Iron Filings or Scribblings: Thinking Things Out (Paperback)
To introduce her book, Eva Brann calls up the image of Iron Filings as they "settle themselves along the lines of force that form a field of influence around a bar magnet that has itself been allowed to settle itself in its natural direction. The whole configuration makes, by nature's wit, a suggestive figure for the thinking mind--at least of a cross-section in its life." These essays range from Ms. Brann's thoughts "Of God," "Of Novels," "Of Booklessness," to, well, a surprising diversity of topics, the final one, fittingly "Of Endings." Eva Brann thinks a thought and then thinks a thought at the other end of the pole of the first thought--hence the display of thought like iron filings around two ends of a magnet.
Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for sixty-one years. She is a recipient of the National Humanities Medal. Her other books include How to Constitute a World, Doublethink/Doubletalk, Then & Now, Un-Willing, The Logos of Heraclitus, Feeling Our Feelings, Homage to Americans, Open Secrets/Inward Prospects, The Music of the Republic, and Homeric Moments (all published by Paul Dry Books).