The View from Nowhere: Essays in Literature, Mysticism and Philosophy [Hardcover]

Philip Beitchman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0761819908 | ISBN-13: 978-0761819905 | Edition: annotated edition

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

With great learning and rich suggestiveness, this book invokes a great, wide-ranging ocean of a text, and all that a reader can do is view it from a shore that may have already been washed away. (Dr. Mick Stern )

About the Author

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, New York and Adjunct Assistant Professor at St. Johns University and Medgar Evers College, New York.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: University Press Of America; annotated edition edition (April 18, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761819908
• ISBN-13: 978-0761819905
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,884,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking stuff for continental philosophers/theorists, October 10, 2007

By 

Albert Hand "student-teacher of alchemical arts" (northern CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The View from Nowhere: Essays in Literature, Mysticism and Philosophy (Hardcover)

Philip Beitchman has made an important contribution to the study of the impact of Cabala on literature and esotericism, but not many readers will be able to get much out of this text if they don't share his theoretical concerns and training. This is not a good place to start if one is not already up to speed on Cabala and the specific theoretical concerns of the 20th century philosophers that Beitchman studies (his Alchemy of the Word--a brilliant but flawed contribution to the subject--will serve). That all said, these are extremely learned and thought-provoking essays that deal with important literary/mystical topics which also happend to be a worry for philosophical jokers like Baudrillard. Anybody interested in Kabbalistic scholars like Elliott Wolfson who use continental theory to understand Kabbalah and vice versa will probably find much of "hermeneutical" interest here.