(Per)mutations of Qohelet

1)Introducing Qohelet
The first chapter is an explication of the methods I employ through out my reading.
2)Calling Qohelet Names
The second chapter examines the language of autobiography (the persistent first-person singular pronoun) in Qohelet and the genre designations that have emerged from this marker.
3)Fragments of Qohelet's Body
The book of Qohelet forms a picture of the speaker through the language of selfhood and also through the construction of Qohelet's body. This chapter begins the probing of the body by reading the two body parts that are repeatedly named in the book: the heart and the eye.
4)Qohelet in Pleasure and Pain
Chapter four addresses the questions of contradictions and whether or not the book is optimistic or pessimistic by again focusing on the body - the body in pleasure and in pain. This chapter argues that resolving the contradictions is not a question of either/or, but it is the vacillation between them that produces desire in the reader
5)Qohelet in Love and (Gender) Trouble
The fifth chapter looks at how the gendered body is made manifest in Qohelet through an interpretation of the Qoh 7:26-29. This passage is a misogynist statement on women; yet, the gendered body in Qohelet is neither coherent nor stable.
6)Decomposing Qohelet
The structure of Qohelet has always been a problem for interpreters. I argue that the structure is in a state of decay, which enacts the decaying of the aging and dying body in the book of Qohelet. Qoh 3:1-8 and 12:1-8 are the focus in this chapter.
7)Reading the Epilogue Through This Body
The final verses of Qohelet (12:9-14 or sometimes just 12:13-14) are consistently attributed to another hand. My last chapter argues that all such theories rest on an interpreter's assumptions about coherent identities producing unified texts. Instead of a contradiction that indicates multiple authorship, I argue that ritual participation can co-exist with radical, questioning theology.
8)Departures