"Steven E. Knepper's Wonder Strikes is a response to and indeed a very good primer on a philosopher who may just provide the bridge that analytical and continental, classical and post-modern philosophers (and artists and theologians) need." — New Blackfriars"…Steven Knepper has done a service to contemporary readers of literature, who often have trouble accounting for themselves at the bar of philosophy. By introducing us to Desmond, in company with so many other enriching, corroborating voices, he gives us fresh ways to reflect on the 'mother-tongue' the human race was born with." — Christianity & Literature"…Wonder Strikes … is a book written with a marvelous clarity of detail—in a clear, knowledgeable, and persuasive language. It provides both an excellent introduction for those not familiar with Desmond's thought, and an equally excellent demonstration of how that thinking can be fruitfully applied to literary texts. It is a pioneering work in this field." — VoegelinView"…Knepper performs a valuable service in making Desmond's thought on the subject more accessible to those who might otherwise be less likely to discover it. The recovery of beauty as one of God's many gifts to us is still ongoing, and any work that contributes to that recovery is one for which we should be grateful." — Front Porch Republic"Knepper's book is a model of clarity, fidelity, and creativity. Clarity: the writing is crisp and reflects the work of an accomplished teacher. Fidelity: the text represents Desmond fairly and, at times critically, and Knepper refrains from ventriloquizing through the text to say what he believes Desmond ought to have said. For those familiar with Desmond’s oeuvre, there are no counterfeit Desmonds here! Creativity: fidelity to Desmond's thought allows Knepper to put Desmond into conversation with a variety of interlocutors. Although Wonder Strikes is certainly a scholarly work on and about Desmond's metaphysics, it is also an exercise in metaxology. True to Desmond's own practice of philosophy, Knepper invites readers to be companions on a pilgrimage into the heart of the metaxu." — Ryan G. Duns, SJ, Marquette University"This rich and thought-provoking study of William Desmond's aesthetics provides an accessible introduction to Desmond's philosophy. I found Knepper's presentation of Desmond's thought to be exceptionally lucid, avoiding excessive jargon without losing the richness and texture of Desmond's thought and language—and, more importantly, without failing to be itself a thoroughly philosophical work (rather than merely a book about philosophy). Knepper also helpfully draws out many of Desmond's unnamed or rarely named conversation partners and intellectual influences." — Caroline Arnold, John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family"Knepper proposes a metaxological account of the posture and practice of literary creativity. Here is a vision of the writer as mediator, moving blithely between 'external and internal otherness,' between 'imitation and creation,' between this world and otherworlds, between poetry and prayer, between apophasis and cataphasis. No wonder Knepper is confident in arguing that many of Desmond's philosophical concepts offer 'affordances for literary criticism.'" — Helena Tomko, Villanova University"Wonder Strikes would serve very well as an overall introduction to my work, as well as a particular illumination of its aesthetic concerns, and all through the elegant writing of a thinker whose attentive mind and searching grasp add to the exploration their own eloquent thoughtfulness. I would recommend the work as an excellent introduction in those terms, and yet it has its own singular register, which comes across through its special focus on aesthetic concerns." — William Desmond, from the foreword"Knepper has written a beautifully crafted study of the work of William Desmond, particularly the thread within the distinguished Irish philosopher's work concerned with how and why philosophy relates to art and religion and how it is impoverished without having constructive relations with them, even if it is not determined by either. Wonder Strikes is not only informative and judicious in its selections of topics in Desmond and apt in quotation, it is throughout a pleasure to read." — Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame"A dynamic cross-section between art, philosophy, and religion requires a kind of existential attunement. One's voice from a particular field—if it is to say anything meaningful about that mysterious space of transcendence—must be open to irreducible richness of multiplying voices from the other fields. Only then, one can strike a harmony where one's reciprocity with others is a liberating symphony. Knepper's Wonder Strikes is saturated with such transformative voicing of the intermediation between literature, philosophy, and religion. More than just illustrating Desmond's concepts, his attentiveness to the literary particulars shows a distinct way forward for metaxological thinkers." — Takeshi Morisato, University of Edinburgh"Two decades after the 'religious turn' in literary studies, Steven E. Knepper reports on its various pathways and evaluates its affordances and limitations. William Desmond's thought illuminates this investigation with the critical insight that art, philosophy, and religion necessarily interanimate each other. Knepper is the rare scholar capable of taking this directive and cultivating it across these disciplines, plus political and social theory. Much more than an adroit guide to Desmond's oeuvre, Wonder Strikes critically synthesizes recent ventures in the reenchantment of the world while constructively articulating key features of this adventure: epiphany, tragedy, and laughter. In his lucid, creative animation of recent theoretical, theological, and philosophical insights, Knepper inspires the kind of delight and wonder with which David Lodge's Small World must have struck its academic readers in 1984. Like that 'academic romance,' Wonder Strikes makes happy beach reading for anybody who intuits that literature, philosophy, and religion need each other." — Ryan McDermott, Associate Professor of English, University of Pittsburgh, and director of the Genealogies of Modernity Project
