Library & Online Resources
Dr. Ed Simon is the Executive Director of Belt Media Collaborative and the Editor-in-Chief for Belt Magazine, a contributing editor for the History News Network, and a staff writer at The Millions, which the New York Times has called the “indispensable literary site.” He is the author of several books, including An Alternative History of Pittsburgh from Belt Publishing and most recently Pandemonium: A Visual History of Demonology, a work of illustrated nonfiction released by Abrams. Currently he is working on a history of apocalypticism for MIT Press, and Elysium: An Illustrated History of Angelology from Abrams, as well as the short book Relic from Bloomsbury.
His essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Paris Review Daily, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Poetry, McSweeney’s, Aeon, Jacobin, Salon, The New Republic and The New York Times among dozens of others, while his anonymous reviews appear in Publishers Weekly.
Originally a native of Pittsburgh, he has lived in New York City, Boston, Washington DC, and now his hometown again. He holds a PhD in English from Lehigh University and has taught as a college instructor for fifteen years, in disciplines including English literature and composition, journalism, rhetoric, religious studies, and political science, at institutions including Point Park University, Duquesne University, Lehigh University, Bentley University, American University, and Mt. Aloysius College. He is an instructor in the Seminary's Doctor of Ministry in Creative Writing and Public Theology cohort. Since 2022, he has been a proud member of the board for Autumn House Press, the indispensable and venerable Pittsburgh-based non-profit publisher of fiction, non-fiction, and especially poetry.
Learn more about Ed Simon at https://edsimon.org/
Preview Binding the Ghost at Google Books
Purchase a copy of Binding the Ghost at Bookshop.org or Amazon.com
Select Bibliography
Most of the following books are not currently in the Barbour Library collection. The links below will take you to either Bookshop.org (which supports local bookstores), the author's online store, or Amazon.com, where you can purchase the book.
Gunn, Giles B. The Pragmatist Turn : Religion, the Enlightenment, and the Formation of American Literature. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017.
Lake, Christina Bieber. Beyond the Story : American Literary Fiction and the Limits of Materialism. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019.
Simon, Ed. An Alternative History of Pittsburgh. Cleveland, OH: Belt Publishing, 2021.
Simon, Ed. Binding the Ghost: Theology, Mystery, and the Transcendence of Literature. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022.
Books and Media in Barbour Library
Print books below may be checked out by PTS students, faculty, and staff, as well as local area patrons who have library accounts (requires an annual fee). Media items are indicated in parentheses. Ebooks are indicated by asterisks, and are available to current PTS students, faculty, and staff only.
Fantastic Spiritualities : monsters, heroes and the contemporary religious imagination by Call Number: PN3435 .J63 2010ISBN: 9780567030474Publication Date: 2010-09-02
A God in the House : poets talk about faith by Call Number: PN1077 .G63 2012ISBN: 9781932195194Publication Date: 2012-03-30
Imagining Theology : women, writing, and God by Call Number: BT83.55 .W356 2007ISBN: 9780567031730Publication Date: 2007-12-01
The Interpretation of Otherness: literature, religion, and the American imagination by Call Number: PS166 .G8ISBN: 9780195024531Publication Date: 1979-02-15
Persuade Us to Rejoice : the liberating power of fiction by Call Number: PN3351 .B76ISBN: 9780664253813Publication Date: 1992-09-01
*Spirituality and the writer : a personal inquiry by Call Number: ONLINEISBN: 9780804041041Publication Date: 2019
Theology after Reading : Christian imagination and the power of fiction by
Theology After Reading explores how recent novelists, alongside certain post-War Christian theologians, appear to be challenging, inverting, reinterpreting, and sometimes even affirming, the basic questions and answers of more traditional theologians. Focusing on five novels, Darren Middleton's book illustrates how literary art provokes theological reflection. Examining Graham Greene's The End of the Affair, Toni Morrison's Sula, Nikos Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ, Earl Lovelace's The Wine of Astonishment, and Paul Thigpen's My Visit to Hell, Middleton deftly illuminates the expression of both mainstream and progressive Christian doctrines as themes in these selected works of fiction, ultimately reaffirming the graced search for meaning in the mindful Christian life.
Call Number: PN3351 .M53 2008ISBN: 9781602581586Publication Date: 2008-09-30
*The Wounded Angel : fiction and the religious imagination by Call Number: ONLINEISBN: 9780814646472Publication Date: 2017-03-01
More Barbour Library Resources by Subject
Click on the links below to perform subject searches in the library catalog:
Fiction -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.
Select Bibliography
The articles below are not available in either the print or electronic Barbour Library journal collection. Please check your local library for interlibrary loan services in order to obtain copies. PTS students, faculty, and staff may obtain the article through Barbour Library's interlibrary loan services.
Avenatti de Palumbo, Cecilia Inés. 2017. “Literature: An Important Hermeneutical Mediation for Theology.” Concilium 2017 (5): 25–33.
Leigh, David J. 1995. “Literature, Imagination, and the Study of Ultimate Reality.” Ultimate Reality and Meaning 18 (3): 222–45.
Articles in Barbour Library
Articles that are available online have links, and are only available to current PTS students, faculty, and staff. Articles without links are in the print journal collection.
Black, Jessica E, Molly Oberstein-Allen, and Jennifer L Barnes. 2017. “Tell Me a Story: Religion, Imagination, and Narrative Involvement.” Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion 5 (1).
Mortimer, David P. 2002. “Apocalyptic Literature: The Use of Imagination to Apprehend Meaning and Hope in Difficult Times.” The Covenant Quarterly 60 (1): 16–33.
Ward, Graham. 2010. “How Literature Resists Secularity.” Literature and Theology 24 (1): 73–88.
Ed Simon, Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures Series
Ed Simon tells the story of Pittsburgh through this exploration of its hidden histories—the LA Review of Books calls it an “epic, atomic history of the Steel City.” Accessible and funny, An Alternative History of Pittsburgh is a must-read for anyone curious about this storied city, and for Pittsburghers who think they know it all too well.
Articles
Other Links
- Belt Magazine Belt Magazine is a digital publication by and for the Rust Belt and greater Midwest. Founded in 2013 as an antidote to shallow, distorted representations of the region, we challenge simplistic national narratives by paying local journalists, writers, photographers, and poets to cover their communities with depth, context, and the kind of rich insight that can only come from a deep relationship with a place.
- History News Network Our mission is to help put current events into historical perspective. Given how public opinion is shaped today, whipsawed emotionally on talk shows this way and that in response to the egos of the guests, the desire for ratings by the hosts and the search for profits by media companies and sponsors, historians are especially needed now. They can help remind us of the superficiality of what-happens-today-is-all-that-counts journalism. Each week HNN features up to a dozen fresh op eds by prominent historians. Our archives, extending over the past decade, include thousands of well-researched pieces.
- The Millions An online magazine offering coverage on books, arts, and culture since 2003. The Millions has been featured on NPR and noted by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, and Literary Hub, among others.