Papers by Alexander DeTillio
Dust (Midwest Dreams) "I don't want to stay in tonight; I look good," she said, pulling her hair ... more Dust (Midwest Dreams) "I don't want to stay in tonight; I look good," she said, pulling her hair tightly behind her head and staring into the mirror. She applied bright red lipstick and puckered her lips at the tilted glass, "I want to go out." She hummed to herself. "And where do you want to go out?" I asked, running my hands through my hair. I rested my forehead against the door frame. She did look good.
Veena Das' essay Sufferings, theodicies, disciplinary practices, appropriations ends on a hopeful... more Veena Das' essay Sufferings, theodicies, disciplinary practices, appropriations ends on a hopeful note: she suggests that some idea of "offering testimony" in a public space is a way to lend one's "body to register the pain of the other." 1 For her, this formulation of offering testimony is a sort of secular theodicy, in that it mirrors the sort of work theodicy tries to accomplish by explaining the ways of God to humans in order to give meaning to their suffering, while getting rid of God and instead bringing the explanation down to a human-community level: I can explain my individual suffering by testifying to it in a community, that the community may learn and prosper from it. Thus, detached from a classically religious context-though still relying on a quasi-spiritual framework-the formulation goes that testifying to suffering in a public space (perhaps via writing and publishing that writing), by placing oneself in that space in a martyr-like way, is a means to offer one's suffering as a thing for others to learn from. She gives the example of the work of Saktirani, as embodying the Goddess Kali, who through "both her [the Goddess Kali] speech and her body… points to the extraordinary ability of societies to generate spiritual resources to transcend the muteness of those who do not know how to 1 Veena Das, 572. 2 overcome the terrible suffocation of their pain." 2 Thus, while the reliance on the explanation of suffering is not pigeonholed into a classically religious story, which relies on an eschatological explanation for either an individual or a community (as Christian theodicy does), there's still a recourse to a non-individual, communal ability to generate quasi-objective means of transcending suffering via a community, in order that this community can flourish in the future.
With Albert Camus' death in 1960 a way of life died as well. On the a road outside of the small t... more With Albert Camus' death in 1960 a way of life died as well. On the a road outside of the small town of Villeblevin in northern France, Camus and his publisher and friend Michel Gallimard crashed their car into a tree, killing Camus instantly and Gallimard a few days later.
Drafts by Alexander DeTillio
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Papers by Alexander DeTillio
Drafts by Alexander DeTillio