"I found myself at a total loss"

May 1, 2022 11:59 AM

Machado de Assis (1870), "Captain Mendonça": "'So you think her eyes are pretty?' 'As I said, they have the rarest beauty.' 'Would you like to have them?' the old man asked." Quotes from other stories by Machado de Assis appear throughout Paul Christopher Johnson's prize-winning open access book Automatic Religion, which "reanimates one of the most mysterious ... questions in trans-Atlantic thought: what is agency?" in discussions of "hysteria" and Charcot's monkey [PDF], the trial of a "possession priest," the popular saint Escrava Anastácia [PDF], Ajeeb the chess automaton, the spiritist Chico Xavier, Locke's Brazilian parrot, and more. See also suggestions made by P. Gabrielle Foreman, et al., in "Writing about Slavery/Teaching about Slavery: This Might Help."
posted by Wobbuffet (2 comments total)

I have no idea what the theme or common thread of these links is, but there is a lot of fascinating stuff, and the first link is to an excellent short story
posted by librosegretti at 1:46 PM on May 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

Hulk head hurts again.
posted by y2karl at 5:03 PM on May 1, 2022