• Skip to Content
  • Skip to Main Navigation
  • Skip to Search

Indiana University Bloomington Indiana University Bloomington IU Bloomington

Open Search Menu

The College of Arts & Sciences

Department of Religious Studies

  • Home
  • About
    • Faculty
    • Affiliate Faculty
    • Emeriti Faculty
    • Staff
    • Graduate Students
    • About Bloomington
    • Diversity + Inclusion
  • Undergraduate
    • Religious Studies B.A.
    • Minor
    • Courses
    • Advising
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Scholarships & Awards
    • Student Experience
    • Career Preparation
  • Graduate
    • Religious Studies M.A.
    • Religious Studies Ph.D.
    • Ph.D. Minor
    • Fields of Study
    • Courses
    • Financial Support
    • Awards & Essays
    • Student Experience
    • Career Preparation
    • Job Placement
    • How to Apply
  • Research
    • Research Areas
    • Center for Religion and the Human
    • Resources
    • Selected Publications
  • Alumni & Giving
    • Get Involved
    • Alumni Spotlights
    • Alumni Newsletters
  • News & Events
    • Departmental News
    • Event Calendar
  • Search
  • Contact
  • Student Portal
  • Departmental News
    • News Archive
  • Event Calendar
  • Home
  • News & Events
  • Departmental News
  • News Archive
  • 2022 News
  • 2022-08-sullivan-knausgaard-religion

Reading Knausgaard, Writing Religion

Monday, August 1, 2022

In 2015, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, M. Cooper Harriss and a group of scholars began meeting to discuss the peculiarly religious qualities of Min kamp, or My Struggle, a six-volume novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard and one of the most significant literary works of the young twenty-first century. Published in Norwegian between 2009 and 2011, the novel presents an absorbing first-person narrative of the life of a writer with the same name as the author, in a world at once fully disillusioned and thoroughly enchanted.

Some of the gathered scholars were interested in Knausgaard’s attention to explicitly religious subjects and artworks, others to what they saw as more diffuse attention to the religiousness of contemporary life. The group wondered what reading these textures of religion in these volumes might say about our times, about writing, and about themselves. The Abyss or Life Is Simple is the culmination of this collective endeavor—a collection of interlocking essays on ritual, beauty, and the end of the world.

Hannah Garvey, a doctoral candidate in religion, textuality, and cultural imagination, was the co-author of the volume published by University of Chicago Press. Garvey, who served as the rapporteur for a collection and contributed the book’s “Outro”—a reflection on “listening to ourselves and each other,” and the negotiations of intellectual community.

Department of Religious Studies social media channels

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • College of Arts & Sciences
  • Department of Religious Studies

The College of Arts & Sciences

Indiana University

Copyright © 2025 The Trustees of Indiana University

Accessibility | College Scorecard | Open to All | Privacy Notice

The College of Arts & Sciences

  • About
    • Faculty
    • Affiliate Faculty
    • Emeriti Faculty
    • Staff
    • Graduate Students
    • About Bloomington
    • Diversity + Inclusion
  • Undergraduate
    • Religious Studies B.A.
    • Minor
    • Courses
    • Advising
    • Funding Opportunities
    • Scholarships & Awards
    • Student Experience
    • Career Preparation
      • Career Advising
      • Marketable Skills
  • Graduate
    • Religious Studies M.A.
    • Religious Studies Ph.D.
    • Ph.D. Minor
    • Fields of Study
    • Courses
    • Financial Support
    • Awards & Essays
    • Student Experience
    • Career Preparation
    • Job Placement
    • How to Apply
      • FAQs
  • Research
    • Research Areas
    • Center for Religion and the Human
    • Resources
    • Selected Publications
  • Alumni & Giving
    • Get Involved
    • Alumni Spotlights
    • Alumni Newsletters
  • News & Events
    • Departmental News
      • News Archive
    • Event Calendar
  • Contact
  • Student Portal
    • Undergraduate
      • Religious Studies B.A.
      • Minor
    • Graduate
    • Courses