An Absolutely New Space

摘要

This article engages with the initially scientific, and then philosophical and theological, transfigurations of space that have occurred since the seventeenth century, as they lead us towards a radical praxis of a nihilistic space. It is the epic poets, such as Dante, Milton, Blake and Joyce, who provide the parameters of an absolutely new space, a revolutionary transfiguration of space and God; it is the great epics that intimately influence real space through an enactment of universal liturgy and ritual. Such enactment draws us inescapably into a uniquely apocalyptic nihilism, but one to be affirmed and embraced rather than denied.