Going beyond the Pairs

Download or read book Going beyond the Pairs written by Dennis McCort and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2001-06-21 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Going beyond the Pairs, Dennis McCort examines the theme of the coincidentia oppositorum—the tendency of a thing or relationship to turn, under certain conditions, into its own opposite—as it is expressed in German Romanticism, Zen Buddhism, and deconstruction. McCort argues that the coincidentia can be useful for understanding and comparing a variety of cultural forms, including systems of myth, religions ancient and modern, laws of social organization, speculative philosophies East and West, psychological theories and therapeutic practices, and dynamic organizing principles of music, art, and literature. The book touches on a variety of Western and Eastern writers and thinkers, including Thomas Merton, Jacques Derrida, Nishida Kitaro, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Franz Kafka, Novalis, Renzai Zen, J. D. Salinger, and the mysterious, doughnut-loving editor of the medieval Chinese koan collection, Mumonkan.