Description
It has roots beneath consciousness and is expressed in moods, rhythms, tones and textures of experience that are as much mental as physiological. In his new book, a sequel to the earlier Unbelievable, one of Britain's most exciting writers on religion here presents a nuanced and many-dimensional portrait of the mystery and creativity of the human imagination. Discussing the likes of William Wordsworth, William Turner, Samuel Palmer and Ralph Vaughan Williams, so as to assess the true meanings of originality and memory, and drawing on his own rich encounters with belief, Graham Ward asks why it is that the imagination is so fundamental to who and what we are. Using metaphor and story to unpeel the hidden motivations and architecture of the mind, the author grapples with profound questions of ultimacy and transcendence. He reveals that, in understanding what it really means to be human, what cannot be imagined invariably means as much as what can.
About the Author
Graham Ward is Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford and a Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. A former editor of the journal Literature and Theology, he has written numerous books which explore varied topics in religion, theology, literature and literary and cultural theory. These include Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology (1995), Theology and Contemporary Critical Theory (1996), Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (edited with John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, 1998), The Certeau Reader (2000), True Religion (2002), Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice (2010) and Unbelievable: Why We Believe and Why We Don't (I.B.Tauris, 2014).
Reviews
`Our contemporary world has seen a great rift between so-called religious fundamentalists and an enlightened liberalism which wishes religion would simply go away. Both sides are woefully failing in that deep human quality: the imagination. Graham Ward's new book Unimaginable is a profound and richly enjoyable journey towards the ground of our being. I know this is a text which I shall often revisit.' - A N Wilson, `Unimaginable is a book of wonders. `It is an interdisciplinary excavation of imagination, its "palaeontology, archaeology, biology, physiology, psychology... and how it engages with the world". Yet it is far more than this: it is an exploration of language and art, of life itself, through enchanted prose and a weaving together of ideas, layers and cultures - "the stark, ungraspable beauty; the raw, defenceless horror," - that makes for compulsive reading. Unimaginable is a unique and powerful contribution to our understanding. Not to be missed.' - Maggie Ross, author of Silence: A User's Guide
Book Information
ISBN 9781784537579
Author Prof. Graham Ward
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint I.B. Tauris
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
About the Author
Graham Ward is Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford and a Canon of Christ Church, Oxford. A former editor of the journal Literature and Theology, he has written numerous books which explore varied topics in religion, theology, literature and literary and cultural theory. These include Barth, Derrida and the Language of Theology (1995), Theology and Contemporary Critical Theory (1996), Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (edited with John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock, 1998), The Certeau Reader (2000), True Religion (2002), Cultural Transformation and Religious Practice (2010) and Unbelievable: Why We Believe and Why We Don't (I.B.Tauris, 2014).
Reviews
`Our contemporary world has seen a great rift between so-called religious fundamentalists and an enlightened liberalism which wishes religion would simply go away. Both sides are woefully failing in that deep human quality: the imagination. Graham Ward's new book Unimaginable is a profound and richly enjoyable journey towards the ground of our being. I know this is a text which I shall often revisit.' - A N Wilson, `Unimaginable is a book of wonders. `It is an interdisciplinary excavation of imagination, its "palaeontology, archaeology, biology, physiology, psychology... and how it engages with the world". Yet it is far more than this: it is an exploration of language and art, of life itself, through enchanted prose and a weaving together of ideas, layers and cultures - "the stark, ungraspable beauty; the raw, defenceless horror," - that makes for compulsive reading. Unimaginable is a unique and powerful contribution to our understanding. Not to be missed.' - Maggie Ross, author of Silence: A User's Guide
Book Information
ISBN 9781784537579
Author Prof. Graham Ward
Format Hardback
Page Count 256
Imprint I.B. Tauris
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
