{"id":29226,"date":"2016-05-18T16:45:12","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T20:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/?p=29226"},"modified":"2019-03-01T17:04:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-01T22:04:06","slug":"pederson-releases-new-book-on-child-murder-and-atonement-in-american-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/2016\/05\/18\/pederson-releases-new-book-on-child-murder-and-atonement-in-american-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Pederson Releases Book on Child Murder and Atonement in American Literature"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheIn Toni Morrison\u2019s Beloved, <\/em>a mother who has just escaped slavery kills her toddler daughter to prevent her from being recaptured. In Joyce Carol Oates\u2019 My Sister, My Love, <\/em>a six-year-old is brutally murdered. In Cormac McCarthy\u2019s Outer Dark, <\/em>an infant is left in the woods to die. In John Updike\u2019s Rabbit, Run <\/em>a child is drowned in a bathtub. In The Violent Bear it Away,<\/em> a boy is drowned in a lake while being baptized.<\/p>\n

In Joshua Pederson<\/a>\u2019s new book, The Forsaken Son: Child Murder and Atonement in Modern American Fiction <\/em><\/a>(Northwestern University Press, 2016), <\/em>he examines the novels\u2019 common theme, child murder, in relation to Christian atonement theology. Called \u201cintriguing, original, persuasive\u201d by Joyce Carol Oates, The Forsaken Son <\/em>argues that the novels \u201cgive voice to modern skepticism\u201d about atonement theology.<\/p>\n

Christian atonement theology teaches that God allowed the death of Jesus Christ to atone for the sins of the world. For centuries, it has served as a comforting way to explain what might otherwise be seen as a \u201cchild murder\u201d\u2014God asking his Son to die. In recent decades, however, theologians and trauma theorists have reexamined the death of Christ in a more critical light, as a tragedy and a trauma. Pederson, assistant professor of humanities at BU College of General Studies, says, \u201cIf God is what everyone says he is\u2014good and powerful and knowing\u2013-why in the world would he pick this grisly thing to be the way he saves the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

Pederson argues that these six novels contend with this troubling question as they use the vocabulary of infanticide alongside religious language and imagery. \u201cIn a dark way, all of the killed children in the books are Christ figures,\u201d Pederson says, a provocative way of looking at the Christian story: if the murdered children are Christ figures, then Christ himself is a murdered child. \u00a0\u201cAll of these novels are essentially partaking in this same line of questioning, this same dark rereading of the cross,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Pederson found that the writers are conscious of the theological conversation to differing degrees, but all of them are able to grapple with troubling questions in a way that the church cannot. As Pederson says, \u201cFiction gives one the opportunity to ask religious questions that you can\u2019t ask in a church or in a synagogue or a mosque. Fiction allows you to ask and answer questions you can\u2019t ask in a religious setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the novelists, like Flannery O\u2019Connor, are able to reincorporate this \u201ctraumatic cross\u201d back into their Orthodox Christian belief system, and some can\u2019t, Pederson says: it\u2019s a way to \u201cradically reinterpret Christianity, or leave it.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a work that engages with theology, trauma theory, and literature, Pederson\u2019s book participates in the interdisciplinary conversation that marks the educational model at the College of General Studies. He finds it fascinating to look at religion in literature since academics largely assumed that religion would become irrelevant in American society. Many fiction writers didn\u2019t share that assumption, however, so there is rich material for literary critics like Pederson. \u201cI hope this book can be part of that conversation,\u201d says Pederson.<\/p>\n

The Forsaken Son<\/em> has been praised as \u201ca thought-provoking examination of a vexed issue in Christian theology\u201d (Paul J. Contino, author of Bakhtin and Religion: A Feeling for Faith<\/em>) and \u201ca passionate, sophisticated, and compassionate wedding of literary art to theology\u201d (Rita Nakashima Brock, co-author of Saving Paradise.<\/em>) The book<\/a> is available from Northwestern University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Toni Morrison\u2019s Beloved, a mother who has just escaped slavery kills her toddler daughter to prevent her from being recaptured. In Joyce Carol Oates\u2019 My Sister, My Love, a six-year-old is brutally murdered. In Cormac McCarthy\u2019s Outer Dark, an infant is left in the woods to die. In John Updike\u2019s Rabbit, Run a child […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9762,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4204,334,4209,4200,340],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29226"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9762"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29226"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36173,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29226\/revisions\/36173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cgs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}