The inner figure of the blind victim, the one who has the power to withstand the dark pull of the archetypal dynamic of illness/wholeness, was particularly active for a long period of time after I initially lost my eyesight. She kept looking for what I could not see, checking each eye over and over again separately, crying out in despair to the other eye to see if it could not grasp what this one could not. As a metaphor pointing to something not seen—shadow material not identified with—the soul of my blindness kept reaching out past her claustrophobic confinement to the blackness pressing in on her. She was relentless in her efforts to stay connected to the “not-me” that might help her learn how to see in another less literal way. I reflect now on how seeing and my sense of self became symbiotic in that what I could see, I felt was still a part of me; I could still be whole. I still had a relationship with these parts of my experience. And what I could not see, was not lost to me forever vanished as if my very sense of myself was suddenly unavailable, absent. Dead.

From the first episode to the latest feature film, two main symbols provide the driving force for the iconic television series The X-Files: Fox Mulder's "I Want to Believe" poster and Dana Scully's cross necklace. Mulder's poster may feature a flying saucer, but the phrase "I want to believe" refers to more than simply the quest for the truth about aliens. The search for extraterrestrial life, the truth that is out there, is a metaphor for the search for God. The desire to believe in something greater than ourselves is part of human nature: we want to believe. Scully's cross represents this desire to believe, as well as the internal struggle between faith and what we can see and prove. The X-Files depicts this struggle by posing questions and exploring possible answers, both natural and supernatural. Why would God let the innocent suffer? Can God forgive even the most heinous criminal? What if God is giving us signs to point the way to the truth, but we're not paying attention? These are some of the questions raised by The X-Files. In the spirit of the show, this book uses the symbols and images presented throughout the series to pose such questions and explore some of the answers, particularly in the Christian tradition. With a focus on key themes of the series--faith, hope, love, and truth--along the way, this book journeys from the desire to believe to the message of the cross.

This book, like the post-Heideggerian reception of Nietzsche, rides out the splits and frays of the text offering an up-to-date look at international Nietzsche scholarship. Included are topics such as the collaboration of German thought with the rise of National Socialism and the alliance between Nietzschean genealogy and Freudian culture criticism in regard to technology and the unconscious, the status of moral imperatives from Kant to Heidegger, and Heidegger's alleged rediscovery of Nietzsche as the "last metaphysician." Looking After Nietzsche is nonexclusionary in the risks it takes; every thread of "Nietzsche" is pursued throughout its labyrinthine entanglements.

The disturbing and intense films of Lars von Trier are often dismissed as misogynist, misanthropic, or anti-humanist. This book, however, invites us to engage with his work to found a new feminist vision and discover what might be distinctively hopeful for the future of our fragile human condition.

The collection of personal essays, Someone Traveling, chronicles one life unfolding in the aftermath of murder. Each of the essays tells a story that crosses internal and external boundaries like acts of grieving do. Grieving consciously and unconsciously, the widow travels. Someone Traveling is a name borrowed in order to relate stories about all sorts of travel from short jaunts for local color to metaphorical outings on the displacements and harbors of loss. Someone Traveling tells of experiments in travel rather than well thought-out itinerary or once-for-all arriving. How to account for the displacements wrought by murder--self, home, wandering/staying put, healing, memory, intention, myth/history--and what to make of all this transformation? From nearly the first moment, the notes of intimacy in grieving the lover lay the ground for everything else. And although intruders like publicity trouble her grieving, somehow the traveler abides in intimacy. In these essays, the widow goes to this place and that, quite uncharted, to do what was never before required by her. The traveler meets allies she never thought to know before. New intimacies, made-up intimacies abound. The first of these is found in healing sessions. The intensely intimate register of the personal essay proves supple enough for telling of being lost like an out-of-reach memory as well as for creating connection like a new set of nerves. In this collection, intimate stuff, inner stuff is celebrated as the stuff we all know something about. In intimacy, we find commonalities and particularities to excavate for knowing ourselves and others and for reconciling with the world.

Written in Irv Yalom's inimitable story-telling style, Staring at the Sun is a profoundly encouraging approach to the universal issue of mortality. In this magisterial opus, capping a lifetime of work and personal experience, Dr. Yalom helps us recognize that the fear of death is at the heart of much of our anxiety. Such recognition is often catalyzed by an "awakening experience"—a dream, or loss (the death of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job or home), illness, trauma, or aging. Once we confront our own mortality, Dr. Yalom writes, we are inspired to rearrange our priorities, communicate more deeply with those we love, appreciate more keenly the beauty of life, and increase our willingness to take the risks necessary for personal fulfillment.

“Haunted and haunting. . . . With fearlessness and humility, in a narrative that flows more artfully than ever between destruction and rebirth, Erdrich has opened herself to possibilities beyond what we merely see—to the dead alive and busy, to the breath of trees and the souls of wolves—and inspires readers to open their hearts to these mysteries as well.”— Washington Post Book World From the author of the National Book Award Winner The Round House, Louise Erdrich's breathtaking, lyrical novel of a priceless Ojibwe artifact and the effect it has had on those who have come into contact with it over the years. While appraising the estate of a New Hampshire family descended from a North Dakota Indian agent, Faye Travers is startled to discover a rare moose skin and cedar drum fashioned long ago by an Ojibwe artisan. And so begins an illuminating journey both backward and forward in time, following the strange passage of a powerful yet delicate instrument, and revealing the extraordinary lives it has touched and defined. Compelling and unforgettable, Louise Erdrich's Painted Drum explores the often-fraught relationship between mothers and daughters, the strength of family, and the intricate rhythms of grief with all the grace, wit, and startling beauty that characterizes this acclaimed author's finest work.