William Franke

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apophatic-path

Apophatic Paths from Europe to China: Regions without Borders

Apophatic Paths from Europe to China: Regions Without Borders                                 Review by Bin Song in JAAR (Journal of American Academy of Religion) Review by Paula Varsano in Comparative Literature Studies 56/2 (2019): 424-28 Review by On-Cho Ng review of Apophatic…

Posted by on April 2, 2018 in News,

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A Theology of Literature

A Theology of Literature: The Bible as Revelation in the Tradition of the Humanities               “Well known for his distinguished work on mysticism and the apophatic, in this new monograph William Franke offers a remarkable development in the field of literature and theology. Building on the foundations laid by…

Posted by on March 13, 2018 in News,

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The Revelation of Imagination

The Revelation of Imagination From Homer and the Bible through Virgil and Augustine to Dante In The Revelation of Imagination, William Franke attempts to focus on what is enduring and perennial rather than on what is accommodated to the agenda of the moment. Franke’s book offers re-actualized readings of representative texts from the Bible, Homer,…

Posted by on July 31, 2015 in ,

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Secular Scriptures: Modern Theological Poetics in the Wake of Dante

Secular Scriptures: Modern Theological Poetics in the Wake of Dante Link to publishers web page about this book   “In a series of dazzling essays taking Dante as their starting point, William Franke finds the trace of religious meaning throughout different forms of modern poetry, whose gaps and discontinuities he claims point to the ineffable…

Posted by on July 27, 2015 in ,

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Dante’s Interpretive Journey

Franke, William Dante’s Interpretive Journey. 261 p. 6 x 9 1996 Series: (RP) Religion and Postmodernism Series University of Chicago Press: publisher’s website Dante’s Interpretive Journey proposes a theory of the existential, theological structures of interpretation by which our lives in language are constructed.  It brings the theological hermeneutics of Dante’s poem into contact with modern…

Posted by on August 15, 2014 in ,

on what cannot be said

On What Cannot Be Said: Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Religion, Literature, and the Arts

Publisher’s Website:  University of Notre Dame Press, 2007 Cover Image Amazon link These volumes propose to bring into comparison with one another some of the most enduringly significant attempts, in different disciplines within Western culture, to define the limits of language, and perhaps to exceed them. The tradition of negative theology is compared with poetry of…

Posted by on August 15, 2014 in ,

apocalypse

Poetry and Apocalypse: Theological Disclosures of Poetic Language

Stanford University Press, 2009 reviews, excerpts, etc. selections at: Google Books Poetry and Apocalypse offers an interdisciplinary synthesis, combining a philosophical theory of dialogue, a literary-critical interpretation of poetic language in the apocalyptic tradition, and a negative theology that renews certain fundamental impulses and insights of revealed religion.  It is concerned with finding the premises for…

Posted by on August 15, 2014 in ,

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Dante and the Sense of Transgression: ‘The Trespass of the Sign’

Order Form.pdf Dante and the sense of Transgression Order Form 2013.pdf Hardcover edition: Continuum:  New Directions in Religion and Literature Series ISBN: 9781441160423  (paperback)    9781441136916 (hardcover) 200 pages In Dante and the Sense of Transgression, William Franke combines literary-critical analysis with philosophical and theological reflection to cast new light on Dante’s poetic vision.  Conversely, Dante’s medieval masterpiece…

Posted by on August 15, 2014 in ,

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A Philosophy of the Unsayable

This monograph proposes an original philosophy pivoting on analysis of the limits of language and explains why the encounter wit what exceeds speech has become the crucial philosophical issue of our time.  It also offers readings of literary texts, especially the poetic oeuvres of Paul Celan and Edmond Jabès, in which the philosophical principles  worked out…

Posted by on August 15, 2014 in ,

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Books

Books by William Franke (Click on titles or covers for detailed information and reviews) Pandemics and Apocalypse in World Literature: The Hope for Planetary Salvation (Routledge 2025) Publishers Website for Pandemics and Apocalypse in World Literature Don Quixote‘s Impossible Quest for the Absolute in Literature: Fiction, Reflection, and Negative Theology (Routledge 2024) Critics Views: “This is one…

Posted by on March 19, 2014 in ,

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