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Playing the Hand We Are Dealt
The Counterpoint of Fate and Freewill in Literature and Life
Michael Jackson
288 pages, bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-80539-704-5 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Published (October 2024)
eISBN 978-1-80539-705-2 eBook
Reviews
“Michael Jackson is one of the preeminent thinkers and writers in anthropology and in this extraordinary book he combines his fluency as ethnographer and essayist with beautifully written short stories. In that unconventional combination, the book stands out as new and experimental – yet a logical continuation of the author's groundbreaking oeuvre.” • Hans Lucht, DIIS
Description
The relationship between literature and life can be construed as a counterpoint of fate and freewill. Rather than equating fate to the ‘hand we are dealt’ which is reducible to the social or familial environments into which we are born, this book explores the idea of fate through the books that shape our lives and under whose influence we write. Writing in this sense is seen as beyond its utility of making meaning. It is a way of recovering agency in the face of overwhelming experiences. In juxtaposing factuality and fiction, the author makes a case for a radically empirical approach to human experience.
Michael Jackson is Senior Research Fellow in World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author of over forty books of poetry, ethnography, fiction and memoir, including The Politics of Storytelling (2002), The Genealogical Imagination (2021), Coincidences (2021) andFriendship (2023)
Subject: Anthropology (General)Literary StudiesCultural Studies (General)
Contents
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