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Beware Of Mad John: Political Theology, Psychedelics And Literature, Roger K. Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the discourse of Political Theology as a mode of enquiry we can overcome a longstanding tension between aesthetics and history that characterized much of twentieth century thought. Focusing on literary and occasionally musical works from the mid twentieth century, my aim is to show how works displaying psychedelic aesthetics are important venues for political deliberation with regard to citizenship. Through affective means, psychedelic aesthetics reimagine the boundaries of liberal subjectivity through a consciousness expansion and return from that expansion. The subject who returns from a psychedelic “experience” – which can be attained in various ways – comes to ethically …