The Embodied Apophaticism of Tony Kushner's Homebody/Kabul

Tony Kushner's 2001 play Homebody/Kabul, an exploration of the aftereffects of a British woman's disappearance in the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, can be read as a work of apophatic or negative spirituality, specifically regarding the embodied presence of the absent, ultimate Other. Drawing on the negative theology of another important thinker, Emmanuel Levinas, this article approaches Homebody/Kabul as a dramatic rendering of the question of the apophatic body—of both the self and the Other. Explication of the script focuses on three kinds of apophatic bodies: the penitent or criminalized body, the body at prayer, and the ritual body.