"Steven E. Knepper's Wonder Strikes is a response to and indeed a very good primer on a philosopher who may just provide the bridge that analytical and continental, classical and post-modern philosophers (and artists and theologians) need." - New Blackfriars
"...Steven Knepper has done a service to contemporary readers of literature, who often have trouble accounting for themselves at the bar of philosophy. By introducing us to Desmond, in company with so many other enriching, corroborating voices, he gives us fresh ways to reflect on the 'mother-tongue' the human race was born with." - Christianity & Literature
"...Wonder Strikes ... is a book written with a marvelous clarity of detail-in a clear, knowledgeable, and persuasive language. It provides both an excellent introduction for those not familiar with Desmond's thought, and an equally excellent demonstration of how that thinking can be fruitfully applied to literary texts. It is a pioneering work in this field." - VoegelinView
"...Knepper performs a valuable service in making Desmond's thought on the subject more accessible to those who might otherwise be less likely to discover it. The recovery of beauty as one of God's many gifts to us is still ongoing, and any work that contributes to that recovery is one for which we should be grateful." - Front Porch Republic
"Knepper's book is a model of clarity, fidelity, and creativity. Clarity: the writing is crisp and reflects the work of an accomplished teacher. Fidelity: the text represents Desmond fairly and, at times critically, and Knepper refrains from ventriloquizing through the text to say what he believes Desmond ought to have said. For those familiar with Desmond's oeuvre, there are no counterfeit Desmonds here! Creativity: fidelity to Desmond's thought allows Knepper to put Desmond into conversation with a variety of interlocutors. Although Wonder Strikes is certainly a scholarly work on and about Desmond's metaphysics, it is also an exercise in metaxology. True to Desmond's own practice of philosophy, Knepper invites readers to be companions on a pilgrimage into the heart of the metaxu." - Ryan G. Duns, SJ, Marquette University
"This rich and thought-provoking study of William Desmond's aesthetics provides an accessible introduction to Desmond's philosophy. I found Knepper's presentation of Desmond's thought to be exceptionally lucid, avoiding excessive jargon without losing the richness and texture of Desmond's thought and language-and, more importantly, without failing to be itself a thoroughly philosophical work (rather than merely a book about philosophy). Knepper also helpfully draws out many of Desmond's unnamed or rarely named conversation partners and intellectual influences." - Caroline Arnold, John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family
"Knepper proposes a metaxological account of the posture and practice of literary creativity. Here is a vision of the writer as mediator, moving blithely between 'external and internal otherness,' between 'imitation and creation,' between this world and otherworlds, between poetry and prayer, between apophasis and cataphasis. No wonder Knepper is confident in arguing that many of Desmond's philosophical concepts offer 'affordances for literary criticism.'" - Helena Tomko, Villanova University
"Wonder Strikes would serve very well as an overall introduction to my work, as well as a particular illumination of its aesthetic concerns, and all through the elegant writing of a thinker whose attentive mind and searching grasp add to the exploration their own eloquent thoughtfulness. I would recommend the work as an excellent introduction in those terms, and yet it has its own singular register, which comes across through its special focus on aesthetic concerns." - William Desmond, from the foreword
"Knepper has written a beautifully craft
