Description: "In Earthquakes and Gardens, professor of religion Virginia Burrus pursues an earthquake from the deep past and tracks the fallen monuments and resurgent gardens of a distant city. The starting point is Hilarion, a Christian saint who saw the recorded intensity of a mighty quake in the toppled buildings of fourth-century Cyprus. In The Life of Saint Hilarion, written in 390, we see those buildings through Saint Hilarion's eyes in just a few lines. Building out from this fragment of text and the mental images that come with it, Burrus delivers a remarkable set of meditations on the human experience of place. Earthquakes and Gardens is a methodological experiment in close and promiscuous reading, an exercise in place-centered rumination, and a powerful set of observations on destruction and resilience. The scale ranges from the deeply personal to the massive and collective. In Burrus's capable hands, earthquakes and gardens anchor us in our textual fragments while also drawing us elsewhere, opening onto more-than-human worlds that are both concrete and metaphorical, close and distant"--
Brief description: Virginia Burrus is the Bishop W. Earl Ledden professor of religion at Syracuse University. She is the author of many books, including Ancient Christian Ecopoetics: Cosmologies, Saints, Things.
Review Quotes: "Earthquakes and Gardens is hard to classify. It's not really a religious book, but those interested in saints and hagiography will find much to appreciate. Certainly there is plenty here for those who enjoy the study of antiquity. There is material for people who enjoy reading about agriculture and horticulture. Certainly those who like geology and are interested in the study of earthquakes will find plenty to appreciate. Most of all, however, the book is simply good reading for anyone who loves fine writing and a well-constructed essay."--Mike Christie "My Point Being"