Rachel Holmes

Contact

Research project: Mythopoesis and Lucky Rituals

Abstract

Drawing from Dale Pendell's mythopoetic methodology concerned with the divination of signs and the signifying practices of non-human creatures in the Pharmako Trilogy, I generate a mythopoetic theory of luck as animate semiosis produced by sentient ecologies, and apprehended through ritual as a subversive practice of dualistic pluralism. I frame this in the context of Val Plumwood's philosophical animism in The Eye of the Crocodile.

Research degree: PhD
Title of project: Mythopoesis and Lucky Rituals
Other research supervisor: Dr Daniela Perazzo

Biography

I am a published writer and doctoral candidate, with research interests in the ritual practice of philosophical animism. My MRes dissertation at Central Saint Martins presented a Lacanian reading of the function of symbolic crisis in Sophocles' Oedipus, and Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. At undergraduate level I studied the analytic method and philosophy of evolution.

Areas of research interest

Philosophy of Luck
Mythopoesis
Philosophical Animism
History of Religion
Semiosis
Dale Pendell
Georges Bataille
Friedrich Nietzsche
Val Plumwood
Dualistic Pluralism

Qualifications

MRes: Art, Theoy & Philosophy (Distinction). Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
BSc: Philosophy, Logic & Scientific Method (Honours). London School of Economics
Certificate: Creative Writing (Distinction). Oxford University

Funding or awards received

TECHNE studentship for doctoral study
Nordic Culture Point (2019)
Nordic Culture Fund (2018-2019)

Publications

Holmes, Rachel (2021) The Crow: Nameless Ones of the Dream Zone. In: Connole, Edia and Shipley, Gary, (eds.) Acéphale and Autobiographical Philosophy in the 21st Century: Responses to the "Nietzsche event". London, UK : Schism Press. pp. 125 - 150. ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8524109163

Holmes, Rachel Adeline (2021) The Butterfly Dream. Glasgow, UK : Death of Workers Whilst Building Skyscrapers Press.