Violent Faculties by Charlene Elsby

Synopsis:

A philosophy professor tests the limits of the soul and body by performing dehumanizing experiments on unwilling subjects, after the department is closed due to budget cuts. Violent Faculties follows a philosophy professor influenced by Sade and Bataille. She is ejected by university administrators aiming to impose business strategies in the interest of profit over knowledge. She designs a series of experiments to demonstrate the value of philosophy as a discipline, not because of its potential for financial benefit, but because of its relevance to life and death. The corpses proliferate as her experiments yield theoretical results and ethical conundrums. She questions why it is wrong to kill humans, what is it about them that makes their lives sacred, and then attempts to find it in their bodies, their words, their thoughts, and their souls—seeking foundational truths with a knife in her home office.

Trigger Warnings:

Other stuff I’ve reviewed by Charlene Elsby

Edition:

Paperback provided by the author (thanks, Charlene!)

My Thoughts:

At this point, to say I’m a fan of Charlene Elsby’s feels like an understatement. Look, if she writes it, I’m gonna read it. And I’m probably going to enjoy it. I think we can all agree on that at this point in the game. Just see all the other stuff of hers I’ve read and reviewed (linked above). I think she’s an immensely talented writer, and a really nice person to boot. She always sends a lovely little greeting card along with her books, which never fails to make my day (same any time I find a Nick Cave sticker affixed to an appropriate page now and again).

With that being said, I have to warn you – Violent Faculties is unhinged in a way that I haven’t seen from her since Hexis. It’s bizarre, beautiful, distressing and frankly it feels a lot like you’re trapped on a rickety roller coaster barreling headlong into Crazy Town. Which is currently on fire. This is Dark Academia as I’ve always wanted it to be – violent, shocking, and rife with sexual sadism.

“I taught young men and women not to question their faith precisely, but how to do so. The distinction is clear to me. It’s like teaching someone how to kill a human, should you need to do it, versus teaching them to kill humans, which is not at all the same curriculum; you are in the wrong department, I’m afraid.”

Violent Faculties is written in the style of a thesis by an unnamed female philosophy professor who has been unceremoniously yeeted from her position by a university’s administrators who don’t see the beyond the potential monetary value of any field of study (iiiiiicccccckkkkkk). And this professor is…well, she’s a lot to take in. She begins conducting increasingly heinous experiments on a whole cast of unfortunate characters, which she catalogues in great detail.

As her experiments become more and more depraved, her mental state seems to devolve into a sort of orgiastic frenzy. It’s truly fascinating to behold.

Rating:

As usual, Elsby has delivered a short, sharp gut punch wrapped in philosophical concepts. Nothing has changed for me, I continue to find her writing a joy to interact with. I highly recommend checking this one out provided those trigger warnings above don’t warn you off. It’s well worth reading if you can cope with some borderline splatterpunk-ish sequences.

Violent Faculties
By Charlene Elsby
Clash Books
Published: February 27, 2024
ISBN: 9781955904940
Paperback, E-book
158 Pages