Outsider Theory: Intellectual Histories Of Unorthodox Ideas

Description

A vital and timely reminder that modern life owes as much to outlandish thinking as to dominant ideologies. What do the Nag Hammadi library, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, speculative feminist historiography, Marcus Garvey’s finances, and maps drawn by asylum patients have in common? Jonathan P. Eburne explores this question as never before in Outsider Theory, a timely book about outlandish ideas. Eburne brings readers on an adventure in intellectual history that stresses the urgency of taking seriously—especially in an era of fake news—ideas that might otherwise be discarded or regarded as errant, unfashionable, or even unreasonable. Examining the role of such thinking in contemporary intellectual history, Eburne challenges the categorical demarcation of good ideas from flawed, wild, or bad ones, addressing the surprising extent to which speculative inquiry extends beyond the work of professional intellectuals to include that of nonprofessionals as well, whether amateurs, unfashionable observers, or the clinically insane. Considering the work of a variety of such figures—from popular occult writers and gnostics to so-called outsider artists and pseudoscientists—Eburne argues that an understanding of its circulation and recirculation is indispensable to the history of ideas. He devotes close attention to ideas and texts usually omitted from or marginalized within orthodox histories of literary modernism, critical theory, and continental philosophy, yet which have long garnered the critical attention of specialists in religion, science studies, critical race theory, and the history of the occult. In doing so he not only sheds new light on a fascinating body of creative thought but also proposes new approaches for situating contemporary humanities scholarship within the history of ideas. However important it might be to protect ourselves from “bad” ideas, Outsider Theory shows how crucial it is for us to know how and why such ideas have left their impression on modern-day thinking and continue to shape its evolution. Cover......Page 1 Half Title......Page 2 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Preface: Enemies of the Truth......Page 14 Introduction......Page 26 PART I. ALIEN GODS......Page 60 1. The Alien Knowledge of Nag Hammadi......Page 62 2. Gnostic Materialism......Page 92 PART II. MYTHOMORPHOSES......Page 136 3. So Dark, the Con of Man......Page 138 4. The Chalice, the Blade, and the Bifurcation Point......Page 184 PART III. SOVEREIGN INSTITUTIONS......Page 224 5. Garveyism and Its Involutions......Page 226 6. The Sade Industry......Page 262 PART IV. PRODUCTS OF MIND......Page 292 7. Cartographorrhea: On Psychotic Maps......Page 294 8. Communities of Suspicion: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Laws of Science......Page 330 Coda: Thought from Outer Space......Page 370 Notes......Page 390 A......Page 446 B......Page 447 C......Page 448 D......Page 449 E......Page 450 G......Page 451 H......Page 452 K......Page 453 M......Page 454 P......Page 456 R......Page 457 S......Page 458 T......Page 459 Z......Page 460