An impressive study that prompts the reader toward philosophical reflection on the hermeneutics of melancholy in its relation to maturing theological understanding and cultivation of a profound self-consciousness. Melancholy has been interpreted as a deadly sin or demonic temptation to non-being, yet its history of interpretation reveals a progressive coming to terms with the dark mood that ultimately unveils it as the self's own ground and a trace of the abysmal nature of God. The book advances two provocative claims: that far from being a contingent condition, melancholy has been progressively acknowledged as constitutive of subjectivity as such, a trace of divine otherness and pathos, and that the effort to transcend melancholy-like Perseus vanquishing Medusa-is a necessary labor of maturing self-consciousness. Reductive attempts to eliminate it, besides being dangerously utopian, risk overcoming the labor of the soul that makes us human. This study sets forth a rigorous scholarly argument that spans several disciplines, including philosophy, theology, psychology, and literary studies.

"Alina Feld's book Melancholy and the Otherness of God: A Study of the Hermeneutics of Depression compels us into a much needed reflection and reinterpretation of the role of melancholy, by assessing its ontological roots and pathological effects. The book offers with an exhaustive treatment of the historical fundaments of melancholy and its several nuances, establishing important conceptual definitions and clarifications. The intense terminological scrutiny that accompanies the chapters helps dismantling a rather fused and clumsy misusage of the term, such as the common homology attributed to melancholy, depression, boredom and acedia.…The considerations of this study are not intended at exalting and cultivating melancholy in oneself but at valuing its inherency, existence and importance, as a remote and often intangible contact with the complexity of our human nature." - Metapsychology Online