Earthquakes and Gardens

Essays about ruination, resilience, reading, and religion generated by a reflection on a fourth-century hagiography. In Jeromes Life of Saint Hilarion, a fourth-century saint briefly encounters the ruins of an earthquake-toppled city and a haunted garden in Cyprus. From these two fragmentary passages, Virginia Burrus delivers a series of sweeping meditations on our experience of place and the more-than-human worldsthe earth and its godsthat surround us. Moving between the personal and geological, Earthquakes and Gardens ruminates on destruction and resilience, ruination and resurgence, grief and consolation in times of disaster and loss. Ultimately, Burruss close readings reimagine religion as a practice that unsettles certainty and develops mutual flourishing.