Overview

Marcos Antonio Norris implements Giorgio Agamben's notion of 'secularized theism' to resolve a critical disagreement among Hemingway scholars who have portrayed the writer as either a Roman Catholic or a secular existentialist. He argues that Hemingway is, properly speaking, neither a secularist nor a theist, but a 'secularised theist', whose 'religion' is practiced through sovereign decision making, which, in its most extreme form, includes the act of killing. This book resolves an important debate in Hemingway studies and uncovers fundamental similarities between theism and atheism, building upon the theoretical undertaking first introduced by Agamben and the Existentialists (EUP, 2021). Bringing Ernest Hemingway, Jean-Paul Sartre and Giorgio Agamben into close conversation, the author reconceptualises existentialism, issues a posthumanist critique of moral authoritarianism and advances an original interpretation of Hemingway as a secularised theist.

Full Product Details

Author:   Marcos Antonio Norris (Lecturer in the School of Writing, Literature and Film, Oregon State University)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
ISBN:  

9781399516792

ISBN 10:   1399516795
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   01 August 2025
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Language:   English

Table of Contents

PART I: HEMINGWAY, SARTRE, AND THE SECULAR An Introduction A Word on Secularization Hemingway as Religious Believer Sartre as Religious Believer Returning to Hemingway Book Summary PART II: SOVEREIGN DECISIONISM AND THE IMAGO DEI The Failed Atheism of Jean-Paul Sartre The Biographical Origins of Sartre’s Failed Atheism Agamben and the Creation of Mankind Looking at Sartre Through Agamben’s Eyes Hemingway’s Youth as an Oak Park Congregationalist A Change in Hemingway’s Religious Temperament Hemingway the Existentialist Hemingway the Catholic Hemingway the Un/Believer PART III: THE PROBLEM WITH HUMAN EXCEPTIONALISM Approaching the Masculine in Hemingway’s Fiction On the Quai at Smyrna Death in the Afternoon Hemingway’s Stance on Animal Equality PART IV: HEMINGWAY’S MASCULINE HERO There Are No Happy Endings On the Use of Ritual Suicide as Cowardice The Faena, Or Becoming Like God The Masculine, Existential Hero Cause for Question in Hemingway’s Posthumous Works Conclusion: The Death of God, The Death of Man BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

Reviews

Norris uses Agamben to offer a very welcome and original response to a long-standing critical impasse. Smart, insightful, and persuasive, this study ranges widely across Hemingway's work and has important implications for how we understand Hemingway's treatment of religion, the sovereign individual, gender, morality, and the human/animal divide. --Carl Eby, President of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society

Author Information

Marcos Antonio Norris is a lecturer in the School of Writing, Literature and Film at Oregon State University. He is the author of Hemingway and Agamben: Finding Religion Without God (2023) and the co-editor of Agamben and the Existentialists (2021). Norris has authored more than a dozen peer-reviewed articles, most recently including 'Reading ‘On the Quai at Smyrna’ and ‘A Natural History of the Dead’ in Consideration of Hemingway’s Anti-Humanism' with The Hemingway Review and 'Francis Macomber, the Matador: Reading Hemingway’s ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’' with Studies in the American Short Story.

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