The View from Nowhere: Essays in Literature, Mysticism and Philosophy » (ANN)

The View from Nowhere is a cross-disciplinary work that studies the impact of the mystical discourse, specifically Cabala, on literature, from the Renaissance to the present. The other major concern of "The View from Nowhere" is to evaluate the "reading" of postmodern simulation-theory, principally that of Jean Baudrillard of Kierkegaardian and Nietzschean existentialism.

Author Biography: Philip Beitchman is author of "Alchemy of the Word, Cabala of the Renaissance" (SUNY press, 1998) and "I am a Process with No Subject, (University of Florida Press, 1988). He is Adjunct Associate Professor at Saint Francis College, NY and Adjunct Assistant Professor at St. Johns University and Medgar Evers College, NY.

Booknews

In this text, Beitchman (affiliation not cited) aims to establish and explain the impact of the Jewish occult tradition of cabala on literature and vice versa. His analysis of literature includes the writings of John Milton and Nathaniel Hawthorne's . The final chapters discuss contemporary theorist Jean Baudrillard's "misreadings" (according to Beitchman) of Kierkegaard, Hegel, and Nietzsche. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)