You are invited to the Harvard Humanities Center to attend a meeting of the Philosophy, Poetry and Religion Seminar. The Other Shore: Reflections on the Impossibility and Possibility of Literature Michael D. Jackson, Distinguished Visiting Professor of World Religions Harvard Divinity School Friday, March 30, 2012 - 5:00pm Room 133, Barker Center Although Maurice Blanchot wrote of the impossibility of literature, and Walter Ong dismissed the writer’s audience as “always a fiction”, the passion and paradox of writing lies in its attempt to achieve the impossible – a leap of faith that bears comparison with the mystic’s dark night of the soul, unrequited love, nostalgic or utopian longing, or an ethnographer’s attempt to know the world from the standpoint of others, to put himself or herself in their place. For every writer – whether of ethnography or fiction – presumes that his or her own experiences echo the experiences of others, and that despite the need for isolation and silence his or her work consummates a relationship with them. Harvard University 12 Quincy St. (where Quincy St, Harvard St and Mass Ave converge near the Harvard Book Store) Cambridge, MA. 02138 For information: 617-495-0738 Free parking available at the Broadway St. Garage. Enter from Felton St, off of Cambridge St.