During the 1975–76 academic year, Jacques Derrida delivered a seminar, La vie la mort (Life Death), at the École normale supérieure, in Paris. Based on archival translations of this untapped but soon-to-be-published seminar, The Reproduction of Life Death offers an unprecedented study of Derrida's engagement with molecular biology and genetics, particularly the work of the biologist François Jacob. Structured as an itinerary of "three rings,"...

The charms of the poems in A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896, continue to resonate today. Housman's first collection and his signature work, the poems here mix the styles of traditional English ballads and classical verse, and evoke the idyllic English countryside, explore the nature of friendship, bravery, and the passing of youth, among other themes.

Why do we die? Why will your life eventually come to an end, even without fatal injury or illness? As far as any of us stop to ponder this question, two alternative answers are common. Either we, and all living things, die because something has gone wrong since human life first came into being, or we die because all living things die in evolutionary and generational succession. The first of these answers is a widespread Christian one based on an understanding...

Has the passing of the old God paved the way for a new kind of religious project, a more responsible way to seek, sound, and love the things we call divine? Has the suspension of dogmatic certainties and presumptions opened a space in which we can encounter religious wonder anew? Situated at the split between theism and atheism, we now have the opportunity to respond in deeper, freer ways to things we cannot fathom or prove. Distinguished philosopher...

The main plot begins when the man is wandering the streets of Venice and comes across a woman who screams because she sees her baby in the water. She is not actually trying to get the baby out of the water though instead a man from across the water jumps in, after the narrator has arrived and saves the baby. From here it becomes clear that the woman may have dropped the baby into the water by herself…

"Honorable Mention for the 2010 PROSE Award in Theology & Religious Studies, Association of American Publishers" Mark Johnston is the Walter Cerf Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University and the author of Saving God: Religion after Idolatry (Princeton). Why supernatural beliefs are at odds with a true understanding of the afterlife In this extraordinary book, Mark Johnston sets out a new understanding of personal identity and the self, thereby...

The novella 'The Death of Ivan Ilyich' by Leo Tolstoy was published in 1886 and is considered a masterpiece of his late period fiction. It tells the story of a high-court judge in nineteenth century Russia. He lives a simple, carefree life with his family until he is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Confined to bed, he is disgusted that his family avoids the subject of his death by pretending that he is only sick and not dying. He finds comfort...

A Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry. In Derricotte's own words: "How do you gain access to the / power of parts of yourself you / abhor, and make them sing / with beauty, tenderness, and compassion? / This is the record of fifty years / of victories in the reclamation / of a poet's voice." The story of Toi Derricotte is a hero's odyssey. It is the journey of a poetic voice that in each book earns her way to home, to her own commanding...

"Leanne Friesen thought she knew a lot about bereavement. But it was only when her own sister died from cancer that she learned what grieving people need. In these pages, Friesen writes with vulnerability, wisdom, and even wit about stark and sacred lessons learned at deathbeds and funerals. When we lose someone, what we need most is grieving room."--

In the mid-1990s, as public trust in big government was near an all-time low, 80% of Americans told Gallup that they supported the death penalty. Why did people who didn't trust government to regulate the economy or provide daily services nonetheless believe that it should have the power to put its citizens to death? That question is at the heart of Executing Freedom, a powerful, wide-ranging examination of the place of the death penalty in American...