Eric

I was born in Taylorsville, North Carolina and have lived in New York City. I am now a professor of English living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and a writer of nonfiction books on various subjects, including melancholy, ice, androids, Gnosticism, and David Lynch.
My most recent book is called AGAINST HAPPINESS: IN PRAISE OF MELANCHOLY (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2008). It challenges our culture's addiction to superficial happiness and explores the revelatory powers of melancholy.

Here's some advance praise for the book.
"I have never been Mr. Happy, but after reading Against Happiness, I felt a lot better about myself. It almost made me happy. An important book and a stunning reminder, in these troubled times, that there are important lessons in our pain and that a smile may make a better moment, but not a better world."—Lewis Black
"With his merry diatribe and his spiritual wisdom, Eric Wilson brings us to our senses and gives us a book that really helps. Dare to be against mere contentment and you can end up embracing ecstasy." —Robert D. Richardson, author of William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
"A lucid, literate defense of feeling like hell—and, in fact, of feeling itself." —David Gates, author of Jernigan
"This book will change your mind, and maybe your life, with its pitiless account of the value of happiness and the price we Americans pay for pursuing it so compulsively. Almost every American claims to be happy, and yet we are a nation increasingly benumbed by drugs, opiated by messianic religion and buffed smooth by surgery, as we chase the illusions of perpetual youth, of life without death and joy without pain. This movingly written book may help us stand up before it’s too late and face our demons, by learning to love the melancholy realism and the creative powers that arise out of the darkness in our hearts." -- Richard Klein, author of Cigarettes Are Sublime
Another work I've recently published is called THE STRANGE WORLD OF DAVID LYNCH: TRANSCENDENTAL IRONY FROM ERASERHEAD TO MULHOLLAND DR. (Continuum, 2007). The book explores the relationships between Lynch's films and ironic religion.

You might be interested in another book I published a while back. It's called THE MELANCHOLY ANDROID: ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SACRED MACHINES(State University of New York Press, 2006). It studies the cultural significance of androids.

Here's another book I published about a few years ago: SECRET CINEMA: GNOSTIC VISION IN FILM (Continuum, 2006). The book focuses on the relationship between Gnosticism and several recent films, such as THE MATRIX, ROBOCOP, and BLADE RUNNER.

Finally, you'll want to check out THE SPIRITUAL HISTORY OF ICE: ROMANTICISM, SCIENCE, AND THE IMAGINATION (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), which meditates on connections between ice and the soul.

Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / The eye of zambodia

For more information, check out my website