We live in an era of global anxiety – about rising nationalism, civil and human rights struggles, the ramifications of declining white male hegemony, about driving ourselves and other species toward extinction. So it’s no surprise that we also seek transcendence of our material circumstances. But exploring the possibilities of transcendence of our materiality – whether through religion, philosophy, psychology, or literature – is not a new feature of thought, art, or action. This book explores approaches to the immanence-transcendence problem in works of French, German, Italian, and Russian literature and philosophy between 1762 and 2016, in an effort to understand how different thinkers have approached this dynamic. The volume is divided into four "suppression" approaches and four "infliction" approaches, sometimes combining sympathetic source material from different centuries and countries that take complementary stances. While this book takes a skeptical approach as to whether a person can experience sensory comprehension of transcendence of his or her own embodiment, we are clearly in need of literature that provides guidance for our current sociological and psychological circumstances in an effort to help us navigate our global future.

«In his captivating exploration of the tension between immanence and transcendence in modern and contemporary European literature, philosophy, and critical theory, Robert Cowan takes us on a compelling quest for responses to an enduring and multifaceted human aspiration – to trespass the limits of the material world and access the divine.» (Nicoletta Pireddu, Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, Georgetown University)

«In this important, wide-ranging literary and theoretical exploration of the drive for transcendence, Robert Cowan presents a comparative critique of global neo-Gnosticism. Grounded in varied, specific examples and a first-person point of view, Cowan compellingly shows how far the planet is from achieved secularization. Whatever we consider the secular or ‹worldly› to be, the more it seems to dominate, the more the otherworldly may manifest itself in the temptations of oblivion.» (Kirk Wetters, Professor and Chair of German, Yale University)

The author of five books, Robert Cowan is Assistant Dean at Hunter College and Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College, both of the City University of New York.