Inwardness is the condition of being inside. However, this can mean many things: one can be inside himself – dealing with his emotions, his projections, his fantasies – or with other people who become part of him as he deals with himself. One can be inside his social environment, letting himself be part of the tissue of values, reciprocations, and personal interventions that compose one’s social existence. These are two quite different kinds of being inside, both of them different from being in a box or being in a prison cell, and yet each of them, in a recognizable sense, inside something. This book is concerned with inwardness in two different senses, the first as being in the center of existence, and the second as being a quest for the meaning of the center of one’s existence, that is two different kinds of profoundly ‘within’ states. The book culminates with tales of searching for the meaning of interiority, as it self-characterizes in the inner brain of a lizard, or in the mineral constitution of the earth from which we take our lives.

This volume represents a study in the formation of a personal literary opus, and in some of the theoretical reflections involved in understanding how parts of that opus are constructed. The opus in question is the author’s own, and he is the analyst of it, attempting in this role to work as an everyman stand-in, a representative of the I in each of us which can choose to live the situation of replacing itself by writing. The opus is addressed by pieces of individual text – a chapter each from a couple of novels and a long poem – and by a close pursuit of the kinds of ways in which the author is transformed into those pieces of text. This textbook in democratic self-transformation is at the same time a fussy tractatus on the intricacies imposed on itself by art, in its quest to become a zone of moral enhancement.

In this ambitious book, acclaimed writer Marilynne Robinson applies her astute intellect to some of the most vexing topics in the history of human thought—science, religion, and consciousness. Crafted with the same care and insight as her award-winning novels, Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson’s view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest. Instead, in its purest form, science represents a search for answers. It engages the problem of knowledge, an aspect of the mystery of consciousness, rather than providing a simple and final model of reality.By defending the importance of individual reflection, Robinson celebrates the power and variety of human consciousness in the tradition of William James. She explores the nature of subjectivity and considers the culture in which Sigmund Freud was situated and its influence on his model of self and civilization. Through keen interpretations of language, emotion, science, and poetry, Absence of Mind restores human consciousness to its central place in the religion-science debate.

This book represents the collected thinking of a few people who have had strong personal connections to Dr. Song Nai Rhee. Because the integration of faith and learning is a core value held by Dr. Rhee, the various authors have written essays on this topic in honor of his life and work. Such a book is typically referred to as a Festschrift, a celebratory writing given for a special person. Dr. Rhee's robust career at Northwest Christian College/University is celebrated by the essays brought together in this book. All the authors have known Dr. Rhee as students or as academic colleagues or both. What they write about ranges from topics found in biblical literature to expressly theological ideas to matters that are eminently practical. Yet each essay is held in place by its relevancy to the ongoing conversations about how faith and learning are integrated in the context of the Christian liberal arts university. More important, each author has a deep and abiding respect for Dr. Song Nai Rhee. His teaching and mentoring at Northwest Christian College/University have left an indelible mark on each of their lives.

Although we usually think of the intellectual legacy of twentieth-century Vienna as synonymous with Sigmund Freud and his psychoanalytic theories, other prominent writers from Vienna were also radically reconceiving sexuality and gender. In this probing new study, David Luft recovers the work of three such writers: Otto Weininger, Robert Musil, and Heimito von Doderer. His account emphasizes the distinctive intellectual world of liberal Vienna, especially the impact of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in this highly scientific intellectual world. According to Luft, Otto Weininger viewed human beings as bisexual and applied this theme to issues of creativity and morality. Robert Musil developed a creative ethics that was closely related to his open, flexible view of sexuality and gender. And Heimito von Doderer portrayed his own sexual obsessions as a way of understanding the power of total ideologies, including his own attraction to National Socialism. For Luft, the significance of these three writers lies in their understandings of eros and inwardness and in the roles that both play in ethical experience and the formation of meaningful relations to the world-a process that continues to engage artists, writers, and thinkers today. Eros and Inwardness in Vienna will profoundly reshape our understanding of Vienna's intellectual history. It will be important for anyone interested in Austrian or German history, literature, or philosophy.

The spirit of our times can appear to be one of joyless urgency. As a culture we have become less interested in the exploration of the glorious mind, and more interested in creating and mastering technologies that will yield material well-being. But while cultural pessimism is always fashionable, there is still much to give us hope. In The Givenness of Things, the incomparable Marilynne Robinson delivers an impassioned critique of our contemporary society while arguing that reverence must be given to who we are and what we are: creatures of singular interest and value, despite our errors and depredations. Robinson has plumbed the depths of the human spirit in her novels, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning Lila and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead, and in her new essay collection she trains her incisive mind on our modern predicament and the mysteries of faith. These seventeen essays examine the ideas that have inspired and provoked one of our finest writers throughout her life. Whether she is investigating how the work of the great thinkers of the past, Calvin, Locke, Bonhoeffer--and Shakespeare--can infuse our lives, or calling attention to the rise of the self-declared elite in American religious and political life, Robinson's peerless prose and boundless humanity are on display. Exquisite and bold, The Givenness of Things is a necessary call for us to find wisdom and guidance in our cultural heritage, and to offer grace to one another.