Dwelling: Embracing the non-identical in life and art
I’m Carter Davis Johnson, a writer and PhD candidate in English at the University of Kentucky. In short, Dwelling explores the intersection of my interests through creative non-fiction. It is a place of junctions: literature, fly fishing, philosophy, aesthetics, style, and a Christian orthodoxy which — as G.K. Chesterton wrote of the Catholic church — can be compared to “a thick steak, a glass of red wine, and a good cigar.”
If this list of writers intrigues you, you ought to subscribe to Dwelling:
John Steinbeck; Martin Buber; Norman Maclean; Jim Harrison; Roger Scruton; Gabriel Marcel; Thomas Merton; Ernest Hemingway; Cormac McCarthy; Martin Heidegger; Rainer Maria Rilke; Bob Dylan; Wendell Berry; Willa Cather; Wallace Stegner; Robinson Jeffers; Carl Jung; Henry Bugbee; Fyodor Dostoevsky; Byung-Chul Han; Hartmut Rosa; Charles Taylor
Free subscribers will receive only one article per month. However, if you upgrade to paid, you will receive a second monthly article and the ability to access the growing archive of over 60 posts (now pay walled). Subscribing will enrich your reading diet and take a small stand against the slot machine of saccharine “content.”
More about Dwelling
While you don’t need to understand the project’s theoretical backdrop, it certainly helps to understand the title and how things hang together. The full contours will only emerge over time, but here are the incomplete beginnings.
Dwelling attempts a synthesis between Heidegger (dwelling) and Adorno (non-identical). Heidegger described dwelling as being at home in a world, attuned to place and others. Dwelling can be the simple act of carrying water to your garden, sinking into an old leather chair, tasting the salty breeze on Atlantic shorelines, or countless other examples. The opposite of dwelling is alienation; the feeling of being faced with a mute and sterile world, that feeling under the fluorescent lights of a dentist’s office.
What, then, is the non-identical? This is the thing in-itself as opposed to its abstract concept. For example, the apple in my hand is not just another “apple.” It has a unique shape, history, markings, color, etc…These details are flattened or erased by the concept “apple.” In reality, nothing is actually an “apple” because every apple is non-identical. One is never completely equivalent to another, nor is the true Platonic “apple” something that exists. Beyond concepts are actualities. The details we miss.
To dwell is to pay attention to the non-identical: moving from “books” to my annotated copy of A River Runs Through It; moving from “style” to the feeling of corduroy on a cold day in September; moving from the vagaries of “literary” to the way that McCarthy employs polysyndeton; moving from “food” to that one burger - stuffed with pepper jack and yellow onion - we ate at a pollen-coated table in the backyard.
Art and culture direct our eyes to the non-identical in life, and – in recognizing these – we come to be at home. We come to face our world as it is. This project is my attempt to bring our collective attention toward dwelling.
Also, check out The Craft podcast…
The Craft explores the cultivation of creativity across multiple disciplines and interests. If you're a writer, music producer, photographer, filmmaker, marketer, designer, illustrator, composer, or just someone who loves to learn about the creative process, this show is for you.
Hosted by Carter Davis Johnson and Colby (Marketer, Music Producer).
Send feedback or topic ideas to heycraftpodcast@gmail.com.
