The Reflexivity of Books

And 8 books that gave shape to Wanting

Introduction

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Today’s topic: the reflexivity of books, plus a few selections from my library.

(Above: that’s not my library. It is the home library of former Johns Hopkins University Humanities professor Richard A. Macksey, once a friend and colleague of René Girard.)

The Reflexivity of Books

Winston Churchill famously said that “we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” The remark came during a debate about how to rebuild the Commons Chamber, which had been bombed during a blitz. He advocated keeping an adversarial rectangular structure in place because he believed that two-party debate was essential to British parliamentary democracy—and that the shape of the old chamber had been directly responsible for the form of the debate.

Could we not say the same thing about books? Th…