Table Of Content“In the course of years of writing on imagination, hospitality, and
touch, Richard Kearney has shown, in ways both philosophical and
poetic, what it is to meet the world in a spirit of open-handed
generosity. In this beautiful collection, we see a group of thinkers
meeting strangers and horses, gods and trees; they encounter the
living and the dead in the written word and the moving image, on the
seashore and in the digital classroom, in the history of philosophy
and in life lived in the flesh, all in that open spirit that reaches for
empathy without presuming understanding. Thinking across genera-
tions and in the midst of many orders of being, they show us all over
again that the world is not just before our eyes but at our fingertips.
If we are paying attention, the extraordinary shines through the
ordinary. This is an exercise in thinking together. Be warned; you will
find yourself thinking with these writers long after you have closed
the book.”
Anne O’Byrne, Philosophy, Stony Brook University, USA
“If too many philosophers have colluded with a civilization out of
touch with the lives, the bodies, the earth that make it up—this
collection manifests an enlivening transdisciplinary alternative.
Inspired by Richard Kearney’s body of work—in its adventures in
embodiment, its refusal of the culture of discarnation, its revelatory
‘anacarnation’ and its oh-so-needed ecology—this conversation
brilliantly unfolds the flesh of a radically hospitable hermeneutics.”
Catherine Keller, George T. Cobb Professor of Constructive
Theology, Drew University, The Theological School, USA
Anacarnation and Returning to
the Lived Body with Richard
Kearney
This edited collection responds to Richard Kearney’s recent work on
touch, excarnation, and embodiment, as well as his broader work in
carnal hermeneutics, which sets the stage for his return to and retrieval of
the senses of the lived body.
Here, fourteen scholars engage the breadth and depth of Kearney’s
work to illuminate our experience of the body. The chapters collected
within take up a wide variety of subjects, from nature and non-human
animals to our experience of the sacred and the demonic, and from art’s
account of touching to the political implications of various types of
embodiment. Featuring also an inspired new reflection from Kearney
himself, in which he lays out his vision for “anacarnation,” this volume is
an important statement about the centrality of touch and embodiment in
our experience, and a reminder that, despite the excarnating tendencies of
contemporary life, the lived body remains a touchstone for wisdom in our
increasingly complicated and fragile world.
Written for scholars and students interested in touch, embodiment,
phenomenology, and hermeneutics, this diverse and challenging
collection contributes to a growing field of scholarship that recognizes
and attempts to correct the excarnating trends in philosophy and in
culture at large.
Brian Treanor is Professor of Philosophy and Charles S. Casassa SJ Chair
at Loyola Marymount University in California, USA.
James L. Taylor is Professor of Philosophy and Peacemaking and
Director of International Programs at the European Center for the Study
of War and Peace.
The Psychology and the Other Book Series
Series editor: David M. Goodman
Associate editors: Brian W. Becker, Donna M. Orange, and Eric R. Severson
The Psychology and the Other book series highlights creative work at the in-
tersections between psychology and the vast array of disciplines relevant to the
human psyche. The interdisciplinary focus of this series brings psychology into
conversation with continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, religious studies,
anthropology, sociology, and social/critical theory. The cross-fertilization of
theory and practice, encompassing such a range of perspectives, encourages the
exploration of alternative paradigms and newly articulated vocabularies that
speak to human identity, freedom, and suffering. Thus, we are encouraged to
reimagine our encounters with difference, our notions of the “other,” and what
constitutes therapeutic modalities.
The study and practices of mental health practitioners, psychoanalysts,
and scholars in the humanities will be sharpened, enhanced, and illuminated
by these vibrant conversations, representing pluralistic methods of inquiry,
including those typically identified as psychoanalytic, humanistic, qualitative,
phenomenological, or existential.
Recent titles in the series include:
misReading Plato
Continental and Psychoanalytic Glimpses Beyond the Mask
Edited by Matthew Clemente, Bryan J. Cocchiara, and William J. Hendel
Neoliberalism, Ethics and the Social Responsibility of Psychology
Dialogues at the Edge
Edited by Heather Macdonald, Sara Carabbio-Thopsey and David M. Goodman
Anacarnation and Returning to the Lived Body with Richard Kearney
Brian Treanor and James L. Taylor
For a full list of titles in the series, please visit the Routledge website at:
https://www.routledge.com/Psychology-and-the-Other/book-series/PSYOTH
Anacarnation and Returning
to the Lived Body with
Richard Kearney
Edited by Brian Treanor and
James L. Taylor
Cover image: “Song of Amergin/I Am The Wave (#1),” 2018,
Simone Kearney.
First published 2023
by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
and by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Brian Treanor and
James L. Taylor; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Brian Treanor and James L. Taylor to be identified as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Treanor, Brian, editor. | Taylor, James, 1975- editor.
Title: Anacarnation and returning to the lived body with Richard
Kearney / edited by Brian Treanor and James L. Taylor.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes
bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2022015713 (print) | LCCN 2022015714 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032259215 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032259192 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003285649 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Kearney, Richard. | Touch. | Human body (Philosophy)
| Hermeneutics. | Continental philosophy.
Classification: LCC B945.K384 A53 2023 (print) |
LCC B945.K384 (ebook) | DDC 128/.6--dc23/eng/20220810
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022015713
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022015714
ISBN: 978-1-032-25921-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-25919-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-28564-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003285649
Typeset in Times New Roman
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
List of Contributors x
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Re-touching Philosophy with
Richard Kearney 1
BRIAN TREANOR AND JAMES L. TAYLOR
PART I
Touching Nature 11
1 Thinking Like a Jaguar: Carnal Hermeneutics,
Touch, and the Limits of Language 13
BRIAN TREANOR
2 Sensing the Call of Other Animals: Carnal
Hermeneutics, and the Ethico-Moral Imagination 32
MELISSA FITZPATRICK
3 The Embodied Human Being in Touch
with the World: Richard Kearney, and
Hedwig Conrad-Martius in Conversation 49
CHRISTINA M. GSCHWANDTNER
PART II
Touching the Sacred 67
4 Carnal Sacrality: Phenomenology, the Sacred, and
Material Bodies in Richard Kearney 69
NEAL DEROO
viii Contents
5 Deep Calls to Deep 86
DANIEL O’DEA BRADLEY
6 Strangers, Gods, and Demons: Toward a Carnal
Hermeneutics of the Demonic 107
BRIAN GREGOR
PART III
Touching Imagination 127
7 Earth Creatures: Anacarnation in an Excarnate Age 129
M.E. LITTLEJOHN
8 Richard Kearney, Terrence Malick, and the
Hidden Life of Sense 145
CHRISTOPHER YATES
9 Kearney’s Journey between Imagination, and
Touch—in Dialogue with Ricœur 163
EILEEN BRENNAN
PART IV
Touching Flesh 177
10 Anaskesis: Retrieving Flesh in an Age of
Excarnation 179
JAMES L. TAYLOR
11 Female Nakedness in Protest: Tactile Reading 194
SARIT LARRY
12 Touch Thyself: Kearney’s Anacarnational
Return to Plato’s Forgotten Wisdom 207
MATTHEW CLEMENTE
13 No Longer a Spectator Only 215
TAMSIN JONES
Contents ix
PART V
Finishing Touches 231
14 Anacarnation: Recovering Embodied Life 233
RICHARD KEARNEY
Index 257
