Overview
- Examines both reading and writing in relation to the generativity of language
- Argues that we need to pay much greater attention to the meaning-making capabilities of language
- Offers a radical reread of the literary criticism of F. R. Leavis
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About this book
We tend to think of ourselves using language. What if we thought instead about language working on us, or about language as something we experience rather than make use of? This book explores the generative capacities of language, suggesting that we need to pay much greater attention to the meaning-making capabilities, and political and moral implications, of more intangible aspects of language: atmosphere, mood, texture, the mode-of-being a use of language carries — and not only carries, but gives off, sends into both its reader and writer. Advancing an interpretation of language as fundamentally attitudinal and creative, Experiencing Ways Through Words explores literature in the light of such thinking, claiming that properties we tend to sideline as ‘aesthetic’ are profoundly constitutive of a text’s capacity for significance.
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Table of contents (16 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Part II
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Front Matter
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Reviews
“A wonderfully engaging and insightful book on what John Henry Newman once called ‘the two-fold Logos’. Experiencing Ways Through Words conjures brilliantly with the paradoxical question of how thought and word may be distinct and yet inseparable from each other, bound together through the aesthetic as well as the semantic elements of language that define the reader’s experience.” (Michael D. Hurley, Professor of Literature and Theology, Trinity College, Cambridge)
“In this rich and intricately argued book, full of literary and philosophical instances, Abdeni-Holman explores the ways in which imaginative language discovers and sustains relationship with the human world. At its centre is a brilliant and sympathetic re-reading of the work of F.R. Leavis -- not as the heavy moralist of popular reputation, but rather as a deft celebrant of the "engagement, thoughtfulness, attention" which this splendid work identifies as the heart of the readerly encounter. An absorbing and championing piece of writing.” (Seamus Perry, Balliol College, Oxford)
“Emily Abdeni-Holman’s verve, eloquence and erudition affirm critical reading as an indispensable discipline of intelligence for dangerous times. Her concept of the attitudinal realm captures language’s central role in creatively constituting the human lifeworld, and shows how great literature can empower us when that world is under threat as never before.” (John Foster, author of “Realism and the Climate Crisis: Hope for Life”)
“This is a brave and subtle book offering a passionate understanding of what serious literary reading is, at a time when it is perhaps most threatened and least understood.” (Philip Davis, Emeritus Professor of Literature and Psychology, University of Liverpool)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
"Emily Abdeni-Holman is a writer and critic. She read for her doctorate in literature at the University of Oxford. Her first book, Body Tectonic, on Lebanon’s socioeconomic crisis, is an experiment in exploring structural disaster through poetry."
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Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Experiencing Ways Through Words
Book Subtitle: On Our Relationships with Language (and so Literature)
Authors: Emily Abdeni-Holman
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54952-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-031-54951-9Published: 29 August 2025
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-031-54954-0Due: 12 September 2026
eBook ISBN: 978-3-031-54952-6Published: 28 August 2025
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XI, 332
Topics: Literary Theory, Aesthetics, Fiction