'This philosophical meditation on presence and defense of the delights of enclosure comes closer to the essence of sanctity, to touching, and being touched by, (saintly) bodies than any I have ever read. Bodies at thresholds, emerging through metonymy, from spaces they never leave, and into which they never really fit - -this is theoretical magic - -unique, queer, and, ... Read morein every sense, touching. Howie questions the possibility of ever really coming out, of ever owning what one touches, of seeing surfaces as invitations rather than barriers. In his hands, prose becomes poetry and academic prose takes flight.' - Bill Burgwinkle, King's College, University of Cambridge 'Claustrophilia is about the relation of enclosure and proximity to scholarship, medieval devotional practices, philosophy, literary history, and love. Howie explores the poetics of permeable contiguities - ancient and modern, subject and object, text and touch - with a powerfully lyrical resonance that performs, even as it advocates, an ethics and erotics of literary critical practice.' - Carla Freccero, UCSC Show Less