By portraying prejudice, stereotyping, and “othering” in American history, these texts invite discussion of the ways in which different forms of religion have perpetuated or resisted racial discrimination.

Religion and the Self

155

In the 1990s I taught a course on “Women’s Spiritual Autobiographies” that explored contemporary works. Topics discussed included conversion and deconversion, religious convictions and doubts, experiences of evil and grace, encounters with other religious traditions, ideas about gender, the search for individuality in tension with commitment to community, and the distinctive qualities of each author’s writing and spirituality. The texts I used included Mary Crow Dog’s Lakota Woman, Mary Daly’s Outercourse, Dorothy Day’s The Long Loneliness, China Galland’s Longing for Darkness, Patricia Hampl’s Virgin Time, Nancy Mairs’ Ordinary Time, Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge, Kathleen Norris’s Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, and Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. It is not difficult to find more recent works of great literary power and spiritual depth, and these works speak powerfully to students thinking about and exploring their own gender identity and its relationship to religious commitments. One theme that runs through this course is healing and its connections with religion. The root meaning of salvation is healing. Autobiographers seeking healing raise the implicitly religious question of what sustains them through physical and psychological suffering, and they provoke discussion of whether or not conventional religious responses to sickness and death are helpful. For example, Nancy Mairs’ Ordinary Time is a collection of essays describing the author’s experience of multiple sclerosis, her husband’s cancer, and her continuing struggle to be both a Catholic and a feminist. Terry Tempest Williams’ Refuge recounts the death by cancer of her mother and grandmother and Williams’ reflections as a threatened survivor of the “clan of one-breasted women” exposed to nuclear testing in Utah during the 1950s. Williams sorts out her ambivalent relationship with Mormon tradition, seeks solace in the natural cycles of Utah’s bird sanctuaries, and concludes by depicting “soul-centered and strong women” protesting nuclear testing in Nevada. A third text exploring trauma and healing is Proverbs of Ashes: Violence, Redemptive Suffering, and the Search for What Saves Us, by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker. This work portrays the authors’ attempts to work through the trauma of sexual abuse, particularly in relation to the doctrine of the atonement, which they argue sanctions violence and traps its victims in painful isolation, guilt, self-hatred, and denial. Invoking Augustine’s combination of memoir and theology, Brock and Palmer search for an alternative understanding of Christianity that will heal the victims of violence. For all of these writers, questions about gender identity are at the center of their quest for a more meaningful and authentic spiritual life. Their descriptions of illness and suffering lead to a critique of American values and reflections on which religious resources help or harm them. I have suggested that in addition to courses devoted to life writing, autobiographical texts can enrich a wide range of other religion courses. A helpful resource is a textbook edited by Gary L. Comstock that collects spiritual autobiographies by men and women from a variety of religious traditions, including Lakota Sioux, Druidry, Hinduism, Buddhism, Creation Spirituality, African American Protestantism, and others.12 This text includes two writers from each tradition, which helps avoid the problem of students taking one person’s experience as the essence of a tradition. Comstock’s anthology could be paired with a textbook on either world religions or theories of religion, making the subject matter of religion vivid in the experiences of particular individuals. The disadvantage of a collection of excerpts (aside from the hefty price of this volume) is that because so much of each text is omitted, one loses both literary and religious complexity and depth. Yet for many instructors, this loss would be offset by the kind of background information, larger context, and theoretical knowledge that a textbook can convey. I have found life writing to be of great value for helping students to understand religion in the lives of other people and in their own experience. Life writing engenders the self-scrutiny that is important for students—and professors—at every stage of identity formation and religious

156

John D. Barbour

searching. To try to understand one’s own life is not a narcissistic, self-absorbed endeavor, for it can lead to other people, history, culture, and, some writers avow, to God. Portraying oneself in writing discloses all that has shaped the self and raises deep questions about what gives life meaning. At its best, autobiography reveals an active and urgent search for meaning to orient the writer in the present and future, and it enacts an emerging self. Using life writing in religious studies courses offers invaluable insights to students as it invites them to try to understand the religious lives of others and to reflect on their own lives.

Notes 1 Philippe Lejeune, On Autobiography, ed. Paul John Eakin, trans. Katherine Leary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 4. 2 Margaretta Jolly, ed., Encyclopedia of Life Writing (London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001). See the articles on Religious Autobiography, Religious Biography, Confessions, Conversion, specific religious traditions, particular authors, and John D. Barbour, “Spiritual Autobiography.” 3 Although it deals with religion only in passing, a helpful collection of essays on pedagogy is Miriam Fuchs and Craig Howes, eds., Teaching Life Writing Texts (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008). 4 For studies of life writing in several nonwestern traditions, see Janet Gyatso, Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998); Dwight Reynolds, Interpreting the Self: Autobiography and the Arabic Literary Tradition (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001); David Brumble, American Indian Autobiography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); and Pei-Yu Wu, The Confucian’s Progress: Autobiographical Writing in Traditional China (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). For an overview of the genre of religious autobiography in the world’s religious traditions, see John D. Barbour, “Autobiography” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition, ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2005), volume 2, 697–704. 5 See John D. Barbour, The Conscience of the Autobiographer: Ethical and Religious Dimensions of Autobiography (London and New York: Macmillan, 1992). 6 See also Kathleen Norris’s further thoughts on Benedictine monasticism in her Cloister Walk (New York: Riverhead Books, 1997) and Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith (New York: Riverhead Books, 1999). 7 Langdon Gilkey, Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1975; first published in 1966), x. 8 Chapter 8 in John D. Barbour, Versions of Deconversion: Autobiography and the Loss of Faith (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1994). 9 See John D. Barbour, “Professing Religion,” in Claiming our Callings: Toward a New Understanding of Vocation in the Liberal Arts, ed. Kaethe Schwehn and L. DeAne Lagerquist (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 175–184. Several sentences in this and the previous paragraph are part of that essay. 10 Arnold Krupat, ed., Native American Autobiography (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1994); William Andrews, ed., Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986); and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed., Bearing Witness: Selections from AfricanAmerican Autobiography in the Twentieth Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991). 11 See Raymond J. DeMallie, ed., The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk’s Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt (Lincoln, NE: Bison Books, 1985) and Clyde Holler, ed., The Black Elk Reader (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000). 12 Gary L. Comstock, Religious Autobiographies, second edition (Independence, KY: Cengage Learning, 2003).

Bibliography Andrews, William, ed. Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986. Barbour, John D. “Autobiography” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, second edition. Edited by Lindsay Jones. Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2005, volume 2, 697–704.

Religion and the Self

157

––– “Professing Religion,” in Claiming our Callings: Toward a New Understanding of Vocation in the Liberal Arts. Edited by Kaethe Schwehn and L. DeAne Lagerquist. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014, 175–184. ––– The Conscience of the Autobiographer: Ethical and Religious Dimensions of Autobiography. London and New York: Macmillan, 1992. ––– Versions of Deconversion: Autobiography and the Loss of Faith. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1994. Brumble, David. American Indian Autobiography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Comstock, Gary L. Religious Autobiographies, second edition. Independence, KY: Cengage Learning, 2003. DeMallie, Raymond J., ed. The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk’s Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt. Lincoln, NE: Bison Books, 1985. Fuchs, Miriam and Craig Howes, eds. Teaching Life Writing Texts. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2008. Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., ed. Bearing Witness: Selections from African-American Autobiography in the Twentieth Century. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991. Gilkey, Langdon. Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1975; first published in 1966. Gyatso, Janet. Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Holler, Clyde, ed. The Black Elk Reader. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000. Jolly, Margaretta, ed. Encyclopedia of Life Writing. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2001. Krupat, Arnold, ed. Native American Autobiography. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1994. Lejeune, Philippe. On Autobiography. Edited by Paul John Eakin. Translated by Katherine Leary. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989, 4. Norris, Kathleen. Cloister Walk. New York: Riverhead Books, 1997. ––– Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith. New York: Riverhead Books, 1999. Reynolds, Dwight. Interpreting the Self: Autobiography and the Arabic Literary Tradition. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. Wu, Pei-Yu. The Confucian’s Progress: Autobiographical Writing in Traditional China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.

This page intentionally left blank

PART IV

Three Approaches to Teaching Siddhartha

This page intentionally left blank

13 THROUGH A BUDDHIST LENS Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha Catherine Benton

At my undergraduate liberal arts institution, the Introduction to Buddhism class is always fully enrolled with a sizeable wait list. Students are excited to learn about this religious tradition, which evokes thoughts of mysticism, peace, and love in American popular understanding. The Three Jewels of the tradition, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, provide a framework for this course, just as they provide a structure for the religious lives of Buddhists around the world. Throughout the semester, students are surrounded by the foundational importance of the Three Jewels as we read early Buddhist texts describing the life of the historical Buddha, meet contemporary Buddhist teachers, and view films showing Buddhists in Thailand and Sri Lanka reciting the three refuges: I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dharma, I take refuge in the Sangha. Among those who enroll in this class, there are always several who feel they have a headstart in understanding the Buddhist search for meaning because they have read Hermann Hesse’s beautifully written novel, Siddhartha. The novel’s protagonist, Siddhartha, is meant to be not only a contemporary of the historical, north Indian Buddha but one who attains an even higher state of realization than the Buddha. But unfortunately, from my perspective as a teacher of Buddhism, the novel Siddhartha creates the feel of a Buddhist story without actually providing it. The story is set in the same towns and villages where the Buddha preached and uses concepts found in Buddhist texts, but the reader is subtly drawn away from actual Buddhist teaching and practice. For example, Hesse’s hero focuses throughout on attaining the Buddhist goal of enlightenment, but rejects opportunities to learn from the accepted teachers of the tradition, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The novel offers a contradictory figure who rejects the traditional guidance of teacher, texts, and community, but claims the attainment of “Buddhist awakening”. Strong-willed, independent, and immersed in spiritual seeking, Hesse’s Siddhartha is certainly a compelling figure, but he is not a Buddhist. The Buddhist tradition is filled with cautionary tales of ego-filled seekers who pursued their own ideas and interpretations, rejecting the guidance of teachers and the experience of other practitioners. From this perspective, Hesse’s protagonist would belong in this category of pre-eminently confident but misguided seekers. Although Siddhartha is portrayed as learning from explicitly ordinary people like the kind ferryman, he never embraces the more difficult student–teacher relationship, which is the fundamental structure for learning within the Buddhist tradition.

162

Catherine Benton

Another problem from the perspective of all Indian religious traditions is that Hesse’s narrative presents the pursuit of desire as being an effective path to Buddha-like wisdom. Much more attractive than the discipline of Buddhism, the enjoyment of carnal desire, money, and power is shown to produce transformative insight without the restrictions of monasticism or the disciplining of a teacher. Finally, in contrast to the Buddha’s awakened view of reality that directly challenged previous understandings of reality, Siddhartha’s awakening is the more familiar and reassuring: “love is the most important thing in the world” (119). To be fair, these words from the end of the novel do communicate meaningful insight within the larger context of Siddhartha’s personal journey, but they do not stretch the mind to grasp a vastly different understanding of human existence. Indeed, Siddhartha’s vision feels familiar to western readers because it mirrors the nature mysticism of American transcendentalism and perceptions molded by Abrahamic thinking. Siddhartha presents an inspiring story of a man who comes to an appreciation of the human need to love. But Siddhartha’s understandings are not grounded in the core Buddhist teachings of impermanence and no-self, the four noble truths, and dependent co-arising (pratitya samutpada). Hesse’s hero’s path is not a Buddhist path and his realization is not a Buddhist realization. However, for teachers of Buddhism, the more serious problem is that the hero, language, and setting are so close to the historical Buddhist story that the novel continues to be misinterpreted as conveying a Buddhist message. Additionally, Hesse’s story is so appealing to western, particularly Christian, sensibilities regarding spiritual truths that some readers can find it difficult to let go of Hesse’s hero long enough to see and hear the historical Buddha, whose insights communicated a very different perception of reality. At the risk of oversimplifying, the Buddha’s teachings grow out of specific Indian philosophical understandings of mind, self and illusion that have little relation to Christian understandings of human love, the soul and the divine. Yet, because the western reader shares with Hesse an understanding of reality steeped in Abrahamic worldviews, Hesse’s Siddhartha may be easier to relate to than the historical Siddhartha who continuously challenged his followers to see the world in radically different terms. Although Hesse himself clearly distinguishes his fictional character, Siddhartha, from the historical Buddha—indeed the two “meet” in the novel—they are frequently conflated in the minds of American students studying Buddhism for the first time. As a novelist, Hesse may be exploring the character of the Buddha in his creation of Siddhartha. What might the fifth-century BCE man, Gautama, have felt about women, about falling in love, about connecting to his son and peers? Influenced by transcendentalist ideas and Christian mysticism as well as his interest in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism, Hesse has created a fictionalized fifth-century BCE religious seeker inspired ostensibly by Hindu and Buddhist ideas but who struggles with a twentieth-century experience of alienation. Hesse’s Siddhartha is, thus, quite different from the historical Gautama Siddhartha who became known as Shakyamuni Buddha. The following sections highlight their differences.

Siddhartha Mirrors Siddhartha, Sort of Hesse’s protagonist is a contemporary of the Buddha who, as a young ascetic, meets the Buddha and feels great admiration for him but does not join him as a disciple or monk. Instead, Hesse’s Siddhartha forges his own solitary path, achieving even deeper insight into the purpose of existence than the Buddha. Both characters, the fourth to fifth-century BCE north Indian man who became known as the Buddha and Hesse’s protagonist, are named Siddhartha, Sanskrit for “one who has achieved the goal.”

Through a Buddhist Lens: Hesse’s Siddhartha

163

Naming the spiritual seeker of his novel “Siddhartha,” Hesse invites the reader to see his hero as a reflection of the Buddha. He introduces this charming if headstrong young man who wins our hearts as a genuine spiritual seeker, first by this association with the saintly figure of the Buddha, and ultimately by his achievement of insight beyond that offered by formal religious traditions. Whatever spiritual realizations Hesse’s Siddhartha attains, the audience is primed to accept them as profound because he shares the name of the Buddha, even though the actual teachings of the Buddha are never clearly articulated to facilitate this comparison. Associating the novel’s Siddhartha with the Buddha allows the reader to see his final realizations as imbued with Buddhist thinking and thus substantive. Finally, Hesse describes Siddhartha’s vision using the Sanskrit term atman and the Indo-European translations of atman (self and soul) to reinforce the Asian, and most probably Buddhist, quality of his vision. However, Hesse uses the term atman in ways that do not accurately reflect the meanings of this term as used in the original Hindu and Buddhist texts (a point I address in the following section). To understand Hesse’s interest in Buddhism, it is helpful to know that he was born into a family with long-established connections to India.1 Hesse’s father, Johannes Hesse, had served as a missionary for four years in south India. And his mother, Marie Gundert, was born in south India, where her parents served as Pietist missionaries for twenty years. Hesse and his family were most influenced by his maternal grandfather, Hermann Gundert, who, after returning to Europe, directed the publishing house of the Basel Mission society where he employed his son-in-law, and continued his Indology studies. This grandfather and patriarch of the family, Gundert, was a linguist fluent in English, German, French, and Italian, as well as several South Asian languages. In India, he preached in Hindi, Bengali, and Malayalam, and worked with moderate fluency in Tamil, Telegu, and Kannada. Upon his return to Europe, Hermann Gundert completed a translation of the Bible in Malayalam, a “Malajalam [sic] grammar, and . . . his Malajalam lexicon. His home was long a meeting place for scholars, theologians, and exotic visitors from the Orient.”2 This grandfather was an important influence during Hesse’s childhood as his family lived in the Gundert extended family home in Calw. As Hesse matured, he pursued his own interest in Indian religious texts by reading scholarly German translations of the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and various Buddhist texts.3 And he traveled to Asia in 1911, a journey in which he began to see Asian cultures as less ideal and romantic than he had imagined. In writing Siddhartha, Hesse decided to explore what he understood as important for him as a religious person and someone who was influenced by Hindu and Buddhist teachings, as well as by Christianity. Nine years after publishing Siddhartha, in 1931, Hesse wrote an essay, “On Faith,” in which he reflected on the various religious influences on his life and on his writing of this novel. I have encountered religion in two forms, as [the] child and grandchild of upright pious Protestants and as a reader of Hindu revelations, among which I place at the top of the list the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the discourses of the Buddha. . . . I breathed and participated in spiritual Hinduism from childhood just as much as I did in Christianity. … my own personal religion often changed in form, never suddenly in the sense of a conversion but always slowly as growth and development. The fact that my Siddhartha puts not knowledge but love ahead of everything, that he rejects dogma and makes the experience of unity the central point, may be interpreted as a swinging back toward Christianity, yes, as a truly Protestant characteristic.4

164

Catherine Benton

Hesse scholar, Joseph Mileck, explains that Hesse became quite disillusioned with the practice of Buddhism especially after traveling to Asia, but describes his continuing fascination with the person of the Buddha.5 It was this irresistible attraction to Gotama Buddha himself that persuaded Hesse to write Siddhartha. Buddhism was as questionable as ever, but Buddha the man fascinated him. . . . Only when his story bogged down did Hesse actually return to and steep himself in Hinduism, Brahmanism, and particularly Buddhism. What had earlier been an intellectual interest now became, in an ascetic withdrawal, protracted meditation, a real spiritual encounter.6 Understanding the religious influences and ideas that motivated Hesse to write Siddhartha allows us to examine the language and characters presented in the novel in a more nuanced way. Rather than viewing the novel as Hesse’s expression of Buddhist teachings, we see Siddhartha as an exploration of the writer’s own religious seeking which was inspired in some part by the character of the Buddha. Pursuing this exploration, Hesse consciously placed the two Siddharthas—the fictional and historical—side by side in the novel, a placement which must invite comparison. And, indeed, the early years of the fictional Siddhartha and historical Siddhartha match up fairly well. Both grow up in comparative luxury, though one is Brahmin and the other Kshatriya (warrior-king); both actively reject early material wealth to choose asceticism and disappoint their fathers; and both Siddharthas chart their own paths by leaving their meditation teachers. But at this point, the two narratives diverge. Like most western heroes, Siddhartha is a leader who charts his own path, not a follower. Rather than accepting guidance from others, he walks alone, drawing others to his wise counsel. The reader learns little of Siddhartha’s teachers except that he left them with an air of dismissiveness and good riddance. Siddhartha says to his friend Govinda when discussing his plan to leave his Samana teachers: What I have so far learned from the Samanas, I could have learned more quickly and easily in every inn in a prostitute’s quarter, amongst the carriers and dice players. . . . [Meditation] is a temporary palliative against the pain and folly of life. The driver of oxen makes this same flight, takes this temporary drug when he drinks a few bowls of rice wine or cocoanut [sic] milk in the inn (13). I have become distrustful of teachings and learning and . . . have little faith in words that come to us from teachers (18). Demonstrating his superiority to these teachers, Siddhartha hypnotizes an old samana into doing his will. [Siddhartha] looked into the old man’s eyes and held him with his look, hypnotized him, made him mute, conquered his will, commanded him silently to do as he wished. The old man became silent, his eyes glazed, his will crippled; his arms hung down, he was powerless under Siddhartha’s spell (19). By contrast, the historical Buddha respected his teachers as integral to his spiritual development. Every variant of the life of the Buddha includes a description of the meditative methods and techniques imparted by these teachers. After his enlightenment experience, the newly awakened

Through a Buddhist Lens: Hesse’s Siddhartha

165

Buddha thought first of articulating his new insight to his former teachers because he knew their mental and spiritual depth. From the beginning, these teachers were considered so important in the Buddha’s spiritual development that their names were recorded in the earliest texts. These teachers were respected by the Buddha, and subsequently by the tradition, because they had instructed the young seeker in meditative skills that contributed to his awakening. However, this respect for spiritual teachers, known throughout the Buddhist tradition, is missing in Hesse’s Siddhartha. Hesse’s hero, propelled by his youthful rejection of the formal student–teacher relationship, looks to no one but himself for direction. Another significant difference between the two Siddharthas occurs in the way each relates to his family. Hesse’s Siddhartha leaves his family completely, looking back only briefly when considering new directions for his life. Having rejected his earlier ascetic community and the possibility of life as a Buddhist monk, Siddhartha considers returning to his father but rejects this option as backward-looking. He is now only Siddhartha, the awakened; otherwise nothing else. . . . At that moment, when the world around him melted away, when he stood alone like a star in the heavens, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of icy despair, but he was more firmly himself than ever. That was the last shudder of his awakening, the last pains of birth. Immediately he moved on again and began to walk quickly and impatiently, no longer homewards, no longer to his father, no longer looking backwards (33–34). Siddhartha proceeds from this point with a new sense of himself as an adult traveling in a direction different from his family and teachers, and determined not to look back. The historical Buddha, in stark contrast to Hesse’s hero, chose the opposite course. After attaining enlightenment, the Buddha returned to his home village, Kapilavastu, to teach his extended family, including his father, cousins, foster mother and aunt, his son and other relatives.7 The tradition records that several of his cousins and his son, Rahula, all took robes as committed monastics. Many stories are preserved of the Buddha’s cousin, Ananda, who performed the role of personal assistant until the Buddha’s death, and of his aunt and stepmother, Mahaprajapati, who pleaded with the Buddha to ordain women as monastics. With the Buddha as their model, many of the early monks understood the task of bringing deeper understanding to their extended families to be an important filial responsibility. Indeed, despite the ritual severing of ties between monks and their families that took place at ordination, there is considerable evidence that individual monks continued to care for the spiritual and, in some cases, material needs of those relatives, especially their parents when they became elderly and had no one else to look out for them.8 As Buddhist teaching and practice made its way to other cultures, Buddhist monks and nuns in other cultures, too, cared for their families while preaching the dharma. In China, the tradition taught that the highest act of filial duty for a son or daughter is to guide one’s parents to the dharma.9 Finally, the most dramatic difference between the two Siddharthas emerges in the choice each man makes about the years following his initial period of asceticism and experience of “awakening.” Hesse’s hero immerses himself in the pleasures of sex, money, and power to gain knowledge of life’s different realities; the Buddha devotes himself to teaching those seeking insight. In Hesse’s novel, the Buddha himself does make a cameo appearance. But actual

166

Catherine Benton

Buddhist practice is embodied in the protagonist’s friend, Govinda, who lives as a Buddhist monk throughout his adult life but never attains enlightenment. Living under the guidance of the Buddha himself but never attaining the deep insight of the novel’s protagonist, Govinda is “regarded with respect by the younger monks for his age and modesty, [but] there was still restlessness in his heart and his seeking was unsatisfied” (112). Discontented after an adult lifetime following the Buddha, Govinda stands as a contrast to Hesse’s Siddhartha who attained inner peace by taking charge of his life. Hesse lets us know, through Govinda, that spiritual seeking within the confines of a formal religious tradition, even one as respected as Buddhism, is not as effective as pursuing inner knowledge and peace on one’s own. Though Hesse voices respect for the Buddha and his teachings in the novel, the historical Buddha is not, ultimately, his ideal. In his comparison of the two Siddharthas, Hesse’s hero is the pure individual who finds his way outside the strictures of formal religion, the individual who finds depth of purpose in nature and in the hearts of simple, pure people. A leader rather than a follower, characterized by boldness and intelligence, a fearless individual who faces adversity head on and gains wisdom in the contemplation of nature. However, in the novel, the Buddha remains amorphous, clouded in mystery and glimpsed only through Govinda’s discontent. Govinda, the follower, reaches the end of his life knowing the words of his teacher but achieving no deep understanding himself. Hesse’s own disillusionment with Buddhist practice may be evidenced in the character of Govinda. The Buddha remains an important spiritual being but the novel questions the practice of following his footsteps.

Siddhartha as the Anti-Buddha Throughout the novel, Siddhartha speaks of his inner nature using three concepts with sometimes overlapping nuances: the self (German, Selbst), the atman of the Hindu Upanishads, and the soul (German, Seele). As these terms are central to Siddhartha’s focus on trying to understand the essence of himself, it is important to look at the different meanings ascribed to these terms in different parts of the narrative. In the first chapter, Siddhartha voices his frustration at not understanding the nature of the atman and its relation to his self/Self. . . . his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still. . . . And what about the gods? Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not Atman, He alone, who had created it? . . . To whom else should one offer sacrifices, to whom else should one pay honor, but to Him, Atman, the Only One? And where was Atman to be found, where did He dwell, where did His eternal heart beat, if not within the Self, in the innermost, in the eternal which each person carried within him? But where was this Self, this innermost? . . . Why must he, the blameless one, wash away his sins and endeavor to cleanse himself anew each day? Was Atman then not within him? Was not then the source within his own heart? One must find the source within one’s own Self, one must possess it.”10 In this passage, using his own ideas about the atman, not those of the Indian philosophical tradition, Hesse associates the atman with a divine creator to whom one would offer sacrifice, but also a “source” or essence that exists within the heart and the self. Still intent on pursuing these questions of self and atman, Siddhartha becomes an ascetic with one goal. Practicing ascetic techniques that will lead to the death of the self, he wants to become

Through a Buddhist Lens: Hesse’s Siddhartha

167

empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure and sorrow—to let the Self die. No longer to be Self, to experience the peace of an emptied heart, to experience pure thought— that was his goal. When all the Self was conquered and dead, when all passions and desires were silent, then the last must awaken, the innermost of Being that is no longer Self—the great secret! (11) Continuing this exploration of his inner nature, Hesse describes the meditative experience in which Siddhartha’s soul and self are repeatedly transformed in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the essence of his “self.” Shifting the emphasis then to the soul, Siddhartha describes the practice of: self-denial and meditation according to the Samana rules. A heron flew over the bamboo wood and Siddhartha took the heron into his soul, flew over forest and mountains, became a heron, ate fishes, suffered heron hunger, used heron language, died a heron’s death. A dead jackal lay on the sandy shore and Siddhartha’s soul slipped into its corpse; he became a dead jackal, lay on the shore, swelled, stank, decayed, was dismembered by hyenas, was picked at by vultures, became a skeleton, became dust, mingled with the atmosphere. And Siddhartha’s soul returned, died, decayed, turned into dust, experienced the troubled course of the life cycle. . . . he slipped out of his Self in a thousand different forms. . . . Siddhartha learned a great deal from the Samanas; he learned many ways of losing the Self. . . . He lost his Self a thousand times and for days on end he dwelt in nonbeing. But although the paths took him away from Self, in the end they always led back to it. . . . [He] was again Self and Siddhartha.11 Frustrated at not being able to fully lose the self, Siddhartha finally gives up this form of meditation, and moves away from his search to know the slippery, overlapping soul-self-atman. Setting aside the problem of defining self, soul, and atman for a moment, the reader might well ask what exactly Siddhartha is intent on losing here. Are the three effectively combined in his own mind, that is, in Hesse’s mind? Must they be “lost” in order to be understood? Writing in German, an author can use such intentionally ambiguous terms as ‘soul’ (Seele) and ‘self’ (Selbst) to enrich a narrative by evoking multi-dimensional images and nuance. And the reader, like Siddhartha, may appreciate the more fluid nuances and connotations these words carry as descriptors of an abstraction. However, from the perspective of the Buddhist and larger Indian philosophical traditions, these three terms (soul, self and atman) are understood to convey distinct meanings related to the contexts and texts in which they are used. For example, the Sanskrit word atman in the Upanishads conveys the sense of an individual unchanging essence that is a manifestation of a universal essence; the word atman in most Buddhist texts references a challenge to this Upanishadic belief, expressing in its negation, anatman, the inner nature as continuous change. During the fifth century BCE, the time of the historical Buddha, the accepted understanding was that all beings consisted of an atman, a fixed essence that transmigrated from life to life. So when the Buddha taught his realization that there is a no atman, or fixed essence, he was offering a revolutionary but clear new reality. When Hesse uses the terms soul, self, and atman as overlapping and interchangeable entities, this poses confusion for the Hindu and Buddhist frameworks. Another complicating factor here is that the ideas of “atman” and “soul” represent the perspectives of different religious traditions. The notion of an “atman” is rooted in the Indian traditions, while the idea of a “soul” existing in relationship with the Divine grows out of the

168

Catherine Benton

Abrahamic worldview. For Hesse, the son and grandson of Pietist Christian missionaries and theologians, the process of understanding and preparing the soul may have seemed similar to the struggle to know and potentially dissolve the atman. But for Hindus and Buddhists, the similarly abstract atman and soul, represent different realities. Although Hesse carefully overlaps the ideas of soul, self, and atman throughout the novel, and then separates, melds, and then distinguishes them again, Siddhartha clearly describes one man’s struggle to understand and know himself as a spiritual being. Fully committed to this struggle, Hesse’s hero finds he cannot accept religious teachings that push him to conquer or destroy the self; the self feels essential to his identity. For this reason, Siddhartha leaves both the Samanas and the Buddha, setting out to seek an identity that retains his “self” and finds “the Divine, the Absolute”. The following is Siddhartha’s soliloquy as he transitions into his identity as a man taking charge of his own seeking, rather than a youth following others. What is it that you wanted to learn from teachings and teachers . . . what was it they could not teach you? And he thought: It was the Self, the character and nature of which I wished to learn. I wanted to rid myself of the Self, to conquer it, but I could not conquer it, I could only deceive it, could only fly from it, could only hide from it. Truly, nothing in the world has occupied my thoughts as much as the Self, this riddle that I live . . . about nothing in the world do I know less than about myself, about Siddhartha. . .. The reason why I do not know anything about myself, the reason why Siddhartha has remained alien and unknown to myself is due to one thing, to one single thing – I was afraid of myself, I was fleeing from myself. I was seeking Brahman, Atman, I wished to destroy myself to get away from myself, in order to find in the unknown innermost, the nucleus of all things, Atman, Life, the Divine, the Absolute. But by doing so, I lost myself on the way. I will no longer try to escape from Siddhartha. I will no longer devote my thoughts to Atman . . . I will learn from myself, be my own pupil; I will learn from myself the secret of Siddhartha.12 Having begun his spiritual journey as a disciplined ascetic seeking an atman, Siddhartha becomes an ordinary person in this phase of his life, with no affiliation to religious teacher or teaching, a seeker, perhaps more familiar to western readers, who finds wisdom within his own soul. “Within Siddhartha there slowly grew and ripened the knowledge of what wisdom really was and the goal of his long seeking. It was nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.”13 Steeped in his Christian upbringing, Hesse’s Siddhartha returns again and again to the importance of the soul. Yet Buddhist teaching explicitly rejects the idea of an eternal soul as understood in the monotheistic traditions. From a Buddhist perspective, the idea of a soul as proposed in these traditions is understood to be a delusion. As the Buddha reached the deepest levels of enlightenment, he experienced that all existence is continuous change, and, thus, no unchanging essence, whether atman, self or soul, can exist. Although the understanding of these early teachings of impermanence and no-self become more nuanced as the Buddhist tradition was expanded by later teachers, these doctrines have constituted the bedrock of the Buddhist worldview from the time of the Buddha into the present.14 Accordingly, a Buddhist would not view Hesse’s Siddhartha as enlightened because this figure remains rooted in the dualistic world of himself as atman-soul in relation to Brahman-God. Near the end of the story, Siddhartha explains to Govinda that

Through a Buddhist Lens: Hesse’s Siddhartha

169

everything is Brahman. Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good – death as well as life, sin as well as holiness, wisdom as well as folly. Everything is necessary, everything needs only my agreement, my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me.15 If “God’s will” were substituted for the word “Brahman” in this quotation, this passage in the final pages of Siddhartha could sound distinctly Christian. But even without this substitution, the idea that everything is Brahman or the divine, and that everything “needs my assent, my loving understanding” are perceptions wholly at odds with Buddhist worldviews. As noted earlier, Siddhartha explains on the last pages of the novel the wisdom he has attained. “It seems to me, Govinda, that love is the most important thing in the world.”16 Govinda, as a Buddhist monk, must question this assessment of reality as contradicting the teachings of the Buddha. But Siddhartha dismisses this contradiction as itself an illusion because he knows he is “at one with Gotama [the Buddha].”17 Though Siddhartha rejects Govinda’s objection, the monk’s statement does, in fact, reflect Buddhist teaching. The Buddha’s teaching of no-self (anatman) leads not to love as described by Siddhartha, but to a reality and connectedness beyond human love. The Buddhist ideal of compassion requires not ordinary human love but seeing oneself and others as no-self within a frame that transcends human love—certainly a less familiar and perhaps less comfortable view of reality.

Conclusions The attractiveness of Hesse’s hero, Siddhartha, is due in part to how he fits the paradigm of the spiritual hero for many American students. He knows what he wants and goes for it, rejecting institutionalized authorities, living life his way and learning through intense passionate adventure, his wisdom grounded in real life experience. A leader, not a follower—a student who needs no teachers. In his final statements to his friend, Govinda, Siddhartha speaks of walking away from teachers and texts to find his own path. . . . even as a young man, when we lived with the ascetics in the forest, I came to distrust doctrines and teachers and to turn my back on them. I am still of the same turn of mind, although I have, since that time, had many teachers. A beautiful courtesan . . . and a rich merchant and a dice player (114). . . . there was a man at this ferry who was my predecessor and teacher. He was a holy many who for many years believed only in the river and nothing else. He noticed that the river’s voice spoke to him. He learned from it; it educated and taught him . . . he knew more than you and I, without teachers, without books, just because he believed in the river (118). Unlike the study and long years of disciplined practice required by Buddhist practice, Siddhartha’s way asks only for an attitude of reflection, and an openness to the truths revealed by interacting with ordinary people and the wisdom of nature. And because the novel conveys such an appealing message in the guise of being a rather poetic portrayal of Buddhist teaching for Europeans and Americans, some readers may find it even more difficult to relate to the Buddhist teachings contained in the Pali and Sanskrit texts. Reinforcing popular images of Buddhism as a simple religion that teaches love, and Buddhist monastic practice as oddly counter-productive, the novel often leaves readers expecting this less challenging “Buddhism” when they enroll in Introduction to Buddhism.

170

Catherine Benton

Hesse’s Siddhartha speaks to a universal longing to understand why we humans exist, and offers hope that there might be a definitive answer to this quest. And Hesse’s story, framed by Hindu and Buddhist sounding ideas, is even more seductive for readers influenced by the orientalist thinking that religious ideas originating in Asia are by definition more mystical and profound. As someone who has enjoyed the engaging storytelling and writing of Hermann Hesse, I must admit that my own first reading of Siddhartha as an introduction to Buddhism many years ago did send me to local bookstores looking for works by contemporary Buddhist teachers. But now many years later, I see Siddhartha as a work that not only fails to present a Buddhist worldview, but actually makes it harder for students to be open to the teachings articulated in the Asian texts. Siddhartha offers a romantic view of Buddhism that sits so well in the western imagination that the Buddha of the Pali and Sanskrit texts may appear rather too morose and unnecessarily abstruse in his teachings. Certainly, the Indian teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, did model an intensely disciplined life focused beyond desire and self, and a radically different and even counter-intuitive perspective on the nature of reality. Understanding the Buddhist tradition also requires an openness and willingness to see that the Buddha and his teachings might look quite different from the perspectives of Asian cultures. Yet, against the backdrop of the images and ideas of Hesse’s Siddhartha, students encountering Buddhist texts for the first time may find this process of cultivating openness even more difficult than they might otherwise. Hesse’s narrative vacillates between putting the Buddha on a pedestal and rejecting what he taught, yet the goal of the hero is to attain the enlightenment experienced by the Buddha. At the end of his life, Siddhartha displays the countenance of the Buddha as physical evidence of having reached this state, and perhaps even farther. Hesse leaves us with an image of enlightenment that appears to mesh Buddhist and non-Buddhist visions in the face and power exhibited by his hero. In the final image of the narrative, Hesse reveals one more time his own thoughts about the practice of Buddhism. A lifelong Buddhist monk bows not to the Buddha but to Siddhartha, the man who has triumphed by rejecting the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Govinda bowed low. Incontrollable tears trickled down his old face. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of great love, of the most humble veneration. He bowed low, right down to the ground, in front of the man sitting there motionless, whose smile reminded him of everything that he had ever loved in his life, of everything that had ever been of value and holy in his life (122). The self-taught, independent contemplative has led the Buddhist monk to enlightenment. Discussing Hesse’s motivation to write Siddhartha, Mileck describes Hesse’s conflicted response to Hindu and Buddhist thought which are reflected in this final scene. The ultimate oneness of all reality, an underlying assumption of each of these religions [Hinduism and Buddhism], immediately fascinated Hesse, but he failed to find the wisdom he had hoped to discover . . .. The notion of oneness accorded with his bent of thought, and as such, he quickly embraced it. As a whole, however, India’s religions proved to be too reminiscent of Pietism to be acceptable to him. Her wisdom was too rooted in asceticism, too puritanical and life-denying for Hesse’s liking and his needs, and too clouded by scholasticism.18

Through a Buddhist Lens: Hesse’s Siddhartha

171

The 1951 review of Siddhartha for The Nation,19 quoted on the back cover of the New Directions paperback edition, conjectured that Hesse had aimed to “contrast the traditional legendary figure [of the Buddha] with his own conception as a European (Hesse was Swiss) of a spiritual explorer.” From my perspective as a teacher and student of the Buddhist tradition, I agree with this reviewer. Hesse’s Siddhartha is indeed an ideal European spiritual explorer, but he is not a Buddhist.

Notes 1 Joseph Mileck, Hermann Hesse: Life and Art (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1–5. 2 Ibid., 4–5. See also Mileck’s reference: Johannes Hesse, Aus Dr. Gunderts Leben (Calw and Stuttgart: Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1894), 368. 3 Mark Boulby, Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), 12. Hesse was reading the most respected German scholars of Sanskrit and Pali texts of that time including Franz Hartmann, Paul Deussen, and Hermann Oldenberg. 4 Hermann Hesse, “On Faith”, trans. Denver Lindley, from My Belief: Essays on Life and Art (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974), 177–180. 5 Joseph Mileck, Hermann Hesse: Life and Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 162. 6 Ibid., 162–163. 7 Richard Robinson, Willard Johnson, and Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. Buddhist Religions (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2005), 35–36. See also John Strong, The Experience of Buddhism, Sources and Interpretations (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002), 91–99. 8 Strong, The Experience of Buddhism, 72. 9 See the story of Miao Shan in Strong, The Experience of Buddhism, 308–311. 10 Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, trans. Hilda Rosner (New York: New Directions Publishing, 1951), 3–5. 11 Ibid., 11–12. 12 Ibid., 31–32. 13 Ibid, 106. 14 Strong, The Experience of Buddhism, 99–107. 15 Hesse, Siddhartha, 116. 16 Ibid., 119. 17 Ibid. 18 Mileck, Hermann Hesse: Life and Art, 160–161. 19 The Nation, November 17, 1951, “Books in Brief”, 430.

Bibliography Aśvaghosa. Buddhacārita, in The Buddhist Tradition in India, China, and Japan. W. T. DeBary, New York: Vintage, 1972. “Books in Brief: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse”, The Nation, November 17, 1951. Boulby, Mark. Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967. Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. Translated by Hilda Rosner, New York: New Directions Publishing, 1951 (German original, 1922). ––– “On Faith” (1931) translated by Denver Lindley, from My Belief: Essays on Life and Art. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974, 177–180. Mileck, Joseph. Hermann Hesse: Life and Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Robinson, Richard, Willard Johnson and Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu. The Buddhist Religion. Fifth edition, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2005. Rose, Ernst. Faith from the Abyss: Hermann Hesse’s Way from Romanticism to Modernity. New York: New York University Press, 1965. Strong, John S. The Experience of Buddhism, Sources and Interpretations. Third edition, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2002.

14 LOVE AND APOTHEOSIS IN HESSE’S SIDDHARTHA Paul Fischer

I assign Hesse’s Siddhartha (1922) to my first-year World Religions class in order to connect some of the specifics of South Asian religiosity to a wider consideration of living an ordinary human life. My hope is that they will relate to the protagonist and thereby come to better understand some of the terms and ideas used in Hinduism and Buddhism about which they have recently read and heard. I also hope they will see that worldviews other than their own nevertheless deal with some of the same personal and religious problems with which they themselves grapple. The use of non-scriptural literature provides students with a lighter, smoother, and more coherent narrative than foundational texts—though these latter are of course indispensable to the course as a whole. In the novel, the protagonist Siddhartha partially re-traces the life of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, but spends most of his life “under the Bodhi tree,” figuring out over the course of several decades what the Buddha realized in a matter of days or weeks. Whereas the Buddha wrestled with Mara’s temptations (fear, lust, filiality, duty, pride, doubt) under the tree, Siddhartha wrestles with love. This short classic of literature cannot be understood without at least a little knowledge of some religious technical terms, which is why the edition that I use has a glossary in the back.1 This is more or less true for a lot of literature, but for this text it is quite obvious. Using a novel in a course on religion presents the instructor with challenges. First, it requires something of a mental shift in the student to go from authoritative texts like the various world “scriptures” to non-authoritative texts like the Siddhartha novel. Problematizing the simplistic “fact” versus “fiction” dichotomy is itself a pedagogical goal, but when assigning Siddhartha, it is nevertheless important to note that Hesse’s fiction is not “sanctioned” by any Hindu or Buddhist authorities, nor does it claim to faithfully and evenly represent Hindu or Buddhist doctrine. Instead, it aims to creatively riff off of the traditional story of Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, himself neither a traditional Hindu nor a traditional Buddhist. This observation leads to another pedagogical goal: noting the distinction between the iconoclastic and traditionally ambiguous life of a religious “founder” and the traditions created and passed down by the founder’s followers. Should “followers” always aim to emulate “founders,” or only in some respects? If the latter, how do we know which respects should be emulated? A related challenge is recognizing that the goals of the author, via the themes presented in the novel, are aimed at a specific audience (as all literature is). This accounts for why the novel is

Love and Apotheosis in Hesse’s Siddhartha

173

a much easier read than primary sources. But more importantly, the themes of the novel occupy an undefined space between the values of the target religions (Hinduism and Buddhism) and the values of the target audience (in general, people who self-identify as Christian). The most obvious example of this is the role of love in the novel. Love is not irrelevant in Hinduism and Buddhism, but it has nowhere near the fundamental importance that it does in Christianity. By highlighting the role of love in Siddhartha’s life, Hesse is creating a fictional bridge between the values of ancient India and the modern West. A negative example is the lack of emphasis on belief, which is central to Christianity but which plays a relatively minor role in Hinduism and Buddhism. Articulating the relativity of these and other values is important to understanding world religions. A third challenge is the role of iconoclasm. All religious founders are, in some sense, rebels. Yet all religious systems are, in some sense, asking for obedience. How do we reconcile these two impulses? Siddhartha Gautama, the fictional Siddhartha, as well as other religious founders like Jesus and Mohammad, in some sense “respected” their teachers, yet ultimately rejected them by leaving and forging their own paths. Thus, the role of authority figures in established religions will always be inherently problematic. A potential, albeit partial, solution to this problem lies in the apprehension that different people are on different spiritual paths. Hindus are fond of saying that “there are many paths to the top of the mountain.” Christians are fond of quoting Jesus saying: “No one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14.6). This is a beautiful problem. One potential solution is to investigate, and ultimately expand, what may be meant by, to mix metaphors, climbing the mountain via Jesus. (Are we talking about the historical Jesus, the risen Christ, what either or both of these figures metaphorically represent, or should we look to the teachings of Jesus, rather than his person? Etc.) Siddhartha is a novel about an iconoclast, about a person who rejects religion in order to find religion. As the preceding paragraphs show, there are many pedagogical approaches to using Siddhartha in the classroom. I do not lecture on the non-scriptural literature, like Siddhartha, that I assign in this course. Rather, after giving students thirty questions in advance, and encouraging them to share their thoughts in groups for the first thirty minutes of one class, we typically spend the remaining fifty minutes discussing their answers. I find this to be an effective pedagogical strategy for eliciting student engagement. Therefore, in this chapter, I propose simply to share some of these questions with the reader and elaborate on some typical student responses. I use a minimal amount of theory in freshmen classes, and typically employ only four: anthropology, cosmology, theology, and soteriology. That is, within each religious paradigm, I am primarily concerned with what is involved in being human, what is involved in the relationship between the individual and the cosmos, who or what is in charge of the cosmos, and what is involved in the correct relationship between the individual and the theos (or whatever may stand in for it). These, of course, are theories used in religion, not theories of religion. For each of the sixteen questions that follow I identify which theoretical category I hope to utilize as an analytical lens, in parentheses, but this chapter remains but one example of a practical guide to using Siddhartha in the classroom. Question 1 (Anthropology): According to Tom Robbins’s Introduction, what is the difference between the “Judeo-Christian-Islamic ethos” and the writings of Kerouac and Hesse? (xv) Robbins says “JudeoChristian-Islamic ethos to the contrary, there is an extremely blurry line between an appetite for life and a yearning for God, and both Kerouac and Hesse intuited this sensual/spiritual interface. . ..” This question, reminiscent of the main theme in Kazantzakis’ The Last Temptation of Christ (1953), sets a tone that is easily appreciated. Is the religious life necessarily against pleasure? Does it always have to be a flesh vs. spirit struggle? Is there only one kind of “seeker,”

174

Paul Fischer

or are there many different kinds? The “sensual/spiritual interface” that Robbins refers to is something very much on the minds of many college freshmen. And they of course overwhelmingly agree that the difference is overstated by Robbins, that they can indeed get married, have children, lead a “normal” life and still be good in and at their respective religions. Despite knowing what their responses will be, I nevertheless find that the question serves both to foreshadow the “big picture” of the book and articulate one of the enduring themes of the entire course. Question 2 (Theology): Why does Siddhartha wonder if Atman, rather than Brahman, was the real creator, instead of Prajapati? (5) “Was it really Prajapati who had created the world? Was it not rather Atman, He, the Singular, the One and Only? Weren’t the gods mere shapes, creations like you and me, subject to time, transitory?” Creation in Hinduism is a complicated affair, so I simplify it in this introductory class. For “Vedic Brahminism,” we read the well-known creation story in Rig Veda 10.129. (“There was neither nonexistence nor existence then; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond. What stirred? Where?. . . That One breathed, windless, by its own impulse. Other than that there was nothing beyond. . .. That One arose through the power of tapas [heat].”) When we subsequently deal with sannyasins and their Upanishads, I suggest that “the One” in the Rig might be Brahman. I only bring up the creator Prajapati when discussing the Puranas, and equate him with Brahma. But the question, as I have phrased it, is not a Vedas vs. Puranas question, but rather, why immanent Atman instead of transcendent Brahman? Many students say that since Atman is Brahman, the question is a distinction without a difference. But I push them to consider why Hesse would have chosen the one over the other, and suggest that Atman, as an inner power, is also an inner creative power, and that such creativity may point to the role of the human imagination in religion. That is, the religious imagination may well be implicated in, if not the creation of, then at least the elaboration of, religious imagery and narrative. This opens the door to many questions, not least of which is the theological question: If God is a metaphor, then what is it a metaphor for? Question 3 (Cosmology): Why did Siddhartha want to join the samanas? (6–8) Vedic Brahminism, the religion of Siddhartha’s father, uses sacrifice to the gods as a way to restore cosmic harmony. But Siddhartha, like S. Gautama, wanted to know how not to upset that balance in the first place: “Where was the master who had been able to transport his own being-at-home-in-Atman from sleep to the waking realm, to life, to all his comings and goings, his every word and deed?” (6) His father had true knowledge, as well as an effective ritual practice, but it was not the kind of knowledge or practice Siddhartha wanted. Students, ever cautious of being “respectful” of other religions, are here, not unlike Siddhartha, stuck between two paths. After all, who can authoritatively say why the old way of using sacrifice should be ignored? The cosmos was structured with a certain dharma (law), and sacrifice was the way in which cosmic harmony was maintained. Now an upstart was turning his back on all that. The parallel with Jesus is almost too obvious to state: if a scapegoat worked just fine in Leviticus 4.27–31, then why did Jesus need to die? Siddhartha likewise turned his back on Vedic sacrifice and chose a more interior route. But Hindu and Buddhist karma clearly rejects the mechanism of “vicarious redemption,” so the paradigmatic differences should be highlighted and not swept under the rug. These differences, which could be cast as differences between the “old” and the “new,” might be resolved via recourse to the idea that different seekers pursue different paths. Alternatively, the wariness of authority figures, particularly among the young, finds sanction in the aspirational figures of both S. Gautama and the fictional Siddhartha. Question 4 (Theology): Why does Hesse name his protagonist “Siddhartha” when “Siddhartha Gautama” the Buddha is already another character in the book? (18) “One day when the two youths

Love and Apotheosis in Hesse’s Siddhartha

175

had lived among the Samanas for nearly three years and shared their exercises, word reached them in a roundabout way, a rumor, a legend: A man had been discovered, by the name of Gautama….” With a bit of prodding, I can usually get students to see the name “Siddhartha” as the name of a character inhabitable by us all, an Everyman Seeker. This is made easier by pointing out the difference between “Buddha” and “buddha;” between, for example, the Amitabha Buddha that Pure Land Buddhists pray to and the buddha in us all that Zen Buddhists affirm. The theological and soteriological paradigms of Pure Land and Christianity are very similar, so there is no real trouble there. But the more metaphorical-minded Zennists can bring us back to the Hindu equation of Atman and Brahman, something which never sits very well with American freshmen. This may be a good time to discuss the definitions of religion (again). But I do not want to let the theological implications recede into the background. Being a spark of, or a reflection of, something like a divine “fire” is one thing, but to equate a human with the divine is generally thought to be beyond the pale. Because of this hesitation, I leave the question unresolved here, but return to it below. Question 5 (Soteriology): How does Siddhartha articulate his difference with the Buddha? (29–30) This is a key episode: rather than showing Siddhartha on his way to becoming a Buddhist, it shows Siddhartha rejecting the very Buddha that students thought this novel was going to be about. Siddhartha objects to the Buddha’s soteriology: “. . . there is . . . something that . . . cannot be shown and cannot be proven: This is your doctrine of the overcoming of the world, of redemption” (29). The Awakened One remains unvexed, claiming that his teaching is only about extinguishing craving. So, while the master may have bequeathed the student a map, this is not, as we all know too well, the same as the territory. Siddhartha, while allowing that his erstwhile teacher has in fact “found redemption from death,” wants more than just relief from suffering: “This is why I am continuing my journey—not in order to seek a different, better doctrine, for I know there is none, but to leave behind me all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal alone or perish” (30). This scene exemplifies Zen teacher Linji’s dictum to “kill the Buddha” should you encounter him.2 It also highlights divergent soteriological paradigms within Buddhism itself: an end to tanha (craving) and the dukkha (dissatisfaction or suffering) it inevitably engenders, or full enlightenment in this lifetime. One may fruitfully return here to the karma and jnana paths of Hinduism, or just stay with the possibility of having multiple soteriologies within a single tradition. This latter resonates nicely with the two kinds of scapegoats mentioned in the discussion of Question 3 above, as well as with the role of “saving knowledge” (gnosis) in early Christianity. We return to multiple soteriologies in Question 11 below. Question 6 (Cosmology): After rejecting Buddhism, Siddhartha is awakened. What does he realize? (35) “Blue was blue, river was river, and even if the One, the Divine, lay hidden in the blue and the river within Siddhartha, it was still the nature and intention of the Divine to be yellow here, blue here, sky over there, forest there, and here Siddhartha.” Which is to say, in words that my students’ grandparents might recall: “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.”3 Samsara is nirvana. Siddhartha realizes that “Meaning and being did not lie somewhere behind things; they lay within them, within everything.” This cosmological observation dovetails nicely with the theology in Question 4. But at least here Christian students have a toehold, insofar as they have probably heard that “the kingdom of God is among/within you” (Luke 17.21). If students have already considered the idea of “immanent transcendence” (a phrase that I insist be used with some rigor, lest it devolve into a flaccid attempt at legitimating the “moving the goalposts” fallacy), then this is a good time to dust off the idea and see how well it stands up to scrutiny. I find it works best with Confucianism, philosophical Daoism, and

176

Paul Fischer

this type of Mahayana Buddhism. Siddhartha’s rejection of Buddhism, as an organized system, also raises the question: Can we call a person “Buddhist” who follows in the footsteps of the Buddha, realizes at least some of what the Buddha realized, yet does not follow the traditional “Three Jewels” of the Buddha, dharma, and sangha? Question 7 (Anthropology): What does Kamala teach Siddhartha? (58) “She taught him that lovers may not part after celebrating their love until each has admired the other, each been as much victor as vanquished, so that neither might be beset by surfeit or tedium or an uneasy sense of having taken advantage or been taken advantage of. He passed glorious hours in the company of this beautiful, intelligent artist; he became her pupil, her lover, her friend.” Love is an easy device that can be used to bring together several religious traditions, and if the students have read (or seen) The Last Temptation of Christ, then this will be that much easier. But the key in dealing with love is to avoid both intellectualization and sentimentality. Kamala (and her craft) is not an abstraction, she does not represent Christian agape, but is rather the sensual side of Robbins’s “sensual/spiritual interface.” Neither is Kamala a subplot character: their encounter provides the real, samsaric grist for our hero’s ideal, nirvanic mill. As such, love represents a real threat to Siddhartha’s ability to “fast.” (One of his three abilities, for which, see page 50.) Although any sort of fasting does not seem to be much on display by Siddhartha over the next fifty pages of the novel, I nevertheless suggest to my students that “detachment” is one kind of fasting. This attitude is portrayed as the karmically correct mental posture in several Eastern traditions. It sometimes seems to involve creating a space between the “real you” and the “desire” aspect of one’s “objects of desire.” But a more correct description would be to say that it is the experience of letting go of the things that you believe define you. It is nirvana on training wheels. Christians might say it is to be “in the world, but not of the world” (Cf. John 17.16). It is, in a word, freedom. Detachment was key to Krishna’s advice to Arjuna in the “Bhagavad Gita,” was implicated in third “Noble Truth,” and will come up again later in the course when we get to Zhuangzi’s “mind-fasting.” How love and detachment interplay with one another will be a crucial theme throughout the rest of Hesse’s book. Question 8 (Anthropology): What is the meaning of the death of Kamala’s songbird? (70) Although just a dream, when Siddhartha had “tossed it aside, into the street. . . at the same moment he was seized with fear and horror and his heart hurt, as if with this dead bird he had thrust aside everything that had worth and value.” The siren song of the life of (one kind of) love had lost its appeal. Siddhartha Gautama left his wife Yasodhara at the beginning of his journey, while Hesse’s Siddhartha leaves Kamala in the midst of his. In both cases, it is a disturbing revelation. What about the “sensual/spiritual interface”? But Hesse’s character is not reliving the experience of his namesake here. Rather, the plot is thickening, and romantic love is giving way to familial love. It is a tough sell to suggest to my audience that Siddhartha is not being a cad for leaving without at least saying goodbye. I remind students that sometimes novels use unorthodox measures to heighten emotional responses in the reader and also that, though Siddhartha has not yet reached his goal, even a full-fledged Buddha is not necessarily immune to making bad decisions. Detachment is not the same as wisdom: buddhas are not necessarily sages. A third point that might be made is that a focus on love is a Western focus: bhakti devotion is important in Hinduism, but it does not play a central role in Buddhism. On the other hand, intuitive knowing (prajna) does necessarily entail compassion (karuna), but our man is not quite there yet. In the end, despite the surfeit of religious encomiums and platitudes on love, even freshmen will grudgingly admit that it does not always last. Here they are apt to seek solace in the “true” love that they are sure to find, both with their god and their future soul-mate, but there are usually enough cynics in the class to

Love and Apotheosis in Hesse’s Siddhartha

177

cast doubt on this idea as chimerical. In any case, lost love at the heart of the religious quest is refreshing enough in itself to warrant the question. Question 9 (Anthropology): Why did Siddhartha become suicidal? And what changed his mind? (74–75) “He had reached an impasse. All that was left for him to do was annihilate himself, smash to pieces the botched structure of his life, throw it away, hurl it at the feet of the mocking gods.” He almost let himself fall into the river to drown, but then heard a sound. “And the moment the sound Om touched Siddhartha’s ear, his slumbering spirit suddenly awoke and recognized the foolishness of his actions.” In an existential crisis that builds on his departure from Kamala, Siddhartha is stuck on the horns of either rejecting or embracing life. From this psychological nadir, in which he wanted to hurl his life “at the feet of the mocking gods,” he heard, or remembered, or imagined, the sound Om: the sound of perfect consciousness, the sound of the universe breathing. Back from the brink, Siddhartha then collapses in an almost post-coital slumber. This could be a theological, or even a cosmological, moment, insofar as Om can be said both to emanate from the divine and to fill the cosmos. But given Siddhartha’s dark and vulnerable state of mind during this scene, I prefer to pursue an anthropological angle that considers why the divine might find better purchase in a mind that is at a crossroads. In the Tanach, Elijah too, fleeing for his life and suicidal, finally heard the sound of the divine in a “still, small voice” (1 Kings 19.4, 12). Do such dire straits focus the mind, or make it more susceptible to the imagination? These situations may be analogous to the use of Zen koans, some of which were created specifically to bring the mind to an impasse. But koans are said to produce logical conundrums, while suicidal moments are much more emotionally visceral. Question 10 (Theology): Rather than drowning, what came to life, and what died, there beside the river? (83) “Had not this bird died within him, had he not felt its death? No, something else had died within him, something that had desired death for a long time. Was it not the very thing that he had once, in his ardent years as a penitent, wanted to kill? Was it not his Self, his nervous proud little ego that he had done battle with for so many years, that had bested him again and again, that was always back again each time he killed it off, forbidding joy and feeling fear? Was it not this that had finally met its death today, here in the forest beside this lovely river?” In one sense, Siddhartha the Hindu died and Siddhartha the Buddhist came to life, insofar as the Atman, or Self, is foundational to Hinduism but anathema in Buddhism. Yet a key sentence is interestingly problematic. Wondering about what had died, Siddhartha asks himself “Was it not his Self, his nervous, proud little ego that he had done battle with for so many years,” that had died? Even an undergraduate would not equate the glorious Atman with the lowly ego, yet this is precisely what Hesse has done. And to good effect, for the doctrine of noself (anatman), as a key component of Buddhism, deserves just this sort of grand entrance. The death of the divine-in-the-human naturally evokes the sacrifice of Jesus, but the degree to which the entity that arose from his death was the same as the entity that died is a knotty subject. The metaphor usually requires the death of the human, yet Thomasian doubt intimates a different outcome. If the Atman died there by the river, one might logically conclude that the flip side of that coin also died. And if both Atman and Brahman are dead, where does that leave one? Fortunately, the issue is resurrected in Question 13 below. Question 11 (Soteriology): What did Siddhartha learn from the river? (90) “. . .the river is in all places at once, at its source and where it flows into the sea, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the ocean, in the mountains, everywhere at once, so for the river there is only the present moment and not the shadow of a future….” The river taught him the theory behind Vasudeva’s practice: detachment, mindfulness, “being here now,” and finally, dependent co-arising (pratitya samutpada). Siddhartha learned that his life, like the river, is “in all places at

178

Paul Fischer

once,” that his past and present selves are separated “only by shadows, not by real things.” This bespeaks the profound connectedness that the historical Buddha realized during the culmination of his enlightenment experience. Further, Mahayana emptiness and the timeless perception of nonduality are echoed in the carefully chosen tenses of “Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has being and presence.” (90) For some, this is the culminating soteriological question, because while some Buddhists have the end of suffering as their goal and others have “rebirth” in the Pure Land heaven, there are those, like Siddhartha, who aim for understanding. Having multiple soteriologies in a single tradition can be confusing for those accustomed to the simple “sin and salvation” paradigm, so now may be a good time to examine the implications and limitations of this particular analytical lens. Buddhism does not recognize sin, at least not as the soteriological problem. Rather, detachment solves the problem of craving, faith and grace solve the problem of karma, and enlightenment solves the problem of ignorance. This, again, speaks to the issue, explicit in Hinduism, but rather less so in other religions, that there are “many paths to the top of the mountain.” Question 12 (Cosmology): How was Siddhartha just like his son? (110) “Had not his father suffered the same pain he himself was now suffering on account of his son?” When Siddhartha recalled his own father, and matched the sufferings of the two fathers with their two sons, he is reminded of the eternal arbitration of karma: “everything returned again that had not been fully suffered and resolved ….” I don’t know if this is an oblique reference to the workings of “reincarnation” in a system with the doctrine of no-self (anatman) at its core, but it might be. On the one hand, Siddhartha was suffering because he had caused his father to suffer. On the other, Siddhartha’s father’s stern demeanor, with its resultant unresolved father–son tension, may have somehow begat Siddhartha’s own life with the same irresolution. True, the karma caused by Siddhartha’s father in this second scenario logically preceded the birth of Siddhartha, but I, for one, would never underestimate the power of karma to know the future. Some students seem to get karma (and rebirth) right away, and some do not. One way to approach this issue is to ask how it solves the problem of theodicy. A vexing problem for many of the gods west of the Indus (the knee-jerk response of “free will” notwithstanding), this is a non-issue in the subcontinent. Despite the plethora of gods and goddesses, and despite the creative power and ineffability of Brahman, these entities simply are not in the business of judging humans and bestowing reward and punishment, in this life or the next. Karma is simply a fixture of the cosmos: a perfectly logical logos. Question 13 (Anthropology): What happened to Siddhartha after he heard the perfection of the river? (114) “His wound blossomed; his sorrow shone; his Self had flowed into the Oneness. In this hour Siddhartha ceased to do battle with fate, ceased to suffer. Upon his face blossomed the gaiety of knowledge that is no longer opposed by any will, that knows perfection, that is in agreement with the river of occurrences, with the current of life, full of empathy, full of fellow feeling, given over to the current, part of the Oneness.” Hesse strongly implied on page 83 that Siddhartha’s Atman/ego had died there by the river (see Question 10). Yet here it is back on page 114: “And when Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this thousand-voiced song. . . when he did not attach his soul to any one voice and enter into it with his ego but rather heard all of them….” I see three answers to this problem. First, perhaps the soul and/or ego mentioned here are hypothetical. That is, if Siddhartha had had a soul, then he would not have attached it to “any one voice.” But he does not (anymore), so he did not. Second, perhaps Siddhartha mistakenly assumed “his Self, his nervous proud little ego” had died three chapters back, but he was wrong, either because Hindu Atmans are indestructible or because he simply misperceived what he took to be a seismic anthropological shift. Third, Hesse might be

Love and Apotheosis in Hesse’s Siddhartha

179

implying that it can be brought back to life. Thus, one death-of-the-ego experience comes directly after he breaks off his love with Kamala, and the second experience comes directly after his son breaks off his love with him. This symmetry aside, I take the portrayal of a resurrectable ego/soul as a warning that nirvana is not a state that, once realized, cannot yet be lost. If the question did not already arise in Question 10, then this is a good time to define our terms: what exactly is a “soul” or an “ego”? Can they really be conflated, as Hesse has done? Do they both survive death? Pauline anthropology muddies the water with the addition of the spirit (pneuma), but this is the crux of religious anthropology: who are we really, and which bits persist after bodily death? This always elicits tentative responses but never results in consensus, so after letting the discussion meander a bit, I will bring it back to the story at hand and suggest that the souls and egos here are literary constructs, metaphors for the mental states of subjectivity and attachment. Which leads directly to the next question. Question 14 (Soteriology): What does Siddhartha tell Govinda happens when a person seeks? (117) “When a person seeks, it can easily happen that his eye sees only the thing he is seeking; he is incapable of finding anything, of allowing anything to enter into him, because he is always thinking only of what he is looking for, because he has a goal, because he is possessed by his goal.” Although Siddhartha’s Atman and ego had died on page 83, he was still driven by something, and the wound he felt at the loss of his wayward son still pained him. Both of these ghosts derived their power from his clinging to his goals. It is as if the goals themselves, Oneness with the universe and unity with his son, as mere thoughts, were enough to impel him along his path and subsequently, stealthily, bring back his ego/soul. But now Siddhartha realizes this. He realizes that although he may have left the Buddha, he had clung to his idea of the Buddha; that to be it, he has to kill it (see Question 5). “Seeking means having a goal. Finding means being free, being open, having no goal.” The trouble with stating this baldly, is that students often assume that they therefore need not do anything.4 While such a formulation is technically true, it remains the case that there is probably plenty that they need to stop doing. Question 15 (Soteriology): What is Siddhartha’s “doctrine”? (119) “Wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to pass on always sounds like foolishness.” This is partly a reiteration of Question 5, but it bears repeating. Siddhartha left the Buddha because he knew, intellectually, that he had do it himself. Now, speaking with his old friend Govinda at the end of the story, he knows, from experience, that he had to do it himself. “One can pass on knowledge but not wisdom. One can find wisdom, one can live it, one can be supported by it, one can work wonders with it, but one cannot speak it or teach it.” Other parts of his doctrine as explained here are equally Buddhist: samsara is nirvana, and we are all already buddhas (though he softens the latter Zen claim by insisting that it is “the future Buddha, the potential Buddha” [page 120] within us). I ask this question to cement the idea of a soteriology of doing something, rather than simply believing something, that is nevertheless not karma yoga (the Hindu path of doing good works). The Christians in the class will nod in agreement that believing X will entail doing Y, but Siddhartha’s claim is different. His claim is more along the lines of Gilbert Ryle’s distinction between the declarative “knowing that” and the procedural “knowing how.” If we bracket Pure Land, Buddhism remains a DIY religion quite unlike Christianity. Yet there is one part of Siddhartha’s monologue that I find problematic. While I generally like his exposition of the inadequacy of words, to say “The opposite of every truth is just as true!” is to me a dubious claim.5 If I’m feeling generous, I chalk it up to poetic license; after all, it does lead nicely into his extended “samsara is nirvana” monologue that immediately follows. Question 16 (Anthropology): What kinds of love does Siddhartha explore in this novel? (121) Siddhartha’s father and mother, his friend Govinda, his lover Kamala, his boss Kamaswami, his

180

Paul Fischer

teacher Vasudeva, and his son Siddhartha all play important roles in his education, in the unfolding of his destiny. Their interactions with him are integral to the book’s plot. In true Buddhist style, he does not overcome these attachments, but rather lets go of them, detaches from them. One way in which he accomplishes this is by widening the circle of things he loves. “I can love a stone, Govinda, and also a tree or a piece of bark. These are things and things can be loved. Words, however, I cannot love.” Students have an easy time assembling the above list of people that Siddhartha has loved, and a discussion about how these different objects of love, and perhaps even kinds of love, often leads to a satisfying denouement for the class period.6 The “sensual/spiritual interface” now can be fleshed out and articulated in detail.

Conclusion What is the point of Hesse’s novel? For me, it is an attempt to reconcile the (South Asian) ideal of detachment with the (Western) ideal of love. He does this partly by ignoring the compassion (karuna) of the Buddha, the necessary and indispensable flip-side to her intuitive knowing (prajna), and partly by exploring the variety of things that might be called “love.” In the end (123), Siddhartha thinks that the love he feels for all things—not just for those people he knows, or even for all of humanity—must be something that his namesake Siddhartha Gautama also feels. Govinda helpfully points out that the Buddha “forbade us to bind our heart with love for earthly things.” But the attachment, the binding, is of course the key word here, for Siddhartha’s love is now unbound. Which leaves us with a final, frequent question that my students often ask of me: if religion does indeed stem from its Latin root, religāre (“to bind”), then is this really about religion? The answer depends on whether we read Siddhartha’s apotheosis theologically or anthropologically: whether and for what the god is a metaphor. Teaching religion is similar to teaching literature in (at least) one very important respect: the use of metaphor with its uncanny ability simultaneously to obfuscate and illuminate. In my line of work, metaphor is the ultimate Pandora’s Box, for once that door is opened—and even the most literal-minded student will admit that they are not actual “sheep” (Psalm 23, John 10.27, et. al.)—then there can be no end to speculation about what may and what may not be metaphorical within the scriptures. I see it as part of my job to constantly raise this question. This novel, and every character and action within it, is a metaphor that Hesse, the author, is extending to his readers. Siddhartha learns to pay attention to non-specifically-religious things in the natural world to deepen his religiosity. Likewise, students may pay attention to the notliterally-true adventures of the Siddhartha character to deepen their understanding of what it means—or may mean—to be religious. My pedagogical approach to the course, my method of simplifying the complexity of “world religions,” is to focus on the four theoretical lenses used throughout this article. Siddhartha allows me to apply these four approaches to the Hindu and Buddhist worldviews (of which students will only have a slight grasp) as well as to the enduring problem of love (with which Western students will feel much more comfortable). Religious anthropology is here enriched with the ideas of Atman, Brahman, ego, tapas in particular and “spiritual power” in general, anatman, selfsacrifice and, of course, the variety of love as well as the roles it may play in the religious pursuit. Cosmology is problematized with the ideas of karma, samsara, and nirvana, as well as the role of propitiatory sacrifice. The theologies of Hinduism, with its marvelous henotheism, and Buddhism, with its multiplicitous buddhas, are much easier to interrogate for metaphorical insights, if only because they always allow the student to maintain a comfort zone of having some “ultimate” deity above the fray (nirguna Brahman, say, or Vairocana Buddha). Finally,

Love and Apotheosis in Hesse’s Siddhartha

181

soteriology can be the toughest angle to examine. God may be mysterious, the self may be multifarious, and the cosmos may be a bewildering multiverse, but the simplicity of saving faith is for many a last refuge. This idea is buttressed by bhakti yoga and Pure Land nembutsu. But these are not the ways of Hesse’s Siddhartha, who insists on “taking up his own cross” (cf. Matthew 16.24). Siddhartha indeed “saves his life by losing it” (cf. Matthew 16.25), in venerable Buddhist style, but Hesse’s twist appeals directly to the decidedly non-mysterious motivation of the Christian god: love. Our hero, however, is not (at first) motivated by this emotion; rather, he experiments with it (albeit sometimes unwittingly) throughout the narrative, and only truly achieves it at the denouement of his biography. The deified Jesus was motivated by love to die for all, while the human Siddhartha must die first (perhaps twice) to feel such universal love. Sometimes, it seems, the metaphorical mirror also reflects things backwards.

Notes 1 I use the Susan Bernofsky translation (London: Random House, 2006), which has an Introduction by Tom Robbins. All quotes, unless otherwise noted, come from the page number(s) specified in parentheses after each question. 2 Stephen Addiss, Stanley Lombardo, and Judith Roitman, eds., Zen Sourcebook (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008), 49. 3 Qingyuan Weixin via D.T. Suzuki, (1926; 1949), Alan Watts (1951), and Donovan (1967). See Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series (1926; rpt. New York: Grove Press, 1949), 24; The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage Books, 1957), 127; and “There is a Mountain” (Epic, 1967). 4 This is also true with Daoist spontaneity. The answers to this problem presented by these two traditions, however, differ somewhat. 5 For example, when is the opposite of the claim “rape is bad” true? If it were up to me, I’d change “every truth” to “Truth.” 6 You might find it helpful to raise the issue of the various kinds of “love” in Greek, subsequently appropriated by Christians: eros (erotic), storge (familial), phileo (communal), and agape (selfless), but I generally find this obscures more than it clarifies, insofar as many students assume they already know this. Also, I’m not at all sure that one can agape a stone. If you do go this route, however, it is good to remember that 1 John 4.8, 16 (“God is love”) is, in a global context and without the generous use of metaphor, seriously mitigated by 1 John 4.3 (“every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist. . .”).

Bibliography Addiss, Stephen, Stanley Lombardo, and Judith Roitman, eds. Zen Sourcebook. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008. Bresnan, Patrick. Awakening: An Introduction to the History of Eastern Thought. 5th edition. New York: Routledge, 2013. Hesse, Hermann. Siddhartha. Translated by Susan Bernofsky. New York: Modern Library, 2006. Kazantzakis, Nikos. The Last Temptation of Christ. Translated by Peter Bien. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960. Keay, John. India: A History. New York: Grove Press, 2000. Kerouac, Jack. The Dharma Bums. New York: Viking Press, 1958. Klostermaier, Klaus. A Survey of Hinduism. 2nd edition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Koller, John. Asian Philosophies. 5th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007. Leitch, Donovan. “There is a Mountain.” New York: Epic Records, 1967. Mascaro, Juan, trans. The Bhagavad Gita. New York: Penguin Classics, 1962. Mitchell, Donald. Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. 2nd edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. The Principal Upanishads. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953.

182

Paul Fischer

Robinson, Richard and Willard Johnson. The Buddhist Religion: A Historical Introduction. 4th edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1997. Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Suzuki, D.T. Essays in Zen Buddhism: First Series. New York: Grove Press, 1949. Watson, Burton, trans. The Complete Works of Zhuangzi. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Watts, Alan. The Way of Zen. New York: Vintage Books, 1957.

15 LITERATURE, LEARNING AND LIBERATION Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha Peter Roberts

Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha has frequently been employed as a text in religious studies classrooms, though not unproblematically so. Conceived as “an Indian poem,” the accuracy and merits of Siddhartha as an exemplar of Buddhist and Hindu principles has been much debated. There is agreement among many critics that India and its religious traditions had an important influence on Hesse’s thought, but views differ on the nature of that influence.1 Some have seen the text as a helpful aid to understanding elements of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy.2 Clear links have also been noted between the life of the historical Buddha and the development of Hesse’s central character.3 Others have been critical of doctrinal shortcomings in Hesse’s portrayal of Buddhist ideas, drawing attention to the Western, and specifically German, framing of Eastern notions in the book.4 It is possible, indeed, to see Siddhartha as a “Western archetype.”5 Doctrinally, Hesse’s work is “not sharp, but sweetly and naively eclectic.”6 Having come from a missionary family, for example, Hesse cannot resist introducing the Christian concept of sin into his account of the protagonist’s spiritual journey. In some cases, however, Hesse’s distinctive blending of ideas has been useful in permitting readers to create links from Christianity to Buddhism.7 While such debates can provide important insights for religious studies scholars and students, they can also serve as a distraction in seeking something of enduring educational value from this classic work. This chapter focuses on what Siddhartha has to offer in allowing us to better understand the nature of the educational process itself. I argue that the book must be treated as literature, not as a religious primer. Siddhartha teaches us, but it does so more by showing than telling. In its pages we can find an implied theory of teaching and learning as espoused and lived by the central character and those with whom he comes into contact. As a literary work, Siddhartha affords us a glimpse of how and why decisions are made and actions are taken, in specific contexts and through our social relations with others, as part of the process of lifelong education. Considered in this light, the book is also an invitation to reflect on the extent to which, and ways in which, our educational formation is connected with our development as spiritual beings.

I As a narrative, Siddhartha is deceptively simple in its structure and substance: it depicts, through successive carefully ordered chapters, the spiritual journey undertaken by the title character as he

184

Peter Roberts

experiences a number of different modes of life. Students who encounter the book for the first time may be startled by what at first appears to be quite dramatic shifts across Siddhartha’s lifetime. Set in the time of the original Buddha, the story begins with a glimpse of Siddhartha’s childhood. He is, we learn, a thoughtful, talented, much loved boy in a Brahmin household. Yet, despite his privileges and popularity, Siddhartha is restless and unhappy. Together with his friend Govinda, and against his father’s wishes, he joins a group of shramanas and gives up many of the pleasures a young man might have expected, engaging in periods of fasting, learning to meditate, and enduring considerable pain and deprivation. These ascetic practices prove insufficient for his needs and he sets out to meet a man who is reputed to have attained enlightenment: Gotama, the Buddha. Siddhartha listens to Gotama, watches him closely, and speaks with him. While Govinda is entranced by the Buddha, Siddhartha is not fully satisfied and again moves on. He meets a beautiful courtesan, Kamala, who becomes his lover, teaching him patiently and persistently. Through Kamala, Siddhartha also meets a wealthy merchant, Kamaswami, and begins to master the world of business. As the years pass, Siddhartha learns how to exercise power over others, how to make money, and how to spend what he earns on gambling and drinking. He grows increasingly disgusted with himself and eventually leaves Kamala, unaware that she is pregnant with his child. He reacquaints himself with a ferryman he had met briefly many years ago, Vasudeva, and decides to live with him by the river. One day he meets up again with Kamala, but only briefly: she has been bitten by a snake and dies after speaking just a few words with Siddhartha. With her is their son, and Siddhartha is left to care for him after Kamala’s death. The boy, hurting from the loss of his mother, is less than fully appreciative of Siddhartha’s efforts. Used to a relatively pampered life, he finds it hard to adapt to the simplicity of Siddhartha’s existence by the river. He rebels, runs away, and leaves Siddhartha to experience the agonies that come with fatherly love. As an old man, Siddhartha meets Govinda again, and he spends the rest of his life learning, under Vasudeva’s quiet guidance, how to listen to the river. Despite taking his experience of different forms of life to extremes, Siddhartha is in many respects not unlike many of the students who read of his journey. He feels unsettled. He has questions that bear crucially on his sense of purpose and direction in life, but he finds the answers provided by others inadequate to meet his needs. Like many young people, he wants to test his limits. He experiments with both pleasure and pain. As a work of literature, Siddhartha allows students to see what factors can contribute to the steps taken in a journey of this kind. Students can, in a sense, live that journey with Siddhartha, gradually becoming aware, as the story unfolds, of how this character thinks, how he relates to others, why he tends to act in one way and not another. Siddhartha is a seeker, and any student who makes a serious attempt to engage with the book is likely to be a seeker too. There is, then, the potential for a kind of immediate solidarity to be established between Hesse’s central character and the reader, notwithstanding the many differences that may exist between the fictional figure and the real student who meets him for the first time. This is a book set in a time very different from our present age. It suggests a geography remote from many of its readers. Students now are surrounded by technological developments that would have been unthinkable during the period covered by Siddhartha’s story. Still, there remains a connection: for both Siddhartha and many of his readers, life is a process of constant searching. Siddhartha is, as one commentator puts it, “a reenactment of the ancient quest for the meaning of the human condition.”8 There is no one journey conveyed unambiguously to all readers of Siddhartha. Each student of this multi-layered work will bring his or her own experiences, attitudes and ideas to bear on his or her reading of the book. What the journey depicted in the book becomes will depend on

Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha

185

how students have lived their own lives, what they know (e.g., of different religious traditions), how they reflect upon the text, and what they expect of it. Crucially, for present purposes, a student’s interpretation of the book, and of the spiritual quest depicted therein, will also depend on how Siddhartha is “taught’. A student’s reading of a book is never, strictly speaking, “private’; he or she will always employ categories of understanding that are social in nature. Students will be influenced by those who teach them to speak, to read, to make sense of the world. When Siddhartha serves as a text in religious studies classrooms, however, the situatedness of the book in a community of inquirers becomes all the more obvious. How students view Siddhartha’s money-making years, for example, may depend heavily on the ethical and political orientations of their teacher and classmates. If individualism, competition, and free enterprise are valued highly, that part of Siddhartha’s journey may be viewed less critically than in classrooms where an ethic of socialist sharing prevails. Similarly, if the book is studied in an ultra-conservative religious community, the positions adopted in considering Siddhartha’s lovemaking with Kamala, to whom he is not married, are likely to differ from those taken up by readers in more socially progressive neighborhoods. The wider reasons for reading Siddhartha also matter here. If, for instance, the book is read very much with a view to merely meeting assessment requirements, students may miss some of the subtleties that might otherwise be noticed. “Teaching to the test” changes not only the how of reading the work but also the why. If students see Siddhartha as a “living” work that can enable them to ponder some of their deepest problems and questions, the book becomes much more than a means to meet externally imposed educational ends. How students come to understand Siddhartha’s spiritual journey, and link it with their own, will also be influenced by the pedagogy enacted in the classroom. A dialogical approach to teaching, where discussion and debate are encouraged, may bring very different results than a monological, didactic transmission of key elements of plot and characterization. If questions are encouraged, this too may bear different fruit than an authoritarian pedagogical atmosphere where students are expected to accept the teacher’s views, or those they find in a prescribed commentary on the text, as the only legitimate interpretive positions. At the same time, teachers need to be aware of the dangers associated with creating the impression that “anything goes’. There is no one “correct” or best reading of Siddhartha but, as the next section suggests, some readings are arguably better than others.

II When considering how students might respond to this classic tale, it is important, I believe, for teachers to situate Siddhartha in the context of Hesse’s broader corpus of published writings. Hesse was a fine essayist,9 letter writer10 and political commentator11 but above all else he was a poet, short story writer, and novelist. Siddhartha was not intended as a scholarly exposition of religious beliefs; it was, as I have tried to stress, very much a work of literature. It may be true that Hesse was lacking in some significant respects in his understanding of Indian religious traditions,12 but in Siddhartha he did not set out to put that understanding to the test. Nor as readers must we make a judgment about the accuracy of Hesse’s portrayal of Buddhist ideas in order to gain something of religious or spiritual value from the book. Siddhartha builds on some central motifs from earlier novels but it also prefigures concerns that would be addressed at greater length in later works. As novels rather than treatises, these books allow readers to consider ontological, epistemological and ethical ideas not in the abstract but in relation to decisions made, actions taken, and relationships formed.13 As literature, Siddhartha deals with the

186

Peter Roberts

particulars of the central character’s life—thoughts and feelings at given moments, movements and observations made, words exchanged, sights and sounds and smells in specific locations— and these details can have a significant bearing on how we interpret the religious and philosophical statements made throughout the book. Siddhartha can teach students something about religion, but what that becomes depends on how we help them assemble these myriad pieces—what we choose to emphasize, how we see utterances in relation to other events, what we seek to find. Hesse was a master of the German literary form of the Bildungsroman, the novel of education as formation or development. He acknowledged his debt to predecessors such as Goethe and contemporaries such as Mann, but he also pushed the Bildungsroman in new directions.14 In his novels and short stories Hesse retains some of the principal features of the Bildungsroman—the focus on the life of a single individual, a series of trials to be negotiated, and a process of growth— while also troubling some of the assumptions that typically underpin such narratives. Early works by Hermann Hesse such as Peter Camenzind, Beneath the Wheel, Rosshalde, and Demian focus on the themes of alienation, rebellion and friendship—as experienced and expressed by boys and men— and convey with great power the tragic nature of human existence. These motifs figure prominently in Siddhartha too. But what is missing from the earlier works is a well-developed exploration of the process of transformation. This is precisely what we find in Siddhartha, and in a number of Hesse’s later novels, notably The Glass Bead Game. Other words can be used to describe this process—e.g., liberation or awakening—but the underlying concept is similar in each case. Under examination is the nature of educational change: the transformation from one state— one mode of being, one way of living, one way of relating to others and seeing the world—to another. Students in religious studies classrooms may sometimes conceive of liberation as a state that is reached, after which no further work on ourselves is required. As teachers, however, we do well to trouble this assumption. Liberation is not the end we reach after some other means takes us there; rather, liberation is both the means and the end. Liberation does not result in something final or finished; instead, it must be constantly “remade”. Liberation need not be a sudden or dramatic process but may occur gradually, in subtle and often unnoticed ways, over a lifetime. Many of Hesse’s novels have a strong autobiographical flavor,15 and Siddhartha was a crucial literary step along the way in his own spiritual journey. Hesse’s experiences with the school system were largely unhappy16 and he railed against the rigidity of authoritarian social structures. The crushing effects of the pressures placed on young students are demonstrated in Beneath the Wheel, but the figure of the outsider, the individualist who does not conform to social norms and expectations, is present at all phases in Hesse’s literary career. Siddhartha develops this idea via the main character’s rejection of successive modes of life, and later novels such as Steppenwolf take the notion of a man “living on the edge” even further. Hesse’s focus on outsiders provides part of the explanation for his popularity among disenchanted youth and those associated with counter cultural movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s.17 Of even greater significance for Hesse, however, is the theme of the individual as a seeker: someone searching for something, whether this is love, understanding, happiness, or enlightenment. I noted earlier that this idea of searching or seeking is central to Siddhartha. When viewed in relation to to Hesse’s career as a whole, we can now go further than this and say that Siddhartha is arguably the quintessential representation of the “individual as seeker” idea in Hesse’s work.18 Siddhartha serves as a bridge between the romanticism of Hesse’s youthful literary production and the more complex, nuanced accounts of searching, loss and liberation in later books such as The Journey to the East and The Glass Bead Game. In The Glass Bead Game in particular, Hesse gently subverts the tradition of the Bildungsroman, allowing students to see that liberation or transformation is not a

Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha

187

straightforward, linear process, and not something we can examine in relation to individuals alone. The Glass Bead Game prompts students to ask whether all social change is progressive, and it encourages them to appreciate the importance of history, relationships and contexts in shaping individual thoughts, feelings and actions. The beginnings of this more mature approach to the Bildungsroman are evident in Siddhartha, as the analysis below shows.

III In the first two sections, I have considered how students might be encouraged to read Siddhartha and to think about the book in a fresh light. When we ask ourselves how we might teach Siddhartha in the religious studies classroom, we find something surprising: this is a work that also teaches us about teaching. It is tempting, when employing a book like this one as a text, to concentrate on matters of doctrine. Thus, a teacher might examine the religious ideas in the book, comparing them with authoritative sources in Hinduism and Buddhism (and perhaps Christianity as well), with analysis and discussion of differences and similarities. One could either begin with Siddhartha, and allow the work to provide a starting point for introducing students to original Hindu or Buddhist texts; or those sources could be consulted first, after which students might be in a better position to understand and assess Siddhartha.19 But if we become too caught up in the detail here, there is a danger we may lose sight of something else the book has to offer: a view of the educational process itself—a process that is closely connected with our development as spiritual beings. One answer to the question of how to teach Siddhartha can be found in the very book being taught. For Siddhartha not only demonstrates an educational process at work in the journey undertaken by its central character; it also espouses, explicitly and implicitly, an educational theory. The book can be seen as “a casebook on teaching methods,” illustrating the value of listening carefully, appreciating what all students have to offer, not imposing one’s own views, avoiding spoon-feeding, and showing rather than telling, among other pedagogical attributes.20 At the same time, in the views expressed by Siddhartha at different points throughout the novel, the nature and value of teaching and learning are regularly placed under a critical microscope. As a young man, having left his family home to follow the shramanas, Siddhartha finds they too cannot give him what he needs and declares to Govinda: I have always thirsted for understanding; I have always been full of questions. Year after year, I asked questions of the brahmins; year after year, I asked questions of the holy Vedas. Perhaps, O Govinda, it would have been just as good, just as clever, just as meaningful to address my questions to a tickbird or a chimpanzee. I have taken a long time—and I have not yet finished—to learn the following, Govinda: It is impossible to learn anything! In my opinion, that thing that we call “learning” does not exist. The only thing that exists, my friend, is a knowing that is everywhere, which is atman, which is in me and in you and in every being. And I am beginning to believe that this knowing has no greater enemy than wanting to know, than learning.21 As he prepares to depart from the shramanas, having heard about a man (Gotama) who has already attained enlightenment, Siddhartha notes in conversation with Govinda that he has “become distrustful of doctrines and learning and tired of them.” He is willing to receive Gotama’s teaching, despite feeling that he has “already tasted the best of its fruits.” An element of skepticism remains, with Siddhartha having “little faith in words that come to us from

188

Peter Roberts

teachers.”22 What does matter for him is the manner in which Gotama carries himself, his every gesture and movement: The Buddha went his way humbly, absorbed in thought. His quiet face was neither happy nor sad; it gave the impression of a slight inward smile. The Buddha moved quietly, calmly, with a hidden smile, not unlike a healthy child. Just like all his monks, he wore a robe and placed his feet precisely, according to precept. But his face and gait; his still lowered gaze; his still, loose-hanging hand; and even every finger on his still, loosehanging hand were expressions of peace, of perfection. Seeking nothing, emulating nothing, breathing gently, he moved in an atmosphere of imperishable calm, imperishable light, inviolable peace.23 Near the end of the book, Govinda, after meeting his friend again in old age, asks Siddhartha whether he has “a teaching”—“a belief or particular ideas that you follow that help you to live and act properly.” Siddhartha indicates that he had long ago “come to mistrust teachers and teachings and had turned away from them.”24 He notes, however, that he had learned much from a beautiful courtesan, a wealthy merchant, and even a few dice players. He had learned too from a follower of the Buddha. Most of all, he had learned from the river and from Vasudeva. Siddhartha’s conclusion is this: “Knowledge can be expressed, but not wisdom. One can discover it, one can live it, one can be borne along by it, one can do miracles with it, but one cannot express it and teach it.”25 There is a complex interplay of different elements in an educational process at work here. Siddhartha is consistent throughout in expressing reservations about teachings, and he appears to be distrustful of teachers and teaching as well. Not only that; he seems to suggest that learning is either impossible or of limited value. Close examination of his own educational development helps us see why he might make these claims but not fully exemplify them in his decisions and actions. Siddhartha’s experience, fictional though it is, resonates with the positions students sometimes find themselves in: they are often wary of authority figures, including their teachers, and the statements they make to friends, parents and others will not always be consistent with their underlying beliefs or motivations. As a young man, Siddhartha has doubts and questions, and he yearns for spiritual fulfillment. Yet, with the arrogance of youth, he cannot fully appreciate how much his own views have already been shaped by others and how much more he still has to learn. (Hesse would go on to develop this notion of interdependence in much greater depth in The Glass Bead Game).26 Siddhartha only comes to understand what his father had given him, and gone through for him, when he goes through the agony of meeting and then losing his own son. His thanks to an elderly shramana for all that he has taught him is to turn what he has learned back on the old man, binding him to muteness and stillness with the power of his will. When he sees Gotama, he has little interest in his ideas, even though his only acquaintance with Buddhadharma to date had been via second-hand or third-hand accounts.27 To this point, Siddhartha, in common with many of Hesse’s other characters, and Hesse himself, remains fundamentally a rebel and an individualist. The restlessness that characterizes his earlier years never completely leaves him, though it does abate somewhat in his old age. As Siddhartha matures, the qualities of humility, gratitude and openness come more to the fore. Where earlier he had assumed too much about what he knew, in later years he comes to appreciate how limited his knowledge had been. His declaration as a young man that it is impossible to learn anything is contradicted by his own experience, and his own words, later in his life. Similarly, even though he claims to distrust teachers, he acknowledges, implicitly and explicitly, that he

Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha

189

has them and that they have played pivotal roles in his development. As he departs from Kamala, for example, he refers directly to her as “teacher.”28 With the shramanas and with the Buddha, as much as during his years of gambling, making money and manipulating others, his focus is still predominantly self-centered. He claims that his desire was to escape from himself but admits that this is impossible. Yet, even the attempt to flee from his ego is itself driven by a focus on himself as an individual. The seeds of a more socially sensitive understanding of himself and the world are planted in the friendship he cultivates with Govinda, but Siddhartha at this stage in his life is too immature to recognize this. It is Kamala who allows him to see that the well-being of the self is, in part, dependent on others—on sharing and giving within a specific context for mutual benefit. The self, Kamala’s actions show, is socially constructed. When Siddhartha’s son appears, Siddhartha’s sense of responsibility to someone other than himself increases substantially. He cannot explain by rational means the love he feels for a child he has never known, but he feels this nonetheless, notwithstanding the resistance put up by his young charge. Siddhartha’s focus is no longer on his own liberation but on the development of another self, another complex, difficult, multilayered human being. This experience, painful though it is, proves pivotal in furnishing the conditions for the openness and humility necessary to truly “hear” what the river has to say to him. In a world where we, teachers and students, are encouraged to always seek happiness, it is easy to forget that suffering can also play a pivotal role in our educational development.29 A crucial element in Siddhartha’s educational growth is his cultivation of the quality of attention. The French philosopher, teacher and social activist Simone Weil30 argued that while school students should certainly seek knowledge of their specific subject areas, of even greater importance in the process of study is the development of attention. Attention, as Weil conceived of it, requires the ability to wait, with an attitude of openness and humility, and to be ready to receive with gratitude what comes. We should not, she cautioned, be anxious or impatient in seeking answers to our questions, and efforts that at first seem wasted may nonetheless later bear fruit. It is through attention that we experience grace and, in offering that attention to others, allow them to do likewise. These ideas provide signposts for understanding the path Siddhartha follows. Siddhartha’s ability to pay attention is evident from early on in his life and continues to grow at different points in his journey. He observes both the elderly shramana and the Buddha carefully; he takes in the beauty of his surroundings after leaving Gotama; he picks up on the importance of small details in his lovemaking with Kamala; he grasps, quickly and clearly, the intricacies of business in his dealings with Kamaswami; and, with Vasudeva’s help, he eventually learns to listen, quietly and patiently, to the myriad subtle sounds of the river. It is the development of attention that lies at the heart of Siddhartha’s educational and spiritual transformation over the course of his lifetime. Attention, as demonstrated in Siddhartha, entails a willingness to accept pain as well as pleasure, not seeking it deliberately, nor endorsing it, but living with it as a defining feature of our existence as human beings. In his earlier years and through into his middle age, Siddhartha seeks to escape—first from his ego, and then from the teachings of others (to better know himself), and then into the arms of Kamala, the intoxicating world of money and power, and the clutches of the dice table. In his maturity, he has finally learned how to wait, to listen, to pay attention not only to himself but to others and to the rich range of experiences that have shaped him. He discovers that he, in common with almost every other human being, has been unable to avoid suffering and despair. As an old man, however, tutored by the gentle example of Vasudeva, he has found that he can “face up” to his pain, immerse himself in it while retaining a certain detachment from it, and learn from it. He can meditate on joys and sorrows, “successes”

190

Peter Roberts

and “mistakes”, beauty and ugliness, simplicity and complexity, with calmness and equanimity. In the end, for Siddhartha, all becomes one and there is no separation between the “I” that he inhabits and the unimaginably complex panorama that is everything else. Siddhartha is able to not only think and fast and wait but also feel and hear and see, experiencing what is closest at hand while simultaneously opening himself up to all that lies beyond.

IV Siddhartha has much to offer the religious studies classroom, provided we treat this as a text that invites rather than instructs. This is what the book itself counsels us to do. Siddhartha is perhaps too quick to dispense with the teachings, the instruction, offered by others. The lesson we can take from his example, however, is that we should not rely too heavily on such teachings as a guide for our own lives. And certainly we are likely to be misguided if we believe any one doctrine, perhaps any one religion, can provide all the answers we need. Siddhartha claims to distrust teachers but this claim needs to be seen in the light of the events and experiences that structure his life. He is reluctant to place his unquestioning faith in those elevated to the status of gurus but as his journey unfolds, he encounters teachers of many kinds and learns much of value from them. His teachers are not only the shramanas, Gotama, Kamala, Kamaswami, and Vasudeva but also his father, his son, and his loyal friend Govinda. He does not always appreciate what these people have to show him but he would not be the sage he is at the end of his story without them. He learns not merely from his fellow human strugglers, but also from reflection, from observation of the world around him, from his participation in the mundane as well as magnificent activities of daily life. And he has to keep relearning. Education, Siddhartha demonstrates, is a necessarily incomplete process. Similarly, the book teaches us that no matter how wise we become in our old age, we remain unfinished spiritual beings. The process of working on ourselves, with others, is unending. If the object is to furnish students with authoritative accounts of Buddhist or Hindu ideas, Siddhartha is far from the best source for teachers to employ. This is a novel, not a treatise, and it needs to be read as one part of Hermann Hesse’s broader literary canvas. But if the aim is to foster a spirit of inquiry and questioning, to stimulate the ethos of spiritual searching, to inculcate the habit of attention, and to invite students to begin a lifelong process of educational development, this classic work can bring rich rewards.

Notes 1 See Madison Brown, “Toward a Perspective for the Indian Element in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha,” The German Quarterly 49 (1976.): 191–202; Bhabagrahi Misra, “An Analysis of Indic Tradition in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha,” Indian Literature 11 (1968): 111–123. 2 Robert Mossman, “Siddhartha Still Works,” Education About Asia 2, 1997, http://www.asian-studies. org/eaa/Siddhartha.htm 3 See Brigitte Schludermann and Rosemarie Findlay, “Mythical Reflections of the East in Hermann Hesse,” Mosaic 2 (1969): 97–111; Leroy R Shaw, “Time and the Structure of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha,” Symposium 11 (1957): 204–224. 4 See Catherine Benton, “Teaching Indian Buddhism with Siddhartha—Or Not?” Education About Asia 2, 1997, http://aas2.asian-studies.org/EAA/EAA-Archives/2/1/83.pdf; Joe Gawrys, “Going Beyond Hesse’s Siddhartha,” Education About Asia 2, 1997, http://aas2.asian-studies.org/EAA/EAA-Archives/2/ 1/83.pdf. 5 Robert Conard, “Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, Eine Indische Dichtung, as a Western Archetype,” The German Quarterly 48 (1975): 358–369. 6 Sherab Kohn, “Translator’s Preface.” In Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2000), ix.

Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha

191

7 Bonnie Thurston, “A Christian’s Appreciation of the Buddha,” Buddhist-Christian Studies 19 (1999): 121–128. 8 Robert H. Paslick, “Dialectic and Non-Attachment: The Structure of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha,” Symposium 27 (1973): 64. 9 Hermann Hesse, My Belief: Essays on Life and Art, Translated by D. Lindley, with two essays translated by R. Manheim. Edited by Theodore Ziolkowski (London: Triad/Panther, 1978). 10 Anni Carlsson and Volker Michels, eds. The Hesse-Mann Letters, Translated by Ralph Manheim (London: Arena, 1986). 11 Hermann Hesse, If the War Goes On . . . Reflections on War and Politics, Translated by Ralph Manheim (London: Picador, 1974). 12 See Benton, “Teaching Indian Buddhism with Siddhartha—Or Not?” 13 Cf. Anthony Cunningham, The Heart of What Matters: The Role for Literature in Moral Philosophy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001); David Novitz, Knowledge, Fiction and Imagination (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1987); Martha Nussbaum, Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Peter Roberts, “Bridging Literary and Philosophical Genres: Judgement, Reflection and Education in Camus’ The Fall,” Educational Philosophy and Theory 40 (2008): 873–887; Peter Roberts and John Freeman-Moir, Better Worlds: Education, Art, and Utopia (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013); M. Weston, ed., Philosophy, Literature and the Human Good (London: Routledge, 2001). 14 Martin Swales, The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978); Michael Peters, “Cybernetics, Cyberspace and the University: Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game and the Dream of a Universal Language,” in Poststructuralism, Politics and Education (Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1996), 159–176; Peter Roberts, From West to East and Back Again: An Educational Reading of Hermann Hesse’s Later Work (Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2012). 15 Johannes Malthaner, “Hermann Hesse. Siddhartha.” The German Quarterly 25 (1952). 16 Joseph Mileck, Hermann Hesse: Life and Art (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 17 E.C. Gropper, “Literature for the Restive: Hermann Hesse’s Books,” The English Journal 59 (1970): 1221–1228. E.C. Gropper, “The Disenchanted Turn to Hesse,” The English Journal 61 (1972): 979– 984; E. Schwarz, “Hermann Hesse, the American Youth Movement, and Problems of Literary Evaluation,” PMLA 85 (1970): 977–987; E.F. Timpe, “Hermann Hesse in the United States,” Symposium 23 (1969): 73–79. 18 Cf. Flavia Arzeni, An Education in Happiness: The Lessons of Hesse and Tagore, Translated by H. Curtis (London: Pushkin Press, 2009); Kelly Courtney-Smith and Michael Angelotti, “To Search for Enlightenment: Responding to Siddhartha Through Paint and Poetry,” The English Journal 94 (2005): 56–62; Kohn, “Translator’s Preface”; Paslick, “Dialectic and Non-Attachment”; Mary Anne, Raywid, “Models of the Teaching-Learning Situation,” The Phi Delta Kappan 58 (1977): 631–635. 19 Cf. Mossman, “Siddhartha Still Works”; Joe Gawrys, “Going Beyond Hesse’s Siddhartha,” Education About Asia 2, 1997. Both available at: http://www.asian-studies.org/eaa/Siddhartha.htm 20 Dennis Brestensky, “Siddhartha: A Casebook on Teaching Methods,” The English Journal 62 (1973). 21 Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha. Translated by S.C. Kohn (Boston: Shambhala, 2000), 16. 22 Ibid., 19. 23 Ibid., 23. 24 Ibid., 109. 25 Ibid., 110. 26 Peter Roberts, From West to East and Back Again. 27 Hesse, Siddhartha, 23. 28 Ibid., 49. 29 See further, John Ozolins, “Suffering: Valuable or just useless pain?” Sophia, 42 (2003); and Peter Roberts, “Happiness, Despair and Education,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 32 (2013). 30 See Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace. Translated by A. Wills (Lincoln: Bison Books, 1997); and Simone Weil, Waiting for God. Translated by E. Craufurd (New York: Perennial Classics, 2001).

Bibliography Arzeni, Flavia. An Education in Happiness: The Lessons of Hesse and Tagore. Translated by H. Curtis. London: Pushkin Press, 2009. Benton, Catherine. “Teaching Indian Buddhism with Siddhartha—Or Not?” Education About Asia 2, 1997. http://www.asian-studies.org/eaa/Siddhartha.html

192

Peter Roberts

Brestensky, Dennis F. “Siddhartha: A Casebook on Teaching Methods.” The English Journal 62 (1973): 379–382. Brown, Madison. “Toward a Perspective for the Indian Element in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” The German Quarterly 49 (1976): 191–202. Carlsson, Anni and Volker Michels, eds. The Hesse-Mann Letters. Translated by Ralph Manheim. London: Arena, 1986. Conard, Robert C. “Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, Eine Indische Dichtung, as a Western Archetype.” The German Quarterly 48 (1975): 358–369. Courtney-Smith, Kelly and Michael Angelotti. “To Search for Enlightenment: Responding to Siddhartha Through Paint and Poetry.” The English Journal 94 (2005): 56–62. Cunningham, Anthony. The Heart of What Matters: The Role for Literature in Moral Philosophy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001. Gawrys, Joe. “Going Beyond Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Education About Asia 2, (1997). http://www.asian-studies. org/eaa/Siddhartha.htm Gropper, E.C. “Literature for the Restive: Hermann Hesse’s Books.” The English Journal 59, (1970): 1221–1228. ––– “The Disenchanted Turn to Hesse.” The English Journal 61 (1972): 979–984. Hesse, Hermann. The Journey to the East. Translated by Hilda Rosner. New York: The Noonday Press, 1956. ––– Steppenwolf. Translated by Basil Creighton. Revised by W. Sorell. London: Penguin, 1965. ––– Beneath the Wheel. Translated by M. Roloff. New York: Picador, 1968. ––– Peter Camenzind. Translated by M. Roloff. New York: Picador, 1969. ––– Rosshalde. Translated by Ralph Manheim. London: Pan Books, 1972. ––– My Belief: Essays on Life and Art. Translated by D. Lindley, with two essays translated by R. Manheim. Edited by Theodore Ziolkowski. London: Triad/Panther, 1978. ––– If the War Goes On . . . Reflections on War and Politics. Translated by Ralph Manheim. London: Picador, 1974. ––– Demian. Translated by M. Roloff and M. Lebeck. New York: Perennial Classics, 1999. ––– Siddhartha. Translated by S.C. Kohn. Boston: Shambhala, 2000. ––– The Glass Bead Game. Translated by Richard Winston and Clara Winston. London: Vintage, 2000. Kohn, Sherab C. “Translator’s Preface.” In Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. Boston, MA: Shambhala, 2000. Malthaner, Johannes. “Hermann Hesse. Siddhartha.” The German Quarterly 25, (1952): 103–109. Mileck, Joseph. Hermann Hesse: Life and Art. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978. Misra, Bhabagrahi. “An Analysis of Indic Tradition in Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Indian Literature 11 (1968): 111–123. Molnár, Géza von. “The Ideological Framework of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Teaching German 4 (1971): 82–87. Mossman, Robert. “Siddhartha Still Works.” Education About Asia 2, 1997. http://www.asian-studies.org/ eaa/Siddhartha.htm Novitz, David. Knowledge, Fiction and Imagination. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1987. Nussbaum, Martha. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Ozolins, John. “Suffering: Valuable or just useless pain?” Sophia, 42 (2003): 53–77. Paslick, Robert H. “Dialectic and Non-Attachment: The Structure of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Symposium 27 (1973): 64–75. Peters, Michael. “Cybernetics, Cyberspace and the University: Herman Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game and the Dream of a Universal Language.” In Poststructuralism, Politics and Education, 159–176. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey, 1996. Raywid, Mary Anne. “Models of the Teaching-Learning Situation.” The Phi Delta Kappan 58 (1977): 631–635. Roberts, Peter. “Bridging Literary and Philosophical Genres: Judgement, Reflection and Education in Camus’ The Fall.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 40 (2008): 873–887. ––– From West to East and Back Again: An Educational Reading of Hermann Hesse’s Later Work. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers, 2012. ––– “Happiness, Despair and Education.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 32 (2013): 463–475.

Teaching Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha

193

Roberts, Peter and John Freeman-Moir. Better Worlds: Education, Art, and Utopia. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013. Schludermann, Brigitte and Rosemarie Findlay. “Mythical Reflections of the East in Hermann Hesse.” Mosaic 2 (1969): 97–111. Schwarz, E. “Hermann Hesse, the American Youth Movement, and Problems of Literary Evaluation.” PMLA 85 (1970): 977–987. Shaw, Leroy R. “Time and the Structure of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha.” Symposium 11 (1957): 204–224. Swales, Martin. The German Bildungsroman from Wieland to Hesse. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Thurston, Bonnie. “A Christian’s Appreciation of the Buddha.” Buddhist-Christian Studies 19 (1999): 121–128. Timpe, E.F. “Hermann Hesse in the United States.” Symposium 23 (1969): 73–79. Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. Translated by A. Wills. Lincoln: Bison Books, 1997. ––– Waiting for God. Translated by E. Craufurd. New York: Perennial Classics, 2001. Weston, M., ed. Philosophy, Literature and the Human Good. London: Routledge, 2001.

INDEX

Abraham 40–43, 65 Abrahamic 65, 74, 162, 168 African 88, 91–92, 93, 142, 145 African American 6, 82–95, 142, 148, 150, 154–155; and the blues 90, 93; Christianity 84–85, 87, 154; conjure 85; gospel 83; jeremiads 86; literature 6; and religion 6; theology 85, 92 Aristotle 37, 43, 54, 107 Arnold, Matthew 15, 17, 29–30 Augustine 35, 37–39, 43, 51, 103–104, 148–150, 152–153, 155 autobiography 4, 89, 138, 156, 186; American 154; assignments 152–153; Christian 148, 152–153; definition of 148; factual 139; fictionalized 87; life writing 8, 148, 155; memoir 87, 148–155; religious 150, 154; and self 149, 155; spiritual 6, 148, 151, 155; Western 149–150 Baltutis, Michael 7, 138–145 Barbour, John 8, 146–156 Benton, Catherine 8, 161–171 Boscaljon, Daniel 1–8, 44, 102, 115–124 Bouchard, Larry D. 5, 46–56 Buddhism 8, 48, 149, 155, 161–164, 169–170, 172–174, 176–178, 180, 183, 187 Bunyan, John 26, 149, 152 Christian 102, 121, 123, 169, 173, 176; Bible 1, 2, 74, 84; and Buddhism 175, 183; context 51; culture 17, 70, 90, 100, 121, 148; discourse 107; doctrine 28, 91; era 31; god 181; and Judaism 6, 31, 92, 173; mysticism 162; reader 16; salvation 98, 105; scripture see Christian Bible; theology 16, 115, 152; tradition 149; understandings 162 Christianity 15–16, 30, 52, 54, 85, 106, 121, 129, 153, 163, 173, 187 Chuang-tzu see Zhuang Zi

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 14–15, 17, 24, 29–30, 49 Connor, Kimberly Rae 6, 82–95 Conrad, Joseph 47–51, 53 Dao 1; Daoism 1, 73–74, 162, 175; Daoist texts 2, 6, 74, 75; Sages 77; Scholars 79 Daode Jing 1, 31, 73–74 Darwin, Charles 101, 130; Darwinism 13, 98; Darwin Day 100 Death of God 99, 120–121, 123; “kill the Buddha” 175, 179; see also secularism Demian see Hesse, Hermann Derrida, Jacques 5, 31, 34–35, 40–44 Dickinson, Emily 121–123 Douglass, Frederick 85, 87–88, 94, 154 Eliot, T. S. 16–17, 25, 30 Endo, Shusaku 53 ethics 6; and aesthetic 40; and doctrines 79, 88; environmental 127; and evil 103; and practices 91; and prosaic claims 74; and questions 7, 49; imaginative 54, 127; lifeboat ethics 53; and literary works 47, 138; and politics 185; and reading 17; and religion 18, 49, 53, 106, 148; responsibilities 128; and structure 49 faith 6, 99–103, 126–137, 152; against religion 120; agnostic 102; and atheism 55, 116, 121, 123–124; as belief 99; and Buddhism 178; Christian 87, 102, 149, 152–154; crisis of 116; and doubt 7, 101, 133; expressions of 82, 94; and God 148, 154; and Hesse 163, 172, 187, 190; institutional 82; Islamic 63, 94, 107, 139–140; against knowledge 122; leaps of 116; losing 15; Mormon 126, 130; personal 153; poetic 37; and questions 49, 130–131, 136; in readers 17; religious 83, 94, 98, 100; and Ricoeur 116; and

Index

Rumi 65; and salvation 181; and science 99–106; and science fiction 103–104; and Tillich 48; and understanding 27 fana’ see self-annihilation Fischer, Paul 8, 172–181 Genesis 22, 34, 40–42 graduate education 3, 5, 18, 35 Hamlet 2, 26, 41 Hebrew 1, 27, 84, 86, 105, 116, 123 Heidegger, Martin 35, 37, 43, 115–116 Hesse, Hermann: and Demian 47, 51–53, 123; and Siddhartha 4, 8, 161–190 Hinduism 48, 51, 54, 149–150, 155, 162–164, 170, 172–178, 180, 187 Hughes, Langston 6, 90–91 Hurston, Zora Neale 6, 85, 90–92

195

Miéville, China 101, 105 Milton, John 27–28, 42 Momaday, N. Scott 48, 154 Morrison, Toni 53, 83, 87, 89 Moses 30, 65–66, 84–85 Muslim 6, 48, 61, 65–66, 70, 107, 138–141, 145 myth 50, 86, 90, 106, 144–145, 151, 154 nature: as environment 48, 92, 104, 126–136, 166, 169; of evil 104–105; as immanent, conscious force 51–52; as inner world 166–168; as mysticism 162; Religion and Nature Course 4, 7, 126; as innate quality 21, 25, 28, 31, 38, 40, 63–64, 69, 71, 80, 118–120, 135, 138, 149, 152, 170, 175, 183, 185–18; as second scripture 14; as genre 151 O’Connor, Flannery 39, 53, 121 Potok, Chaim 117–118, 121

industry: industrialization 13, 15; industrial society 99; “White Savior Industrial Complex” 145 interdisciplinary 2–4, 6–9, 18, 32, 115–116, 120–121, 124, 126, 128 interpret 6, 15, 51–52, 94,148, 152 interpreters 8, 53, 116; and meaning 84 interpretation 2–8, 16, 25, 29, 34, 39–40, 44, 50, 61, 64, 67, 83, 106, 118, 123–124, 161; and readers 49, 88, 133, 185; religious 130; skills 3, 67; task 62; texts 29, 73, 85, 92, 126; and world 128, 136 interpretative 63, 67–68, 185; life 155; methodologies 4, 73, 121; misinterpret 162; nature 127; possibilities 74 Islam 6–7, 54, 61–71, 92, 94, 107, 138–145, 149, 154, 173; see also Muslim Jasper, David 5, 24–32 Judaism 31; Hasidic Judaism 118; Lurianic kabbalah 54 Jung, Carl 51–52, 103, 117, 134, 148; Jungian psychology 51 Kafka, Franz 40–43 Kant, Immanuel 14, 39, 121 Kazantzakis, Nikos 123, 173 Kierkegaard, Søren 40–42, 121 Koran see Qur’an Kort, Wesley A. 4, 13–20 Leap 21, 127–136 LeGuin, Ursula 2 Levinovitz, Alan 1–8, 73–81 Lewis, C. S. 54, 149, 152–153 lyric 88–89, 93; lyrical poetry 13, 18, 91 Martel, Yann 47, 53–55 Menning, Nancy 7, 126–136

Qur’an 1, 31, 61–63, 65, 68, 140 redemption 6, 13, 82–95, 105, 115, 174–175 Reformation 25–26, 132 Ricoeur, Paul 5, 16–17, 34–35, 37–40, 42–44, 116 rituals 46, 48, 63, 66, 129; African 88; Buddhist 165; Hindu 174; of confession 50; Mormon 130; or practices 7, 68, 70; as song 89; as storytelling 91 Roberts, Peter 8, 183–190 Robinson, Marilynne 53, 102 Romantic 14–15, 27, 51, 100, 106, 163, 170, 186 Rosengarten, Richard A. 5, 34–45 Rumi, Jalaluddin 6, 61–71 sacred: texts 1, 2, 4, 24–25, 28–32, 85, 114, 150; and construction 50; and cosmos 85; and history 25; and language 84; and literature 92; and love 66; and profane 85, 114; and the real 48; and scripture 26; and the secular 5, 88–89, 92; and space 88, 153; and truths 28 Salinger, J. D. 77, 119–120 science 105; and alchemy 106–107; and art 132, 135; and answers 99–100; and faith 99–101; environmental 127, 132; and experience 134; faith in 100; fear of 106; as guide 98; and the humanities 34, 136; natural 127–128, 135; and knowledge 99–100; and poetry 15, 29; products 100; and progress 100; and religion 7, 101, 103, 106, 127–129, 132, 135–136; against religion 6, 128; social 46, 127; STEM 127; and technology 15 science fiction 2, 4, 6, 98–107 Scott, Nathan A. 5, 17, 34–37, 43–44, 92 secular 29, 31, 46, 115–116, 153; authors 152; culture 88–90, 92, 115, 118; humanists 2; imaginary 116; literature 2, 4, 5, 29, 48, 117, 120, 149; orientation 150, 154; post–secular 121; and sacred 88–89, 92; world 118–120, 123–124

196

Index

secularism 4, 7, 16, 100, 115, 119–122; and materialism 17 secularization 29, 115 secularized 25 self: self-affirming 91; self-annihilation 64, 166–167; self-assertion 154; as atman 162, 166, 168; self-aware 3–4, 7–8, 128; self-centered 189; self-conscious 43, 64, 82, 154; self-creation 51; self-discovery 92; and divine consciousness 65; double self 84; and Ego 64–65, 67; self-definition 154; self-disclosure 153; self-expression 82; self-forgiveness 41; and God 64; self-hatred 155; self-identification 128, 173; self-individuation 52; inner self 51; no-self 162, 168–169, 177–178; self-interest 64; self-knowledge 117; lack of self-consciousness 142–143; and other 86, 189; self-realization 67; self-reflection 127; and religion 148–156; self-representation 149; self-restraint 51; search for 151; self-sacrifice 180; self-scrutiny 153, 155; as Selbst 166; as Self 166, 168, 177–178; as Seele (soul) 166–168; self-sufficient 94; self-taught 170; self-understanding 151–152; as Western 149 sermon 50, 69, 84, 87–91 Shuren, Zhou see Xun, Lu Siddhartha see Hesse, Hermann Silentio, Johannes de see Kierkegaard, Søren spirituals 6, 83–90 Stevens, Wallace 15, 35–37, 43 Stone, Jennifer Arden 6–7, 98–107 suffering 53; and Buddhism 175, 178, 189; as dissatisfaction 175; as instructive 189; human 100–101; and illness 155; psychological 155; relieving 175; and Siddhartha 178; as theme 152 Tanach 177 Three Cups of Tea 7, 138–145

Tillich, Paul 16–17, 37, 47–48, 121, 123 Tolstoy, Leo 30, 149–150 tradition 1, 4–5, 47, 51–52, 69–70, 84, 89–92, 115, 136, 172; Abrahamic 74, 123; African American 91; boundaries 116; Buddhist 161, 165, 168, 170–172, 176; Chinese 165; Christian 29, 149, 151–152; Eastern 176; educational 126; exegesis 8; folk 83, 90–91, 172; Hindu 172; historical 49–50, 74; Indian 162, 166–167, 183, 185; interpretative 68, 92; Islamic 61, 62, 64–70; literary 8, 28, 85, 116, 149, 186; monotheistic 116, 168; Mormon 129, 132–133, 155; non–Western 149; oral 48, 62, 84, 90, 149; prophetic 65; received 82, 88, 93, 136; religion and literature as 21; religious 2–3, 5–8, 29, 31, 36, 48, 50, 53–54, 63, 68–71, 73–74, 82, 85, 90, 92, 117–121, 123–124, 127, 129, 149–155, 161, 163, 166–167, 175, 185; ritual 70; Romantic 27; slave narrative 87; Sufi 62, 67; theism 37; understanding 79–80; Western 24, 150 undergraduate education 3–4, 8, 31, 35, 47, 63, 67–68, 80, 115, 119, 161, 177 Upanishads 31, 163, 166–167, 174 The Way to Rainy Mountain 48, 154 Weil, Simone 35, 189 Widmann Abraham, Danielle 6, 61–71 Williams, Terry Tempest 7, 127–136, 151, 155 Wordsworth, William 18, 35, 148 Xun, Lu 6, 75–80 Zen 175, 177, 179 Zhuang Zi: character 76–81; historical figure 74–81; scholars 75; text 2, 6, 73–81