Do I Really, Really Realize? Being with Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Buddhist Turn

Description

My thesis traces how Buddhism shaped Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s response to her 1991 breast cancer diagnosis and its subsequent metastasis, and how Buddhism extended into her critical, creative, artistic and pedagogical practice. My thesis is organized around three intersecting frameworks: realization, encounter, and practice. I argue that Buddhism provided Sedgwick with a process of reparative realization that bridged the gap between propositional knowledge of mortality and the lived experience of terminal illness. I suggest reading her turn to Buddhism as a form of cross-cultural encounter, in which her own theory of reparative reading can reframe the persistent charge of Orientalism. Across sections on reading, writing, making, and teaching, I demonstrate how concepts such as nondualism, relationality, non-interference, the bardo, and emptiness resonate with her earlier work and are more fully elaborated through her engagement with Buddhism. In the end, I propose that Sedgwick’s Buddhist turn offers a window into her intellectual and personal transformation and a model for practicing openness, care, and relation across disciplinary, cultural, and existential boundaries.

Team

Members

Student: Yixuan Jiang

Supervisor: Robyn Wiegman