tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post1339217726552147354..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Demons, Disability, and "Mute Beasts": An Essay IdeaCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-67500037104668688062014-10-09T10:08:13.302-04:002014-10-09T10:08:13.302-04:00Thank YOU my busy friend.
I'll say that my i...Thank YOU my busy friend. <br /><br />I'll say that my interest in *constrained* demons has to do with an undercurrent of questioning of the phrase 'be reasonable' (going back to my first tangling with the 'Human Biological Diversity' racists). There's a way, for some thinkers, in which 'reason' is a constraint, because being reasonable means 'according with the facts' or 'telling the truth' (where the truth is just one thing). There's a way, then, in which reason becomes a way to tether someone or something to the truth, so it becomes less free the greater its accuracy.<br /><br />So, YES, I know the sneaky demons, and the lying deceptive demons of, say, the desert saints (where they go in disguise), but I'm also interested in the way the rationality of demons becomes a way to constrain them.<br /><br />And -- at any rate -- I'm just super surprised at the stories of thirteenth-century demoniac preachers that Newman tells: it was news to me, and I want to do something with them.medievalkarlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12440542200843836794noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-90015959752819876802014-10-09T07:59:56.491-04:002014-10-09T07:59:56.491-04:00So much here of interest: this will be a great pro...So much here of interest: this will be a great project, especially in its confluence of animal studies and disability. The demonology part will be complicated because demons have such a lively presence in literature where they are not necessarily predetermined by theological discourse, and are not so much machines for the telling of truth as intermediaries for truth's distortion (they are equivocators rather than truth tellers). You'll find lots on demons and truth [not] telling in considerations of Merlin and other secular prophets, and the legends that cluster around the necromancer pope Sylvester (né Gilbert). Another great source for demoniac knowledge and limitations: the Friar's Tale, with its long explication of how sometimes demons have power over bodies and souls, sometimes one or the other (and when it is over the body, they can disable a person) -- as well as about demons' changing embodiments (sometimes they create bodies, sometimes they inhabit corpses). Anyway, the fiend in the Friar's tale is a great example of the equivocating type who uses words to trigger actions with embodied consequences.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.com