The limits of subjectivity: death, trauma, and the refusal to mourn -- In the name of the father, or the authority of the preface: filiality and the origins of writing -- Vigil before the shrine of the dead: biographers, subjects, and the failures of transmission -- Death by applause: eulogizing women -- The abandoned lover: romance in an age of mechanical reproductions -- The elusion of paradise: wanderers without a home -- Mocking the sages: "gathering vetch" -- A world devoid of enchantment: "mending heaven" and "resurrecting the dead."
