In the year 2016, one Annika Trent, scholar of the late Roman Empire, founds the Eddan Collective, a group of Marxist faculty planning for the imminent collapse of American society. Annika’s memoir details her struggles with her Eddan collaborators, her chronic illness, and her ability to “send herself away” to fifth-century North Africa, where she converses with St. Augustine of Hippo. As her control over the Collective erodes, Annika unwittingly facilitates the elimination of the Humanities, first from her own institution, then in universities across North America. But her time-travel “conversations” with St. Augustine lead her in due course to abandon her quest for secular remedies, and like Augustine, she undergoes conversion. The Eddan Collective is a campus novel, a prophecy of the university in the near future, and perhaps most of all a reflection on intellectual pride and spiritual humility.
Praise
“In The Eddan Collective Joanna Demers gives us a novella equal parts send-up of academic culture, historical fantasy, and Augustinian theological meditation. As a result we find ourselves truly awakened, not only to wonder, but to the infinite possibilities offered by grace. This is a very special book.”—MICHAEL MARTIN, Editor, Jesus the Imagination
“This puzzling and perplexing novel defies the constrictions of time itself. Imagine A Canticle for Leibowitz told through the mystical lens of T. S. Eliot in the opening lines of his Four Quartets. We have here the apocalypse viewed from the perspective of time present and time past—both present in time future, because to eternity all time is present. It is a trip from virtual reality to veritable reality. From the City of Man to the City of God. Those who lose themselves in these pages are at risk not only of finding themselves, but of finding themselves in the presence of the Ultimate Reality Himself.”—JOSEPH PEARCE, author of Frodo’s Journey: Discover the Hidden Meaning of The Lord of the Rings
About the Author
JOANNA DEMERS writes both scholarly and creative works that explore philosophical issues in recent art and music. She is Professor of Musicology at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. Her previous novels are Drone and Apocalypse: An Exhibit Catalog for the End of the World and Anatomy of Thought Fiction: CHS Report, 2214.
