Modernist Reformations

Stephen Sicari is Professor of English at St. John's University. He teaches a variety of courses, ranging from our writing course for new English majors, through electives in the major on modernism, to graduate seminars. His graduate teaching these days is focused on religion and literature, extending beyond high modernist writers to more recent and contemporary writers.

• Introduction to Modernist Reformations: A Problem of Vocabulary Part One. Reforming Belief: Renewing Religious Feeling and ExperienceIntroduction. “What Am I to Believe?”Chapter One. T. S. Eliot: “We had the experience but missed the meaning”Chapter Two. Wallace Stevens: “We reason of these things with a later reason”Part Two. Reforming God: Modernist Encounters with the EastIntroduction. Otto and the PluralistsChapter One. Eliot’s Buddhized ChristianityChapter Two. Ulysses as Buddhist Epic Chapter Three. Stevens’ Late Poems as Buddhist Meditation Part Three. Reforming Church: “Upon this rock I will build my Church”Introduction. Still “Churchgoing” Chapter One. Joyce: “It is in here that I must kill the priest and the king” Chapter Two. Eliot: “And the Church must be forever building and always decaying and always being restored” Chapter Three. Stevens: “And yet what good were yesterday’s devotions” Appendix. Reforming Jesus: The Gospel According to Lazarus

‘What distinguishes Sicari’s book from his predecessors’ is his explicit focus on theology (rather than philosophy); his clear, jargon-free writing style; and his nuanced, persuasive close reading of poems… I found it stimulating to have my own understanding of Stevens challenged so often and so well. I am especially grateful for [Sicari’s] joyous interpretation of the late poems, which, I think, opens up possibilities for non-religious interpretations as well.’ Glen MacLeod, Wallace Stevens Journal