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A vital and timely reminder that modern life owes as much to outlandish thinking as to dominant ideologies. What do the Nag Hammadi library, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, speculative feminist historiography, Marcus Garvey’s finances, and maps drawn by asylum patients have in common? Jonathan P. Eburne explores this question as never before in Outsider Theory, a timely book about outlandish ideas. Eburne brings readers on an adventure in intellectual history that stresses the urgency of taking seriously—especially in an era of fake news—ideas that might otherwise be discarded or regarded as errant, unfashionable, or even unreasonable. Examining the role of such thinking in contemporary intellectual history, Eburne challenges the categorical demarcation of good ideas from flawed, wild, or bad ones, addressing the surprising extent to which speculative inquiry extends beyond the work of professional intellectuals to include that of nonprofessionals as well, whether amateurs, unfashionable observers, or the clinically insane. Considering the work of a variety of such figures—from popular occult writers and gnostics to so-called outsider artists and pseudoscientists—Eburne argues that an understanding of its circulation and recirculation is indispensable to the history of ideas. He devotes close attention to ideas and texts usually omitted from or marginalized within orthodox histories of literary modernism, critical theory, and continental philosophy, yet which have long garnered the critical attention of specialists in religion, science studies, critical race theory, and the history of the occult. In doing so he not only sheds new light on a fascinating body of creative thought but also proposes new approaches for situating contemporary humanities scholarship within the history of ideas. However important it might be to protect ourselves from “bad” ideas, Outsider Theory shows how crucial it is for us to know how and why such ideas have left their impression on modern-day thinking and continue to shape its evolution.
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Outsider Theory This page intentionally left blank Outsider Theory Intellectual Histories of Unorthodox Ideas Jonathan P. Eburne University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London The University of Minnesota Press gratefully acknowledges the generous assistance provided for the publication of this book from the College of Liberal Arts at Pennsylvania State University. Portions of the Introduction and chapter 7 were previously published as “Sztuka outsiderska / teoria outsiderska,” in Kultura Współczesna 3, no. 87 (2015): 84–96. Chapter 5 first appeared in African American Review 47, no. 1 (2014): 1–19; copyright 2014 The Johns Hopkins University Press and St. Louis University. Copyright 2018 by Jonathan P. Eburne All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401-2520 http://www.upress.umn.edu Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer. 22 21 20 19 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Eburne, Jonathan P. ( Jonathan Paul), author. Title: Outsider theory : intellectual histories of questionable ideas / Jonathan P. Eburne. Description: Minneapolis, MN : University of Minnesota Press, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018008937 (print) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0554-5 (hc) | ISBN 978-1-5179-0555-2 (pb) Subjects: LCSH: Facts. | Common fallacies. | Errors. |