Books published by Eyecorner Press

If you really love me, throw me off the mountain is a memoir of love and adventure. It tells of one very whole woman's experience of being disabled in a world that cannot imagine her being anything other than broken. In 2014, aerial dancer Erin Clark moves from Canada to command the stages of New York City. When her wheelchair breaks, sepsis nearly kills her, and her marriage ends, she is flung out of her life and into a dramatic series of events which culminates with her moving to Spain to join a paragliding school and master one of the world's most dangerous sports. When she falls in love in the Andalusian mountains, she learns that a flying wheelchair might not be the biggest risk of all.

Joycean Arcana: Ulysses and the Tarot de Marseille proposes a new framework for exploring the complex characters and relationships in James Joyce's Ulysses, by pairing 22 Tarot cards with a character in the novel.

This is a book of haiku poems using the Arcades Tarot as an inspiration.

This book deconstructs the 22 trumps of the Marseille Tarot, bringing a fresh and original perspective to divination. The book aims to inspire both seasoned and inexperienced diviners.

This is a collection of essays that gathers the voices of both reputed veteran and young cartomancers. The book captures the heart of cartomancy through 21+1 snappy rules, delivered with martial arts aplomb in the form of manifestos.

This book highlights the importance of reading cards in context, rather than seeing them as carriers of inherent signification. The focus is on the pip cards of the Marseille Tarot. The style follows the same tone as in the companion book: The Power of the Trumps: A Subtle Burst, whose premise is to deconstruct set cartomantic clichés.

In this book Camelia Elias introduces key terms in feminist, queer, and postcolonial/diaspora film. Taking her point of departure in the question, "what do you want from me?" she detours through Lacanian theory of the gaze and reframes questions of subjectivity and representation in an entertaining entanglement of visual with textual poetics in film.

This book aims to cover four basic questions: Why do we read cards? What's so special about the Marseille Tarot? How can the cards uncover our blind spots? What does it mean to live a magical life, when we allow the stories that the cards tell us to offer solutions to our real problems? The book is also the first to introduce the readers to the wonderful and strange cards of Carolus Zoya, a most rare and unseen Tarot de Marseille deck made in Turin at the end of 1700.

In 'Kant in Hong Kong' travel, philosophy, and the city weave through one another. The book brings Immanuel Kant-famous for the regularity of his walks in his hometown of Königsberg-into the swarming streets of the hypermodern city and carries everyday urban experience into the labyrinthine texts of Kant's critical idealism. It lets the empirical and the transcendental play with one another in Kowloon, Hung Hom, Sheung Wan, and Admiralty as we move up and down the travelator between Queen's Road Central and the Mid-Levels, or take the bus to the beach at Shek-O. Freedom and knowledge swirl through the thick incense in the Temple of Tin Hau. When Kant comes to visit, walking, thinking, and the city illuminate one another more brightly than the colored lights of the nightly laser shows illuminate the harbor-front skyline of Hong Kong.

'Cruel Theory Sublime Practice' consists of three parts. Each part addresses both theoretical and practical dimensions of Buddhism. Authored individually, each part nonetheless interacts with the concerns of the others. Those concerns include the formation of an autonomous subject in the face of Buddhism's concealment of its ideological force; the possibility of a practice that thus serves as a theory or science of ideology; the reconstitution of practice as an organon of authoritative structures, including controlling social-conceptual representations; and the perception of Buddhism as the subject of a historical process. Perhaps the most salient theme running throughout the book concerns the crucial necessity of transfusing anemic contemporary Buddhist discourse with the lifeblood of rigorous, creative thought. Will Buddhism in the twenty-first century West help fashion a liberated subject? Or will it continue to be a deceptive mythos spawning subjects who are content to rest at ease in the thrall of predatory capitalism? The three parts of 'Cruel Theory Sublime Practice' share a common concern: to push Buddhism to the brink.

In these 2 volumes Enrique gathers fresh voices and sharp tongues to speak of the art of Tarot as the art of living magically. Forty-seven tarot luminaries (readers, historians, philosophers, magicians, and scientists alike) gather here to offer unique perspectives on what we can think of as divination with bones, human bones. Artists, deck creators, and modern-day neo-platonists follow Enrique's lead, letting themselves be enchanted by the piper at the gate of games. Some of the central questions that Enrique deals with are: do we read for the symbol, or the image? Do we read for the narrative that the cards create or their potential for transformation? Do we read for the plot, the poetry, or the formal properties? We find Enrique holding the torch and asking everybody the same questions: how do we experience the tarot? Through symbolic readings or through interacting with the image? While it is clear that he goes with the latter, he gives everyone a chance to state their preferences. But he doesn't stop there. He wants to see what the argument is for such preferences. What are the motivations in considering where images take us? How do the images do that? Why do we go to fortunetellers? My own contribution to this is to suggest that we read cards for the magic of narrative. We go to fortunetellers to see others play with our lives. Here are 47 of them. -- CAMELIA ELIAS, "HE RECO ME: ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ'S POETICS OF DIVINATION"

David Gordon reminds us that, while the word God is no longer meaningful from a scientific point of view, it continues to denote a resonant myth in our imaginative lives. He directs our attention to those gifted writers (here called "literary antitheists") who combat the presence of this myth in their own minds by finding artistic means to dramatize the resultant conflict. Seven such writers, spanning a 200 year period, are closely studied, their shifting orientation to the God question constituting a progressive narration. Diderot, before the French Revolution, wrestles speculatively with the difficulty of reconciling the godless materialist philosophy he embraced with man's undeniable moral concerns. In the 19th century the matter becomes more urgent. Buechner imagines a connection between human helplessness in the face of history and divine impotence, and Mark Twain satirically links God and man by way of their common cruelty and stupidity. Nietzsche boldly explores the moral difficulties and opportunities of living in a metaphysically formless world, while Hardy broods poetically over the lack of fitness between man and a quasi-anthropomorphic cosmic will. For Stevens in the 20th century God is assumed to be absent, but the need to believe persists, and his work asks how the making of poetry can answer that need. Rounding out the narrative, Beckett understands the nihilism that had alarmed and excited Nietzsche as simply defining the human condition. The lingering old myth is a subject for mockery and can offer us no comfort at all. His response is to invent remarkable ways by which nothingness itself becomes fertile ground for imaginative effort.

In these 2 volumes Enrique gathers fresh voices and sharp tongues to speak of the art of Tarot as the art of living magically. Forty-seven tarot luminaries (readers, historians, philosophers, magicians, and scientists alike) gather here to offer unique perspectives on what we can think of as divination with bones, human bones. Artists, deck creators, and modern-day neo-platonists follow Enrique's lead, letting themselves be enchanted by the piper at the gate of games. Some of the central questions that Enrique deals with are: do we read for the symbol, or the image? Do we read for the narrative that the cards create or their potential for transformation? Do we read for the plot, the poetry, or the formal properties? We find Enrique holding the torch and asking everybody the same questions: how do we experience the tarot? Through symbolic readings or through interacting with the image? While it is clear that he goes with the latter, he gives everyone a chance to state their preferences. But he doesn't stop there. He wants to see what the argument is for such preferences. What are the motivations in considering where images take us? How do the images do that? Why do we go to fortunetellers? My own contribution to this is to suggest that we read cards for the magic of narrative. We go to fortunetellers to see others play with our lives. Here are 47 of them. -- CAMELIA ELIAS, "HE RECO ME: ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ'S POETICS OF DIVINATION"

In TAROLOGY Enrique Enriquez sees the Tarot de Marseille through the prism and science of pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions. By following into the footsteps of Oulipian writers, he applies the idea of constraint and the rule of restriction to the surprisingly visual and gestural nature of Tarot. The result is not only illuminating but also enriching for all those interested in the history of Tarot and its divinatory practices. Enriquez develops a whole new method of reading cards, which combines careful considerations of chance with choice. By using a phenomenological and constructivist approach to the cards, Enriquez shows how the Tarot de Marseille speaks poetry and thus reveals some of our deepest concerns with language, with what we can say when we are at a loss for words. --- "In TAROLOGY, going from pataphysics to poetry, Enrique Enriquez PERFORMS tarot in a way that is marvelously free of cultural preconditioning to the workings of myth and symbol, while at the same time proposing following the rules of 'watch and learn', 'keep it simple', 'stay on track', 'be surprised', 'be fearless', and 'let the image talk the walk'. This is no small achievement." (Camelia Elias, Professor of American Studies and Tarot de Marseille Reader)

As the Biblical patriarch Jacob, after twenty years of exile, is about to cross the river that separates him from home, he gets into a nocturnal fight with a supernatural figure, traditionally referred to as 'the angel'. As a result of the wrestling match Jacob is injured, however he also receives a blessing and a new name: from now on he is called Israel. The present study proposes a Jungian reading of this famous episode in Genesis. The focus is on the intriguing identity of Jacob's enigmatic adversary: who or what is that figure on the riverside and what does he want from Jacob? In order to clarify this matter, parallels from other mythological tales are discussed. It will be shown that Jacob is by no means the only character in world mythology to get into a conflict with a demon or deity, even though Jacob's attitude towards unwilling divine powers is rather special. Reading like a detective story, the book takes us on a journey that slowly but steadily unlocks the true nature of Jacob's mysterious opponent. The surprising outcome adds to our understanding of the figure of Jacob-Israel. Moreover, it makes us aware of a number of hitherto overlooked characteristics that modern Western society inherited from its Judaeo-Christian past. -- "In this fascinating study, Maria Kardaun unpacks the psychological implications of one of the most puzzling episodes in Genesis: Jacob's wrestling with the angel. It seems strange to say it of so scholarly a study, but this is a book hard to put down. It ranges widely, taking us on a Jungian journey through legends from many cultures to find the Jacob legend's meaning: a decisive step forward in humans' and civilizations' modernization." Norman N. Holland, Eminent Scholar Emeritus at University of Florida. -- "Fighting the Angel not only makes delightful reading, it is also evidence of thorough and impressive scholarship, in Biblical exegesis and theology no less than in Jungian criticism. Far from being "just another Jungian interpretation" to convince the convinced, this study is a major contribution, convincing even to people who do not accept Jungian theory." Reuven Tsur, Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Literature, Tel Aviv University, Israel Prize Laureate in General Literature, 2009. -- "A wonderful book, that clearly demonstrates the great value of depth psychological analysis. The author manages to bridge the gap that separates us from ancient Biblical times. This reading has great relevance for our understanding of the cultural changes that have created the world that we still live in today." Maaike Meijer, Professor of Gender and Diversity at Maastricht University, author of M. Vasalis. Een biografie.

The Way of the Sign is a book about extraction, about reducing methods of inquiry to the bare bones. In a clear, concise, and dialogic style, Camelia Elias guides students through 10 schools of theory and criticism. The focus is on 'asking' each theory to give its best in the simplest way, by making us see what is at stake and how we might respond to it.

Towards a Genealogy of Spectacle is an exploration of contemporary experience of spectacle in its multiple layers, as it attempts to expose the forces that are at work in the making of spectacular events. It sets before itself two goals: to understand the language of spectacle, and to dissect the pathos of spectacle of contemporary society. In an age that is saturated with technology and the products of mass media, it aims to show how and why grand artistic spectacles are needed for the life and health of a culture. The book engages with the ideas of various thinkers from Kant and Schopenhauer to Foucault and Debord on the subject and aims to open up new spaces for thinking and is an invitation to spectacle-makers towards a fusion of art and philosophy. --- "In Towards a Genealogy of Spectacle Yunus Tuncel shows what it means to reflect, once again, Nietzsche's claim of aesthetic justification of life in the height of our time. He does not just accept this claim, but rather renews it by thoughtfully bringing before our eyes how spectacle could be thought of as a place for the gathering of creative forces." (Arno Böhler, Wien)

The epistemic creative writer is not merely an expressive writer, a writer who writes for creative writing programs at diverse university colleges. Rather, the epistemic creative writer is the writer who understands that in order to say something useful you must step out of the space that engages your ego. Awareness of what really matters comes from the contemplation of the futility of words. Before the word there is silence. After the word there is silence. But during the word there is knowledge that can be made crystal clear. This book is about extracting what writing means to a few writers who formulate ideas about creative writing without, however, making claims to instruction. Can creative writing that produces knowledge be taught without a method? Samuel Beckett, Raymond Federman, Gertrude Stein, Jacques Lacan, Frank O'Hara, Douglas Hofstadter, Brian Rotman, Herman Melville, Kathy Acker, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Markson, Andrei Codrescu, and a host of others, gather here to offer an answer. -- "Camelia Elias speaks to the reader from that place where the language of the birds becomes the language of silence." (Patrick Blackburn, Professor of Formal Logic, Roskilde University)

Renati the King is a play that explores the final hours of Rene Descartes. It is also a play about the perennial question of how love is addressed, who embodies it, and at what level of mastery it is exercised. Baroque and android-like characters intersect each other's fates, and it is suggested that if human love is impossible in terms of constancy, then that of the posthuman is not. Rainer J. Hanshe offers an illuminating counterpoint to this idea by situating the play in a wide context that includes careful considerations of the ancient Greeks, court politics, Nietzsche, and a host of poets ranging from Aristophanes to Genet and Beckett, and tracing the implication of philosophers becoming dramatists.

This volume of prose poems takes the reader through a journey which starts in the living-room. At the core of the collection are a number of Socratic dialogic exchanges between the main speaker of each poem and a number of other figures (fictional and non-fictional). The initiating conversations between a woman and a man continue through dialogues between the woman speaker and other voices (mainly academics and writers) and culminate with exchanges between the woman's voice and that of literary protagonists. There is an intended symmetry at work between the poems which are dedicated to real-life authors and the poems which are dedicated to fictional characters. The poems show how literature is entangled with the geography of being on more than one level.

Derrida is still with us. Through his writings and his performances. This book offers a unique insight into Derrida's last years through analyses by 4 Danish scholars of Kirby Dick and Amy Kofman Ziering's movie "Derrida" (2002). Derrida emerges not only as a wise man, but also as one who can touch our most sensitive cores. The four essays presented here end with a fifth text which is a dialogue between Bent Sørensen, the editor, who met Derrida immediately after 9/11, Camelia Elias, who personally knew Derrida, Steen Ledet Christiansen, who has never seen Derrida, and Søren Hattesen Balle, who personally tried to convince Derrida that he is a Romantic.

Tragic writing emerges as a representation of a sacrificial crisis that calls into question the human relation to the divine. The process of dramatization that exposes this crisis places the subject and language at risk. Writing with Blood explores the birth and death of the tragic subject in antiquity and the modernist reanimation of the sacrificial in Nietzsche, Bataille and Mishima. --- "An excellent piece of work. Very intelligent thinking about questions of the first importance." (William Haver)

When Novalis declared that "the world must be romanticized," that it must be restored to its plenary "meaning, magic, and mystery," he, like Friedrich Schlegel touts the fragment as the vehicle of this restorative art. The Winds of Ilion is an eclectic work that brings together poetry, academic essay, personal memoir, short-short story, and creative fragments in a manner redolent both of the early German romantics and of the Greek concept of moira. The many different creative threads composing this work weave a fabric of variegated meanings whose scope extends to the disparate events and marginal circumstances both of literary and everyday life. --- "Steven Joyce's book offers a fascinating combination of various literary forms. Readers will find it both enjoyable and instructive. The author maintains that we can recapture, through reading, the uplifting romantic spirit of an earlier age. I am happy to report that this volume does indeed rekindle that spirit. It did for me." (Susanna Piontek, member of the PEN Club and of Die Kogge, European Writers' Association)

This is a book of fragments and prose poetry celebrating what mothers try to pass on to their children: a sense of how to be grateful for the experiences in life that can be said to be not only beautiful but also significant in form. The author's own mother, a logician, emerges as a powerful woman who has things to say to people she encounters through mediation: mathematicians, prophets, lovers, and fools. The introduction to the collection is an informative memoir which entangles the personal essay with the formal properties of writing that can be said to be both epistemic, creating a certain kind of knowledge, and also creative in terms of approaches to narrative.

In this volume, Mark Daniel Cohen offers, in the first part, a fresh and intelligent look at Sophocles, re-writing Antigone almost as a Beckettian version of Tristan and Isolde. The modern-day domestic drama is continued in the second part of the volume, in which selected poems aptly combine the trivial and the sublime, the mark and measure of every great classic. Camelia Elias writes the introduction under a contaminated spell.

This bilingual volume introduces the work of American prose poet Robert Gibbons to a transatlantic audience. The volume shows how multifaceted a poet he is, effortlessly exploring political, aesthetic and emotional themes, such as war, poverty, exile, work, love and the archives of Time. Presenting Danish translations of 64 of the poet's best pieces, juxtaposed with the American original versions, the book also contains a lengthy scholarly introduction by the editor and translator, Bent Sørensen, forming the first sustained academic study of Gibbons' work.