A literary shema : Annie Dillard's Judeo-Christian vision and voice
Abstract
Ample evidence exists for American Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard’s
life-long interest in Jewish mysticism. However, to date, its shaping influence on her work
has remained unexamined. This thesis seeks to explore the role of Jewish mystical theology,
particularly Lurianic Kabbalism and Martin Buber’s Hasidism, in three seminal theological
movements found within Dillard’s canon: creation, evil, and redemption.
Chapter 1 demonstrates that although there exist connections between Jewish
mysticism and the Neoplatonic traditions with which Dillard is frequently linked, her
pansacramental vision of God’s presence in creation seems far more closely allied with
Hasidism than Neoplatonism, particularly in her depictions of mystical descents.
Chapter 2 explores Dillard’s challenges to Western Christianity’s notions of an
omnipotent God as she wrestles with questions about evil and suffering. Her synthesis of the
Kabbalistic concepts of tsimtsum and shevirat ha-kelim with Christian kenotic theology
allows her to create within her literary cosmos a God who elects to be self-limiting.
Chapter 3 suggests that the inherent kenoticism of tsimtsum and shevirat ha-kelim
enables Dillard to explore questions about evil and suffering within the tension of theodicean
spaces created by gaps between apparently contradictory existential and spiritual truths. The
chapter also proposes that Dillard’s asyndetic style both reflects and creates deliberately
unsettling textual ellipses that locate readers within the silence of theodicean spaces.
Chapter 4 begins the arc of the thesis’ movement toward redemption by
demonstrating how gaps and absences within Dillard’s work function not merely as
theodicean spaces but also as affective absences that, like the mystical white spaces between
the Torah’s black letters, can become fecund, plurivocal gaps that engender mystery and
meaning.
Type
Thesis, PhD Doctor of Philosophy
Rights
Embargo Date: 2029-04-15
Embargo Reason: Thesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 15th April 2029
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.