Kierkegaard and the Staging of Desire: Rhetoric and Performance in a Theology of Eros

Carl S. Hughes

Published by Fordham University Press 2014

Kierkegaard and the Staging of Desire

Rhetoric and Performance in a Theology of Eros

Carl S. Hughes

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780823257287

Overview
Contents

About this book

An analysis of spiritual eros in the writings of Søren Kierkegaard. Argues that Kierkegaard uses settings of theatrical and liturgical performance as rhetorical means of eliciting ever greater desire for God. Situates Kierkegaard against the backdrop of the Lutheran tradition and older traditions of negative theology.

Author / Editor information

Hughes Carl S. :

Carl S. Hughes is Assistant Professor of Theology at Texas Lutheran University.

Reviews

—Lee C. Barrett:
Hughes’ attention to historical details is impressive. Few scholars have recognized the importance of vaudeville and farce for Kierkegaard, and few have researched the Danish appropriation of these French and German genres in the way that Hughes has done.

—Mark D. Jordan:
The curtain rises—again and again—in Kierkegaard’s writing. Helped by Carl Hughes, readers can now become viewers. They will recognize the overlooked stagecraft; they will appreciate the nuanced performances. Teaching us to read by watching, Hughes is as astute, as witty, as passionate as any great critic. Still his higher art, like Kierkegaard’s own, it to show how fully this dramaturgy is theology. The drama here is always an invitation to redemption.

—M. Jamie Ferreira:
This suggestive and insightful book argues that Kierkegaard’s authorship can fruitfully be read as 'stagings of Christian desire,' elaborating both the connection between the notion of infinite desire and the notion of theatricality in Kierkegaard’s work and the connection between the notion of infinite desire and ‘theology.’ The author explores the relation between aesthetics (the art, the ritual, the liturgy) and the architecture of the church in Kierkegaard’s Communion discourses, but suggests that the theatrical qualities and the relation to infinite desire inform the whole authorship. The book, moreover, has ramifications for more than Christian theology because it reveals a broader notion of what theology can be (as exploration of unsatisfied desire for what can never be represented).

“Hughes’s book is a readable, insightful, and substantial contribution to the growing body of scholarship on Kierkegaard’s discourses… The importance of this book for Kierkegaard scholars is unquestionable; its overture to a more passionate, poetic, and provisional theology welcome; and its sustained attention to the evocative nature of the discourses is admirable, enriching, and instructive.”

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Prologue Theology and Fairy Tales Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Introduction Staging Desire, with Constant Reference to The Concept of Irony Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
1. Desiring “The One”— in Vaudev ille, Marriage, and Beyond Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
2. Vor Frue Kirke as Stage Aesthetics and Desire in Liturgy and Sacrament Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	81
3. “The Woman Who Was a Sinner” A New Statue in Vor Frue Kirke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	115
4. Theatrical and Eucharistic Transformations From the Farce Theater to the Feet of Christ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
5. Sacramental Writing, Sacramental Living Eros in Existence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
Epilogue Renewing Theology— Kierkegaard beyond Barth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Illustration Credits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Fordham University Press
Pages
- Main content: 272
Keywords: Kierkegaard; desire/eros; theater; mysticism; theology; Luther/Lutheranism; liturgy; sacrament; performance; Derrida; Levinas; faith

eBook

Published: July 2, 2014
ISBN: 9780823257287