Kitty Millet - Fault Lines of Modernity: The Fractures and Repairs of Religion, Ethics, and Literature

Fault Lines of
Modernity

CONTENTS

Kitty Millet

Gerald Gillespie

Geoffrey Green

Wlad Godzich

Shawna Vesco

Ipshita Chanda

Christopher Weinberger

Sara Hackenberg

Hope Howell Hodgkins

Stephanie Heimgartner

Dorothy Figueira

Steven Shankman

Kitty Millet

This collection came into being through the encouragement and support of a cohort of colleagues and interlocutors. At San Francisco State University, Julietta Hua and Rachel Gross offered gracious and thoughtful insights not only about the merits of the project, but also about discrete essays. Dane Johnson, chairperson of Comparative and World Literatures, has always been a challenging and reflective interlocutor. Likewise, Fred Astren, the former chair of the Department of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, found unique and thoughtful ways to support this project. His forethought and counsel have been greatly appreciated. Michael Berkowitz, of University College London, remains a constant provocateur, whose serious questions reflect repeatedly the necessity of interdisciplinary dialogue. Susan MacReynolds and Soelve Curdts have continuously reminded me that there are many ways to think about the themes of the collection.

The collections breadth has required contributors to think across disciplines, through various theoretical givens, and conflicting methodologies, to permit the destabilization of their own objects of knowledge and subfields, in order to start a dialogue between colleagues. While disagreement became the only shared sentiment within the cohort, the collections contributors demonstrated that even in such disagreement, they could still bring collegiality and commitment to the conversation. They were all agreed on one tenet, in order to speak to each other, academics have to know the contours of individual positions, their boundaries within the capacious and expansive topic of religion, ethics, and literature.

We would also like to acknowledge the gifts of the Department of Jewish Studies, the Department of the Humanities, and the Program in Persian Studies, who initially supported the Fault Lines of Modernity conference at which several of these chapters were first conceived. We would like to thank Paul Sherwin, the former dean of the College of Liberal and Creative Arts at San Francisco State University. His insight and encouragement provided the impetus for Professor Millet to accept the chairpersonship of the International Comparative Literature Association (ICLA) Research Committee on Religion, Ethics, and Literature, and to host its inaugural event at SF State. Dean Sherwins encouragement of faculty has left a lasting imprint on all those who have ever worked with him.

Individual members of the ICLA Executive Council remain thoughtful partners in this endeavor. The editors thank especially Professors Sowon Park, of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Haun Saussy, of the University of Chicago, and Liedeke Plate, of Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. Additionally, the editors are grateful to the global cohort of researchers, both within the the ICLA Research Committee on Religion, Ethics, and Literature and outside of it, who have at times weighed in on our research, argued with us, and helped us generally clarify our thinking on the many contexts confronting us. While this project has never attempted to be exhaustive or comprehensive in scope, we have benefitted greatly from the multiple perspectives disseminated through these conversations and debates.

A collection of this kind requires significant library resources. Consequently, Professor Millet thanks Nga Tran, part of the library staff at UC Berkeley, for her helpful suggestions, as well as Aleta Asbury, and Ned Fielden, at San Francisco State University, for their insights into how best to fulfill the demands of scholars in a digital age.

We would like to thank Bloomsburys anonymous referees, whose care and constructive critical suggestions encouraged Professor Millet to see this project through to its end; Haaris Naqvi, whose insights about publishing and the market were apt and thoughtful; his assistant, Katherine De Chant, who responded each time to Professor Millets requests for changes with optimism and graciousness, as well as Bloomsburys copyeditorstheir herculean efforts made this book a better one. Bloomsbury as an academic press remains a fantastic facilitator for scholarly work. Finally, we thank our families who have been routinely patient and encouraging.