Lexington Books Melancholy and the Otherness of God: A Study in the Genealogy, Hermeneutics, and Therapeutics of Depression

An impressive study that prompts the reader toward philosophical reflection on the hermeneutics of melancholy in its relation to maturing theological understanding and cultivation of a profound self-consciousness. Melancholy has been interpreted as a deadly sin or demonic temptation to non-being, yet its history of interpretation reveals a progressive coming to terms with the dark mood that ultimately unveils it as the self's own ground and a trace of the abysmal nature of God. The book advances two provocative claims: that far from being a contingent condition, melancholy has been progressively acknowledged as constitutive of subjectivity as such, a trace of divine otherness and pathos, and that the effort to transcend melancholy-like Perseus vanquishing Medusa-is a necessary labor of maturing self-consciousness. Reductive attempts to eliminate it, besides being dangerously utopian, risk overcoming the labor of the soul that makes us human. This study sets forth a rigorous scholarly argument that spans several disciplines, including philosophy, theology, psychology, and literary studies. Review Feld's Melancholy and the Otherness of God wholly recreates melancholy into a comprehensive sickness of our soul by way of a reenactment of our deepest philosophical and theological thinking. Now everything is not only centered upon the sickness unto death but that sickness is drawn forth as our deepest and most ultimate condition, yet a condition that is not simply a negative condition but one making possible renewal and rebirth, and renewal precisely by way of melancholy itself, a melancholy that is an ultimate depression, but a depression open to a profound reversal.--Thomas J. J. Altizer, radical theologian, professor emeritus, SUNY Stony Brook In this richly detailed, historical analysis of the complex of depression, acedia, and melancholy in different languages and literatures throughout the entire tradition, Alina Feld returns behind the modern views of the subject in Descartes, Kant and their descendants. Her main aims lie in determining if earlier views help us in revising our modern views and, ultimately, to cast light on what it means to be human. The result is an interesting, unusual, and thought-provoking book.--Tom Rockmore, Duquesne University Melancholy and the Otherness of God is a truly exceptional work, without parallel, so far as I know, in philosophy, theology, or comparative literature. The author, Alina Feld, brilliantly navigates the history of melancholy and its related manifestations in Western tradition, from the ancients in classical and medieval philosophy, theology, and mysticism, through the major figures in German Idealism and contemporary reflections on the nature of God and the human condition in Continental existentialism and phenomenology. She accomplishes this not only by way of an encyclopedic survey of the relevant literature, but weaves her analysis through mythology, art, and medical science by way of refined hermeneutical and methodological skills. Few writers today have the ability and talent required to master the complex interface between philosophy, theology, psychology, and literary art as is evident in this work. Melancholy and the Otherness of God is a breathtaking tour de force and surely will be considered required reading for all who venture into the frequently trivialized realm of melancholy and depression as these conditions bear upon the nature of consciousness, being human, and experience of the otherness of the Absolute.--Alan M. Olson, Boston University About the Author Alina N. Feld teaches religious studies, ethics, and Western and Eastern philosophy at Hofstra University and Dowling College in New York.