About the Book

Elements of this book, Oblation: Essays, Parables, Paradoxes, defy reason. They do so for good reason. Much of what we do, much of what we think, is oblation: sacrifice, offering, to something or someone. The root of “oblation” is “to draw near” or “to dwell in.” It refers to what is brought unto the altar, literal or proverbial — the profoundest oblation being what binds us together, our very souls, our dearest loves, indistinguishable from ourselves, our Isaacs on our Mount Moriahs.

The natures of our oblations characterize our relationships to objects great and small, e.g., Lords and loved ones, groups and masses of signifiers. Oblative transactions promise meaning, yet we are full of uncertainty. What is it that cries out for oblation? How do we hear its voice? Are we, in fact, called, or do we, on the contrary, offer every bit gratuit? Why, as Albert Camus famously remarked, do “the stage sets collapse” as we offer ourselves to life’s routine?

In Oblation, M.H. Bowker considers these questions in a series of essays touching upon figures such as Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, Baron van Münchhausen, and Jacques Lacan, unraveling themes of loss, hatred, and the Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Interspersed with brief parables and paradoxes, Bowker’s essays push us to wonder who or what we are offering ourselves and others to – and how we get away with this.

About the Author

M.H. Bowker is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Program at SUNY, University at Buffalo. Educated at Columbia University and the University of Maryland, College Park, he is the author of more than fifteen books and several dozen scholarly essays and chapters. He co-edits Routledge’s book series, Psychoanalytic Political Theory and is the N. American editor for the Journal of Psycho-Social Studies. Bowker’s primary research interests are critical psychopolitical theory, literary criticism, and political philosophy. His latest books are The Angels Won’t Help You (punctum, 2022), The Destroyed World and the Guilty Self: A Psychoanalytic Study of Culture and Politics (Karnac, 2019), The Quiet Transgression of Being: Poems in Three Volumes (Contemplated House, 2022), and Getting Lost: Psycho-Political Withdrawal and the Covidian Era (Phoenix, 2023).

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