Just published: "Crediting God: Sovereignty and Religion in the Age of Global Capitalism", edited by Miguel Vatter (Fordham University Press, January 2011):
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?session=c8f2c9361460603c95eaf1ceb9e7b20c&id=9780823233205
Publisher's description: "Tocqueville suggested that 'the people reign in the American political world like God over the universe.' This intuition anticipates the crisis in the secularization paradigm that has brought theology back as a fundamental part of sociological and political analysis. It has become more difficult to believe that humanity's progress necessarily leads to atheism, or that it is possible to translate all that is good about religion into reasonable terms acceptable in principle by all, believers as well as nonbelievers. And yet, the spread of Enlightenment values, of an independent public sphere, and of alternative 'projects of modernity' continues unabated and is by no means the antithesis of the renewed vigor of religious beliefs. The essays in this book shed interdisciplinary and multicultural light on a hypothesis that helps to account for such an unexpected convergence of enlightenment and religion in our times: Religion has reentered the public sphere because it puts into question the relation between God and the concept of political sovereignty.
"In the first part, 'Religion and Polity-Building,' new perspectives are brought to bear on the tension-ridden connection between theophany and state-building from the perspective of world religions. Globalized, neo-liberal capitalism has been another crucial factor in loosening the bond between God and the state, as the essays in the second part, 'The End of the Saeculum and Global Capitalism,' show. The essays in the third part, 'Questioning Sovereignty: Law and Justice,' are dedicated to a critique of the premises of political theology, starting from the possibility of a prior, perhaps deeper relation between democracy and theocracy. The book concludes with three innovative essays dedicated to examining Tocqueville in order to think the 'Religion of Democracy' beyond the idea of civil religion."
Contributors: Friedrich Balke, Hauke Brunkhorst, José Casanova, William E. Connolly, Fred Dallmayr, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Georges Dreyfus, Abdou Filali-Ansari, Eddie Glaude, Ranjoo Seodu Herr, Lucien Jaume, Regina Schwartz, Shmuel Trigano, Miguel Vatter, Samuel Weber
Endorsements: "Crediting God is a welcome, multidisciplinary contribution to current debates about sovereignty, political theology, and secularism. Ranging across a variety of religious traditions – including Confucianism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity – the engaging essays that Miguel Vatter brings together in this volume challenge and deepen our understanding of the political significance of religious fundamentalisms." (Robert Gooding-Williams, University of Chicago)
"This volume, competently edited and introduced by Miguel Vatter, is one of the most rigorous and complete presentations of the complex relation between theology and politics around today. Historical references and theoretical questions, issues of dogma and political analyses, intersect around one and the same nucleus of sense which sheds new light on the dynamics and the conflicts of the globalized world." (Roberto Esposito, Italian Institute of Human Sciences)
"Crediting God offers new frameworks – beyond privatization or secularization or fundamentalism – for political theorists to approach the religious dimensions of public life. The essays foster fresh intellectual alliances, rediscover political classics, and encourage new readers for scholarship in various disciplines. The whole collection feels inviting and generous." (Kathleen Roberts Skerrett, Grinnell College)
Miguel Vatter is Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Diego Portales, Chile.
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
17 February 2011
31 December 2010
Book: The City of Translation: Poetry and Ideology in Nineteenth-Century Colombia
José María Rodríguez García, "The City of Translation: Poetry and Ideology in Nineteenth-Century Colombia" (Palgrave Macmillan, August 2010):
http://us.macmillan.com/thecityoftranslation
Publisher's description: "The two principal questions that The City of Translation sets out to answer are: how did poetry, philology, catechesis, and literary translation legitimate a coterie of right-wing literati's [sic] rise to power in Colombia? And how did these men proceed to dismantle a long-standing liberal-democratic state without derogating basic constitutional freedoms? To answer those questions, José María Rodríguez García investigates the emergence, development, and decline of what he calls 'the reactionary city of translation' – a variation on, and a correction to, Ángel Rama's understanding of the nineteenth-century 'lettered city' as a primarily liberal and modernizing project. The City of Translation makes the tropes of 'translatio' the conceptual nucleus of a comprehensive analysis that cuts across academic disciplines, ranging from political philosophy and the history of concepts to the relationship of literature to religious doctrine and the law."
The last chapter of the book is titled "Conclusion: On Lettered Cities, Political Theologies, and the Writing of Lyric".
Endorsements: "Few books deserve to be described as necessary. This one does. Rodríguez García brings remarkable rigor and insight to his examination of the nineteenth-century debates that defined the first decades of the Colombian republic. Particularly significant are his penetrating reconstructions of conservative thought, a much neglected area since 'progressive' historians often seem more interested in finding antecedents for their own ideas rather than taking seriously the arguments of Catholic imbued anti-liberalism. He also brings remarkable insight to the ways that notions of proper grammatical usage and belle-lettriste literature were early marshaled to support conservative, hierarchical notions of society and government. In sum, this is an excellent book and a major contribution to nineteenth-century studies." (Nicolas Shumway, Rice University)
"The City of Translation elucidates the complex strategies of the reactionary Colombian political elite to usher in new legislation under the guise of a homogenizing national project. The author's keen insights on the pivotal role of lyrical production, translation (in theory and practice), and the mediating agency of the translator/lyricist in political objectives constitute an outstanding contribution to Latin American intellectual history, one that will compel us to expand our understanding of the term 'foundational fictions.'" (Carlos J. Alonso, Columbia University)
Spanish-born José María Rodríguez García is Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Duke University.
http://us.macmillan.com/thecityoftranslation
Publisher's description: "The two principal questions that The City of Translation sets out to answer are: how did poetry, philology, catechesis, and literary translation legitimate a coterie of right-wing literati's [sic] rise to power in Colombia? And how did these men proceed to dismantle a long-standing liberal-democratic state without derogating basic constitutional freedoms? To answer those questions, José María Rodríguez García investigates the emergence, development, and decline of what he calls 'the reactionary city of translation' – a variation on, and a correction to, Ángel Rama's understanding of the nineteenth-century 'lettered city' as a primarily liberal and modernizing project. The City of Translation makes the tropes of 'translatio' the conceptual nucleus of a comprehensive analysis that cuts across academic disciplines, ranging from political philosophy and the history of concepts to the relationship of literature to religious doctrine and the law."
The last chapter of the book is titled "Conclusion: On Lettered Cities, Political Theologies, and the Writing of Lyric".
Endorsements: "Few books deserve to be described as necessary. This one does. Rodríguez García brings remarkable rigor and insight to his examination of the nineteenth-century debates that defined the first decades of the Colombian republic. Particularly significant are his penetrating reconstructions of conservative thought, a much neglected area since 'progressive' historians often seem more interested in finding antecedents for their own ideas rather than taking seriously the arguments of Catholic imbued anti-liberalism. He also brings remarkable insight to the ways that notions of proper grammatical usage and belle-lettriste literature were early marshaled to support conservative, hierarchical notions of society and government. In sum, this is an excellent book and a major contribution to nineteenth-century studies." (Nicolas Shumway, Rice University)
"The City of Translation elucidates the complex strategies of the reactionary Colombian political elite to usher in new legislation under the guise of a homogenizing national project. The author's keen insights on the pivotal role of lyrical production, translation (in theory and practice), and the mediating agency of the translator/lyricist in political objectives constitute an outstanding contribution to Latin American intellectual history, one that will compel us to expand our understanding of the term 'foundational fictions.'" (Carlos J. Alonso, Columbia University)
Spanish-born José María Rodríguez García is Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Duke University.
07 December 2010
CFP: Representation: Kantorowicz and the Consequences
4. Berliner Kolloquium Junge Religionsphilosophie (Fourth Berlin Colloquium Young Philosophy of Religion) "Repräsentation: Kantorowicz und die Folgen" (Representation: Kantorowicz and the Consequences; my translation) of the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research (Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover), the Catholic Academy in Berlin (Katholische Akademie in Berlin), and Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt's Chair for Philosophy of Religion, taking place at the Katholische Akademie, Hannoversche Strasse 5, Berlin, Germany, 24-26 February 2011
www.katholische-akademie-berlin.de/1:5431/Veranstaltungen/2011/02/30179_Repraesentation-Kantorowicz-und-die.html
Call for papers
Description: "[This colloquium] carries in its title a key term of political philosophy, legal philosophy and political theology and has [...] once more chosen a classic as the patron of our reflections: Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (1895-1963), who both as an intellectual and a scientist made important observations on the question of representation, particularly in his 1957 classic, The King's Two Bodies (Princeton University Press). Invited are proposals that thematize questions of the (institutional) representation of power in the context of the challenges posed by political science, jurisprudence, philosophy and theology; explore questions of the representation of the sacred and religion in art history, iconography or poetology; study the relationship of truth and myth, authority and authorship, symbolism, embodiment of power and incarnation; concern themselves with the writings of Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz inasfar as they can be brought into fruitful tensions with the topic of the colloquium." (my translation)
The conference language is German, but papers may be proposed and presented in English. Young researchers particularly in philosophy and theology, but also other humanities and social sciences disciplines, with an interest in the philosophy of religion, are invited to send proposals (full manuscripts or outlines of presentations) to Martin Knechtges (Katholische Akademie): knechtges@katholische‐akademie‐berlin.de
Deadline: 15 December 2010
The organizers write that presentations should not exceed 5,000 characters – that is around two pages A4. Before submitting a proposal, you may want to inquire if they do not rather mean a maximum of 5,000 words.
Each presenter will be allocated 45 minutes (20 minutes for presentation, the rest presumably for discussion). All presenters are guests of the conference and will be given free accommodation and registration. They will however have to pay for their own transportation to and from Berlin. The registration fee for non-presenting participants is 75 Euro (including meals) and they can book accommodation at 100 Euro (single room) or 70 Euro (bed in a double room) for two nights. An additional night (departure on Sunday) is 50/35 Euro. The organizers write that the number of participants is limited to 30. From the website, I am not clear, though, if this includes or excludes presenters (or non-presenters).
Registration forms (in German) for both presenting and non-presenting participants are to be found on the above website. If you are going to propose a paper, please send the appropriate registration form together with your proposal. Non-presenting participants have until 30 January 2011 to register.
Keynote speakers: Ulrich Haltern (University of Hanover), Jürgen Manemann (Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research), and Thomas M. Schmidt (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
www.katholische-akademie-berlin.de/1:5431/Veranstaltungen/2011/02/30179_Repraesentation-Kantorowicz-und-die.html
Call for papers
Description: "[This colloquium] carries in its title a key term of political philosophy, legal philosophy and political theology and has [...] once more chosen a classic as the patron of our reflections: Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz (1895-1963), who both as an intellectual and a scientist made important observations on the question of representation, particularly in his 1957 classic, The King's Two Bodies (Princeton University Press). Invited are proposals that thematize questions of the (institutional) representation of power in the context of the challenges posed by political science, jurisprudence, philosophy and theology; explore questions of the representation of the sacred and religion in art history, iconography or poetology; study the relationship of truth and myth, authority and authorship, symbolism, embodiment of power and incarnation; concern themselves with the writings of Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz inasfar as they can be brought into fruitful tensions with the topic of the colloquium." (my translation)
The conference language is German, but papers may be proposed and presented in English. Young researchers particularly in philosophy and theology, but also other humanities and social sciences disciplines, with an interest in the philosophy of religion, are invited to send proposals (full manuscripts or outlines of presentations) to Martin Knechtges (Katholische Akademie): knechtges@katholische‐akademie‐berlin.de
Deadline: 15 December 2010
The organizers write that presentations should not exceed 5,000 characters – that is around two pages A4. Before submitting a proposal, you may want to inquire if they do not rather mean a maximum of 5,000 words.
Each presenter will be allocated 45 minutes (20 minutes for presentation, the rest presumably for discussion). All presenters are guests of the conference and will be given free accommodation and registration. They will however have to pay for their own transportation to and from Berlin. The registration fee for non-presenting participants is 75 Euro (including meals) and they can book accommodation at 100 Euro (single room) or 70 Euro (bed in a double room) for two nights. An additional night (departure on Sunday) is 50/35 Euro. The organizers write that the number of participants is limited to 30. From the website, I am not clear, though, if this includes or excludes presenters (or non-presenters).
Registration forms (in German) for both presenting and non-presenting participants are to be found on the above website. If you are going to propose a paper, please send the appropriate registration form together with your proposal. Non-presenting participants have until 30 January 2011 to register.
Keynote speakers: Ulrich Haltern (University of Hanover), Jürgen Manemann (Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research), and Thomas M. Schmidt (Goethe-University Frankfurt)
05 December 2010
CFP: Religion in the Public Square and Private Worship
International and interdisciplinary seminar "Religion in the Public Square and Private Worship: in light of Hobbes' reading of 2 Kings 5:18-19" of the Italian academic journal "Politica e Religione" and the Department of Philosophy, History, and Cultural Heritage at the University of Trento, Italy, 9-10 June 2011
Call for papers
Since 2007, the journal "Politica e Religione" has been promoting seminars on the history of theological-political concepts and metaphors at the University of Trento, covering topics such as the Angels of the Nations; the Katéchon and the Antichrist; and the Spirit and the Power: Questions of Political Pneumatology. The proceedings of previous seminars have been published in the journal. Scholars from a variety of religious and disciplinary backgrounds (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, History, Philosophy, Theology, Law, Political Science, etc.) are invited to submit proposals for a contribution during the next seminar.
Description: "In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes reads the episode of Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5:18-19) as an example and a symbol of the right of a political power to control the public manifestations of any religious act. According to the biblical story, Naaman, the captain of the army of an Aramean king, converted to the faith of Israel after having been healed from leprosy, but he asked and obtained permission by a Jewish prophet to publicly worship the god Rimmon because of his obedience to the king. By distinguishing between interior conviction and external worship, the English philosopher[,] on the one hand, opens the way to the modern conception of the freedom of conscience, understood as a political tool for the resolution of religious conflicts and prevention of civil war; on the other hand, puts in doubt the ecclesiastic claims of interfering in any political and public issue precisely by making the interior convictions of the citizens irrelevant (insofar as they obey the laws of the king).
"Hobbes underlines that, by asking only for the interior faith and not for public actions, Jesus has exonerated the Church from judging the civil and political powers. And in the case when royal laws are in contradiction with the norms of the Church, or simply with the interior convictions of the citizens, they should obey those laws because such an act does not impede obtaining eternal salvation. In Hobbes' eyes, this argument frees the same concern for the eternal salvation from any political concern and puts it only within the individual, spiritual sphere. External obedience to the royal laws does not compromise the personal adhesion to norms of the Holy Scriptures. Hobbes' reflections on the biblical episode mentioned above may serve as the opportunity to think again about the relationship between public or political acts of religion, private worship, and interior convictions, in the framework of the complex process of forging the modern concept of 'religious freedom' as the foundation of all modern, secular political institutions.
"The recent claim by almost all traditional religions of a major public role in the global village is a challenge and a stimulus to renew the reflection on how states and politics should regulate the public manifestations of any religious credos in a context of pluralistic societies. Possible themes for a proposed paper: Innovative exegesis and interpretations of the biblical story of 2 Kings 5:18-19; Possible comparison with John 3:1-19 and Gal 2:11-21; How the story of Naaman was received by the Fathers of the Church; Developments of the theme in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian-Orthodox traditions; Development of the theme in the Scholastic schools of thought; The exegetical sources of Hobbes' text on the subject; New interpretations of the subject in the Modern era; Reception of Hobbes's reflections in C. Schmitt, R. Schnur, and R. Koselleck; Relationship between interior faith, domestic worship, and public acts of religion; Developments of the theme in contemporary theology."
Presentations may be given in Italian, English, French, German, or Spanish. Each proposal should include a title, the list of the disciplinary areas involved, an abstract (max. 300 words), and a limited bibliography. Proposals will be accepted on the basis of cogency and consistency with the topic and the method of the seminar. Please send proposals to Michele Nicoletti and Francesco Ghia (both University of Trento): michele.nicoletti@unitn.it, francesco.ghia@unitn.it
Deadline: 28 February 2011
The selected participants are required to submit full papers (max. 2,500-3,000 words) by 9 May 2011.
The best presented papers will be published in the journal (after the usual peer review).
Further information on the journal is to be found here:
www.morcelliana.it/or4/or?uid=morcelliana.main.index&oid=23165
Call for papers
Since 2007, the journal "Politica e Religione" has been promoting seminars on the history of theological-political concepts and metaphors at the University of Trento, covering topics such as the Angels of the Nations; the Katéchon and the Antichrist; and the Spirit and the Power: Questions of Political Pneumatology. The proceedings of previous seminars have been published in the journal. Scholars from a variety of religious and disciplinary backgrounds (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, History, Philosophy, Theology, Law, Political Science, etc.) are invited to submit proposals for a contribution during the next seminar.
Description: "In the Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes reads the episode of Naaman the Syrian (2 Kings 5:18-19) as an example and a symbol of the right of a political power to control the public manifestations of any religious act. According to the biblical story, Naaman, the captain of the army of an Aramean king, converted to the faith of Israel after having been healed from leprosy, but he asked and obtained permission by a Jewish prophet to publicly worship the god Rimmon because of his obedience to the king. By distinguishing between interior conviction and external worship, the English philosopher[,] on the one hand, opens the way to the modern conception of the freedom of conscience, understood as a political tool for the resolution of religious conflicts and prevention of civil war; on the other hand, puts in doubt the ecclesiastic claims of interfering in any political and public issue precisely by making the interior convictions of the citizens irrelevant (insofar as they obey the laws of the king).
"Hobbes underlines that, by asking only for the interior faith and not for public actions, Jesus has exonerated the Church from judging the civil and political powers. And in the case when royal laws are in contradiction with the norms of the Church, or simply with the interior convictions of the citizens, they should obey those laws because such an act does not impede obtaining eternal salvation. In Hobbes' eyes, this argument frees the same concern for the eternal salvation from any political concern and puts it only within the individual, spiritual sphere. External obedience to the royal laws does not compromise the personal adhesion to norms of the Holy Scriptures. Hobbes' reflections on the biblical episode mentioned above may serve as the opportunity to think again about the relationship between public or political acts of religion, private worship, and interior convictions, in the framework of the complex process of forging the modern concept of 'religious freedom' as the foundation of all modern, secular political institutions.
"The recent claim by almost all traditional religions of a major public role in the global village is a challenge and a stimulus to renew the reflection on how states and politics should regulate the public manifestations of any religious credos in a context of pluralistic societies. Possible themes for a proposed paper: Innovative exegesis and interpretations of the biblical story of 2 Kings 5:18-19; Possible comparison with John 3:1-19 and Gal 2:11-21; How the story of Naaman was received by the Fathers of the Church; Developments of the theme in Jewish, Islamic, and Christian-Orthodox traditions; Development of the theme in the Scholastic schools of thought; The exegetical sources of Hobbes' text on the subject; New interpretations of the subject in the Modern era; Reception of Hobbes's reflections in C. Schmitt, R. Schnur, and R. Koselleck; Relationship between interior faith, domestic worship, and public acts of religion; Developments of the theme in contemporary theology."
Presentations may be given in Italian, English, French, German, or Spanish. Each proposal should include a title, the list of the disciplinary areas involved, an abstract (max. 300 words), and a limited bibliography. Proposals will be accepted on the basis of cogency and consistency with the topic and the method of the seminar. Please send proposals to Michele Nicoletti and Francesco Ghia (both University of Trento): michele.nicoletti@unitn.it, francesco.ghia@unitn.it
Deadline: 28 February 2011
The selected participants are required to submit full papers (max. 2,500-3,000 words) by 9 May 2011.
The best presented papers will be published in the journal (after the usual peer review).
Further information on the journal is to be found here:
www.morcelliana.it/or4/or?uid=morcelliana.main.index&oid=23165
14 October 2010
Book: Islam as Political Religion: The Future of an Imperial Faith
Just published: Shabbir Akhtar, "Islam as Political Religion: The Future of an Imperial Faith" (Routledge, October 2010):
www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415781473/
Publisher's description: "This comprehensive survey of contemporary Islam provides a philosophical and theological approach to the issues faced by Muslims and the question of global secularisation. Engaging with critics of modern Islam, Shabbir Akhtar sets out an agenda of what his religion is and could be as a political entity. Exploring the views and arguments of philosophical, religious and political thinkers, the author covers a raft of issues faced by Muslims in an increasingly secular society. Chapters are devoted to the Qur'an and Islamic literature; the history of Islam; Sharia law; political Islam; Islamic ethics; and political Islam's evolving relationship with the West. Recommending changes which enable Muslims to move from their imperial past to a modest role in the power structures of today's society, Akhtar offers a detailed assessment of the limitations and possibilities of Islam in the modern world. Providing a vision for an empowered yet rational Islam that distances itself from both Islamist factions and Western secularism, this book is an essential read for students and scholars of Islamic studies, religion, philosophy and politics."
Shabbir Akhtar is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Old Dominion University.
www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415781473/
Publisher's description: "This comprehensive survey of contemporary Islam provides a philosophical and theological approach to the issues faced by Muslims and the question of global secularisation. Engaging with critics of modern Islam, Shabbir Akhtar sets out an agenda of what his religion is and could be as a political entity. Exploring the views and arguments of philosophical, religious and political thinkers, the author covers a raft of issues faced by Muslims in an increasingly secular society. Chapters are devoted to the Qur'an and Islamic literature; the history of Islam; Sharia law; political Islam; Islamic ethics; and political Islam's evolving relationship with the West. Recommending changes which enable Muslims to move from their imperial past to a modest role in the power structures of today's society, Akhtar offers a detailed assessment of the limitations and possibilities of Islam in the modern world. Providing a vision for an empowered yet rational Islam that distances itself from both Islamist factions and Western secularism, this book is an essential read for students and scholars of Islamic studies, religion, philosophy and politics."
Shabbir Akhtar is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Old Dominion University.
09 October 2010
Book: Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy
Bonnie Honig, "Emergency Politics: Paradox, Law, Democracy" (Princeton University Press, August 2009):
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9040.html
Publisher's description: "This book intervenes in contemporary debates about the threat posed to democratic life by political emergencies. Must emergency necessarily enhance and centralize top-down forms of sovereignty? Those who oppose executive branch enhancement often turn instead to law, insisting on the sovereignty of the rule of law or demanding that law rather than force be used to resolve conflicts with enemies. But are these the only options? Or are there more democratic ways to respond to invocations of emergency politics? Looking at how emergencies in the past and present have shaped the development of democracy, Bonnie Honig argues that democratic politics are always a struggle to weigh the value of necessities – food, security, and housing – against the achievement of a richer life across the full range of human aspirations. Emphasizing the connections between mere life and more life, emergence and emergency, Honig argues that emergencies call us to attend anew to a neglected paradox of democratic politics: that we need good citizens with aspirational ideals to make good politics while we need good politics to infuse citizens with idealism. Honig takes a broad approach to emergency, considering immigration politics, new rights claims, contemporary food politics and the infrastructure of consumption, and the limits of law during the Red Scare of the early twentieth century. Taking its bearings from Moses Mendelssohn, Franz Rosenzweig, and other Jewish thinkers, this is a major contribution to modern thought about the challenges and risks of democratic orientation and action in response to emergency."
Excerpts: "In chapter 4, where I analyze the idea of 'miracle,' Schmitt's metaphor for the state of exception, I ask whether these identifications are themselves remnants of earlier debates in political theology about the status of the extraordinary – god and miracle or divine agency – in the ordinary human world. [...] Schmitt and Agamben's 'state of exception,' I think it is fair to say, has captured the imagination of contemporary political theory. In this chapter, I seek to loosen its hold on our imagination by pluralizing the particular political theology on which Schmitt's account is based and from which it draws sustenance."
Endorsements: "What a compelling idea to take Franz Rosenzweig as an original political thinker and antagonist to Carl Schmitt. In this book, Bonnie Honig shows that political theory and Judaism can be read differently, not simply to deconstruct them but in order to reshape democratic theory beyond its paradox." (Adriana Cavarero, University of Verona)
"This is an exciting book. Its fresh and bold approach to such long-studied questions of politics as founding, membership, legitimation, rights, liberation, cosmopolitanism, exception, discretion, and law invites a fundamental shift in perspective that substantially advances political science." (Jill Frank, University of South Carolina)
Bonnie Honig is Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9040.html
Publisher's description: "This book intervenes in contemporary debates about the threat posed to democratic life by political emergencies. Must emergency necessarily enhance and centralize top-down forms of sovereignty? Those who oppose executive branch enhancement often turn instead to law, insisting on the sovereignty of the rule of law or demanding that law rather than force be used to resolve conflicts with enemies. But are these the only options? Or are there more democratic ways to respond to invocations of emergency politics? Looking at how emergencies in the past and present have shaped the development of democracy, Bonnie Honig argues that democratic politics are always a struggle to weigh the value of necessities – food, security, and housing – against the achievement of a richer life across the full range of human aspirations. Emphasizing the connections between mere life and more life, emergence and emergency, Honig argues that emergencies call us to attend anew to a neglected paradox of democratic politics: that we need good citizens with aspirational ideals to make good politics while we need good politics to infuse citizens with idealism. Honig takes a broad approach to emergency, considering immigration politics, new rights claims, contemporary food politics and the infrastructure of consumption, and the limits of law during the Red Scare of the early twentieth century. Taking its bearings from Moses Mendelssohn, Franz Rosenzweig, and other Jewish thinkers, this is a major contribution to modern thought about the challenges and risks of democratic orientation and action in response to emergency."
Excerpts: "In chapter 4, where I analyze the idea of 'miracle,' Schmitt's metaphor for the state of exception, I ask whether these identifications are themselves remnants of earlier debates in political theology about the status of the extraordinary – god and miracle or divine agency – in the ordinary human world. [...] Schmitt and Agamben's 'state of exception,' I think it is fair to say, has captured the imagination of contemporary political theory. In this chapter, I seek to loosen its hold on our imagination by pluralizing the particular political theology on which Schmitt's account is based and from which it draws sustenance."
Endorsements: "What a compelling idea to take Franz Rosenzweig as an original political thinker and antagonist to Carl Schmitt. In this book, Bonnie Honig shows that political theory and Judaism can be read differently, not simply to deconstruct them but in order to reshape democratic theory beyond its paradox." (Adriana Cavarero, University of Verona)
"This is an exciting book. Its fresh and bold approach to such long-studied questions of politics as founding, membership, legitimation, rights, liberation, cosmopolitanism, exception, discretion, and law invites a fundamental shift in perspective that substantially advances political science." (Jill Frank, University of South Carolina)
Bonnie Honig is Sarah Rebecca Roland Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago.
13 September 2010
CFP: Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011
Please circulate widely!
CALL FOR PAPERS
Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011
Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
Location: Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the University of Geneva, Château de Bossey, near Geneva, Switzerland
Date: 12-13 July 2011
The "Political Theology Agenda" (www.political-theology-agenda.blogspot.com) has been run by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society since January 2009. The blog is the premier resource on the net for the comparative study of political theology and political theologies across the boundaries of various traditions and academic disciplines.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011 will be the second event we organize in conjunction with the blog. It follows on from a highly successful first symposium held in Geneva in August 2010 and two equally well-received events on comparative political theology SCIS organized earlier, namely, in September 2007, a section and symposium at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Pisa, Italy, and, in July 2008, a stand-alone symposium at Sciences Po/the Institute for Political Studies (IEP) in Paris, France. All three events drew participants from the world over.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011 is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Theology, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, International Relations, Law, Literature, History, Jewish Studies, Education, Cultural Studies, Geography, and so on. Papers may not only cover any and all aspects of political theology, but also related concepts, such as liberation theology, public theology, black theology, the Christian Right, Radical Orthodoxy, religious anarchism, Minjung theology, Dalit theology, radical Islam, religious Zionism, political religion, civil religion, etc. Have a look at the blog to see what might be of interest and falls within our remit. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Although not a condition, we particularly encourage a comparative perspective. Work in progress is welcome too.
We expect that 15-20 participants will be attending the workshop-style Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011. Over the course of two full days, each presenter will have 45-60 minutes (depending on the number of participants) to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others. The symposium starts early on Tuesday and ends Wednesday late in the afternoon. Due to the small size of the symposium, all participants are expected to attend both days.
As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' travel and accommodation expenses. We will be glad to issue letters of acceptance on request to assist participants in securing funding from their usual sources. The 18th-century Château de Bossey, set in an outstanding natural environment overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps, offers comfortable accommodation at reasonable prices. Further information will be provided to confirmed participants.
Please send your proposal to: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Deadline: 31 January 2011
Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.
Cordially,
Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.sussexcentre.org
E-mail: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland
SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011
Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
Location: Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the University of Geneva, Château de Bossey, near Geneva, Switzerland
Date: 12-13 July 2011
The "Political Theology Agenda" (www.political-theology-agenda.blogspot.com) has been run by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society since January 2009. The blog is the premier resource on the net for the comparative study of political theology and political theologies across the boundaries of various traditions and academic disciplines.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011 will be the second event we organize in conjunction with the blog. It follows on from a highly successful first symposium held in Geneva in August 2010 and two equally well-received events on comparative political theology SCIS organized earlier, namely, in September 2007, a section and symposium at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Pisa, Italy, and, in July 2008, a stand-alone symposium at Sciences Po/the Institute for Political Studies (IEP) in Paris, France. All three events drew participants from the world over.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011 is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Theology, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, International Relations, Law, Literature, History, Jewish Studies, Education, Cultural Studies, Geography, and so on. Papers may not only cover any and all aspects of political theology, but also related concepts, such as liberation theology, public theology, black theology, the Christian Right, Radical Orthodoxy, religious anarchism, Minjung theology, Dalit theology, radical Islam, religious Zionism, political religion, civil religion, etc. Have a look at the blog to see what might be of interest and falls within our remit. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Although not a condition, we particularly encourage a comparative perspective. Work in progress is welcome too.
We expect that 15-20 participants will be attending the workshop-style Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2011. Over the course of two full days, each presenter will have 45-60 minutes (depending on the number of participants) to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others. The symposium starts early on Tuesday and ends Wednesday late in the afternoon. Due to the small size of the symposium, all participants are expected to attend both days.
As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' travel and accommodation expenses. We will be glad to issue letters of acceptance on request to assist participants in securing funding from their usual sources. The 18th-century Château de Bossey, set in an outstanding natural environment overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps, offers comfortable accommodation at reasonable prices. Further information will be provided to confirmed participants.
Please send your proposal to: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Deadline: 31 January 2011
Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.
Cordially,
Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.sussexcentre.org
E-mail: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland
SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.
19 June 2010
Political theology articles, fourth installment
A fourth installment of recent articles on political theology:
Richard Shorten (University of Birmingham), "Political Theology, Political Religion and Secularisation", Political Studies Review, 8 (2), May 2010: pp. 180-91.
Excerpt: "Recent work on the connection between religion and politics has often aligned itself with one of two intellectual traditions. On the one hand there is an expanding body of thought on the problem of the 'theological-political'. On the other, various discourses of 'political religion' amount to a different angle of approach to similar issues. The exact relation between the two orientations has seldom been spelled out. Nevertheless, it is intriguing for a number of reasons. The disjunction between the two is, in the foremost sense, disciplinary in character. The remit of the first is typically that of political philosophy, while the second body of work is largely historiographical. More prosaically, the two traditions are also readily identifiable with the 'big names' with whom they are invariably associated; Leo Strauss might just as well be a shorthand for political theology, and Eric Voegelin (albeit less well known) occupies a similar place in the tradition of political religion theory. To begin to establish that relation is therefore the primary intention of this short review article. The appearance, over the past few years, of a substantial set of monographs would seem an appropriate occasion on which to do so."
Cosmin Sebastian Cercel (University of Bucharest), "European Legal Integration as Phantasmagoria: On Jus Commune and Political Theology", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 18 (2), June 2010: pp. 241-52.
Abstract: "This paper tries to explore the place of phantasmatic structures in the production of discourses on the past and the instrumentalization of historiography in the framework of the construction of a European identity. During the last decades, in strong connection with European institutional framing, a heterogeneous discourse tries to impose by means of symbolic violence and authoritative arguments its own truth about Europe's 'Common Legal Past' in order to legitimize European politics in the field of legal integration. In doing so, it conjures both a shared legal tradition and a paradigm for understanding the status of the legal, the jus commune, a kind of Roman Law, a patchwork of Canon Law and scholar interpretation techniques, that emerged in the twelfth century and might have been at work throughout Europe as late as the beginning of nineteenth century. What this discourse also brings to the fore is the idea of a common legal culture that has been largely informed by the religious milieu where most of modern legal concepts have been forged. From this point of view this arguments reveal themselves as variations on Carl Schmitt's problematic stand of a political theology. This paper tries to unravel the internal tensions that undermine the discourse and questions its relation to historical truth and the phantasmatic dimension of meaning construction in historical enterprise. On the other hand, it tries to give an account by means of genealogy of the uncanny relation between this contemporary emergence of the jus commune and other legal ontologies of European modernity that presuppose a strong relation between the legal and the religious. In respect to this, I try to sketch the image of the contemporary discourse on the European 'Common Legal Past' as a discursive strategy that hasn't dealt with its own idiosyncrasies and proffers a doubtful legal ontology with dubious intellectual links that places it in an history of exclusionist and essentialist conservative thought."
Pamela Slotte (University of Helsinki), "Political Theology within International Law and Protestant Theology: Some Comparative Remarks", Studia Theologica: Nordic Journal of Theology, 64 (1), June 2010: pp. 22-58.
Abstract: "An upsurge of efforts to understand history, society and law through their Christian roots has been witnessed in recent years. Some of these attempts are explicitly referred to as political theology, and some are not. However, they do share the feature of seeking to explicate social phenomena by tracing their theological and political roots. This article reflects on this current trend. The primary focus is international legal discourse. The article asks questions about the theological in political theology found in this discourse by presenting thoughts about political theology as found in writings of the Protestant feminist theologian Dorothee Sölle."
Vendulka Kubálková (University of Miami), "A 'Turn to Religion' in IR?", Perspectives: Review of International Affairs, 17 (2), 2009: pp. 13-42.
Abstract: "The Anglo-American discipline of International Relations defends its main principles and resists with an almost religious fervor any change to them, although the explanation of world affairs has been eluding it since its inception. The article attempts to draw up possibly the first historiography of the IR scholarship about religion in world affairs since the 90s, showing the heightened interest in the subject from most other social sciences and humanities. The article proposes the use of the term 'International Political Theology' to bridge the multiple literatures as well as to underscore the theological commitment of the IR discipline to its basic creeds and dogmas."
Mika Luoma-aho (University of Lapland), "International Relations and the Secularisation of Theological Concepts: A Symbolic Reading", Perspectives: Review of International Affairs, 17 (2), 2009: pp. 71-92.
Abstract: "This article takes seriously Carl Schmitt's argument that secular political concepts share structural identity with certain concepts in Christian theology and exposes its implications for contemporary International Relations. The key for understanding Schmitt's argument is in its orporeal [sic] social imaginary. What connects the theological structures of Christianity with those of the contemporary social order is the corpus mysticum: the image of an embodied polis. The origin of the image is in scripture and it has been a subject of much theological speculation in the Christian tradition. The same image has a secular incarnation in the institution of the state, wchich [sic] is, of course, an omnipresent element in contemporary IR as well as in the everyday discourse of international relations. The article concludes with a thought on the role of political theology in the study of IR."
John P. McCormick (University of Chicago), "From Roman Catholicism to Mechanized Oppression: On Political-Theological Disjunctures in Schmitt's Weimar Thought", Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 13 (2-3), June 2010: pp. 391-8.
Abstract: "This essay uses Carl Schmitt's often overlooked Roman Catholicism and political form to highlight generally neglected changes in Schmitt's thinking as it develops from the early to the late 1920s and then to the mid-1930s. In particular, the essay notes significant alterations in Schmitt's attitudes to the Roman Catholic Church, the concept of 'humanity', liberalism, the Jews and Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan state."
Samuel J. Kuruvilla (University of Exeter), "Theologies of Liberation in Latin America and Palestine-Israel in Comparative Perspective: Contextual Differences and Practical Similarities", Holy Land Studies, 9 (1), May 2010: pp. 51-69.
Abstract: "This article concerns the development of a theology of Christian liberation and contextual polity from its early origins in Latin America to one of its present manifestations as part of the Palestinian people's struggle for justice and freedom from the state of Israel. This article will be primarily dedicated to a historical and political analysis of the theological context, which includes three different strands. First, there was the development of theologies of liberation, as they are made manifest in Latin America and elsewhere. Next, there was the theology of other Palestinian Christians, and particularly that of the Al-Liqa group that contributed to the development of a contextual Palestinian theology of liberation within the 'occupied' context that is Palestine today. And finally there was the case of Palestinian Protestant Christian theologians such as the Rev. Dr Naim Ateek and the Rev. Dr Mitri Raheb who have raised definitional issues regarding liberation theology and Palestinian contextual Christianity."
Yaniv Belhassen (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), "Fundamentalist Christian Pilgrimages as a Political and Cultural Force", Journal of Heritage Tourism, 4 (2), May 2009: pp. 131-44.
Abstract: "Based on fieldwork on a Midwestern American grassroots organization that conducts evangelical tours to Israel, this paper seeks to enrich analysis of the pilgrimage experience by suggesting a more contextualized approach to its study. To illustrate the implementation of the contextualized perspective, three thematic examples from the fieldwork are presented: men's emotional expression; religious deeds and their political meanings; and a case on the theo-political symbolism embedded in evangelical pilgrimage itineraries. It is argued that understanding not only the theological but also the historical, socio-cultural and political contexts in which evangelical tours operate can illuminate the way individual pilgrims construe meaning during their travel experiences. The paper concludes by suggesting that each of the examined examples illustrates the role of the pilgrimage as a cohesive force in the evangelical sub-culture."
Frederick Guyette (Erskine College and Theological Seminary), "Jonathan Edwards, The Ethics of Virtue and Public Theology", International Journal of Public Theology, 4 (2), 2010: pp. 158-74.
Abstract: "In The Nature of True Virtue, Jonathan Edwards does not deny that common morality is important; benevolence, beauty, conscience, justice, love for family and country are all threads in the fabric of a common morality. Without love for God as their chief end, however, the 'virtues' of common morality do not rise to the level of true virtue. This incommensurability can be problematic for Christian ethics in the public square. Edwards understood his project within the horizon of a commonwealth founded on Christian faith, but modern liberal democracies envision a different relationship between religious discourse and public life. In these contexts, so different from Edwards' setting, pluralism and tolerance are among the keys to a peaceful pursuit of the common good. With these differences in view, then, I explore what contribution Edwards' work on virtue might make to the practice of public theology in the areas of environmental ethics, bioethics and immigration policy."
Kirsteen Kim (Leeds Trinity University College), "Christianity's Role in the Modernization and Revitalization of Korean Society in the
Twentieth-Century", International Journal of Public Theology, 4 (2), 2010: pp. 212-36.
Abstract: "The development of South Korea and its growth to become the world's eleventh largest economy has been accompanied by the introduction of Christianity and its increase to become the major religious group, to which nearly thirty per cent of the population are affiliated. This article probes the connection between these two spectacular examples of development; economic and religious. By highlighting moments or episodes of Christian contribution to aspects of development in Korean history and linking these to relevant aspects of Korean Christian theology, there is shown to be a constructive, although not always intentional, link between Korean Christianity and national development. The nature of the Christian contribution is seen not primarily in terms of the work ethic it engenders (as argued by Max Weber in the case of European capitalism) but mainly in the realm of aspirations (visions, hope) of a new society and motivation (inspiration, empowerment) to put them into effect. In other words, it was the public theology of Christianity that played a highly significant role in the modernization and revitalization of Korean society in the twentieth century."
Max L. Stackhouse (Princeton Theological Seminary), "Public Theology and Democracy's Future", The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 7 (2), summer 2009: pp. 49-54.
Abstract: "Enduring civilizations have had a religious, moral architecture to guide leaders and evoke sacrificial commitments. The Judeo-Christian tradition offers two biblicalthemes [sic] that undergird the 'principled pluralism' that presses society toward democracy: the recognition of sin and the possibility of covenant. A serious public theology will engage the great world religions to find comparable concepts and prospects for an emerging global civil society. A viable democracy depends on a division of powers not only within the government, but among the institutions outside state control in a viable civil society. And civil society is strongest where multiple religious institutions are well developed."
Lisa O'Connell (University of Queensland), "The Theo-political Origins of the English Marriage Plot", Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 43 (1), spring 2010: pp. 31-7.
Abstract: "My paper re-historicizes the eighteenth-century marriage plot by shifting attention away from both the history of literary genres and the modes of social history that have generally informed accounts of the rise of the novel. Drawing instead on recent historiography of the period's religious-political currents, I argue that the novel's marriage plot emerged as both a cultural agent of the Erastian state and an expression of a highly labile, conservative, patriot opposition. It did so, therefore, as an English marriage plot which placed Anglican ritual and relations between vicars and squires at the heart of an imagined English nation. By returning a key tradition of the novel to its theo-political origins, and by offering an account of how marriage itself gained and retained intense topicality across the long eighteenth century in struggles between church and state, I show how the novel's new marriage plot worked to place prose fiction at the center of the literary field and, by that move, radically to augment literature's social resonance."
Leora Batnitzky (Princeton), "Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Predicament", in "The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss", ed. Steven B. Smith (Cambridge University Press, May 2009): pp. 41-62.
www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521703994
Excerpt: "This essay considers what Strauss meant by 'theologico-political predicament,' suggesting that there are at least two senses in which he employs the term, the first diagnostic, the second reconstructive. In its diagnostic sense, 'theologico-political predicament' refers to the ultimate results of the early modern attempt to separate theology from politics. However, Strauss in no way favors a return to theocracy or, like his contemporary Carl Schmitt, a return toward political theology. Strauss attempts to recover classical political philosophy, not to return to the political structures of the past, but to reconsider ways in which premodern thinkers thought it necessary to grapple and live with the tensions, if not contradictions, that by definition arise from human society. It is in this sense that Strauss's use of the theologico-political problem is reconstructive. [...] The conclusion considers the contemporary implications of Strauss's analyses."
Adam Kotsko (Kalamazoo College), "Dismantling the Theo-Political Machine: On Agamben's Messianic Nihilism", in "After the Postsecular and the Postmodern", eds. Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, May 2010): pp. 209-224.
www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/After-the-Postsecular-and-the-Postmodern--New-Essays-in-Continental-Philosophy-of-Religion1-4438-1987-5.htm
Excerpt: "In both cases [Jacques Derrida and Slavoj Žižek's], the impetus behind the turn to religion comes in large parts from within their own intellectual projects [...] but the end goal of their engagement with theology remains the same: to find a way out of religion, recognizing that 'the only way out is through.' This essay is in part an attempt to demonstrate that a similar pattern is at work in the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. [...] In retrospect, [...] one can see that Agamben had all along been shifting fluently between the religious and the political, a procedure he rarely thematises because the example of Walter Benjamin, perhaps his most significant intellectual influence, makes it seem like the obvious route to take. A significant portion of this essay will be taken up with a rereading of the Homo Sacer project with special attention to this continual slippage between the religious and the political. Yet for my purposes, Agamben's account of the theologico-political structure of the West is less important than the means he proposes for escaping or suspending that structure, a means that I will characterize as 'messianic nihilism.' Once I have established the basic outlines of Agamben's diagnosis of what ails Western culture and his proposed way out, I will turn from the exegetical to the constructive task, considering Agamben as one of the most fruitful interlocutors among the representatives of the 'theological turn' for interrogating the relationship between theology and philosophy."
Richard Shorten (University of Birmingham), "Political Theology, Political Religion and Secularisation", Political Studies Review, 8 (2), May 2010: pp. 180-91.
Excerpt: "Recent work on the connection between religion and politics has often aligned itself with one of two intellectual traditions. On the one hand there is an expanding body of thought on the problem of the 'theological-political'. On the other, various discourses of 'political religion' amount to a different angle of approach to similar issues. The exact relation between the two orientations has seldom been spelled out. Nevertheless, it is intriguing for a number of reasons. The disjunction between the two is, in the foremost sense, disciplinary in character. The remit of the first is typically that of political philosophy, while the second body of work is largely historiographical. More prosaically, the two traditions are also readily identifiable with the 'big names' with whom they are invariably associated; Leo Strauss might just as well be a shorthand for political theology, and Eric Voegelin (albeit less well known) occupies a similar place in the tradition of political religion theory. To begin to establish that relation is therefore the primary intention of this short review article. The appearance, over the past few years, of a substantial set of monographs would seem an appropriate occasion on which to do so."
Cosmin Sebastian Cercel (University of Bucharest), "European Legal Integration as Phantasmagoria: On Jus Commune and Political Theology", Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 18 (2), June 2010: pp. 241-52.
Abstract: "This paper tries to explore the place of phantasmatic structures in the production of discourses on the past and the instrumentalization of historiography in the framework of the construction of a European identity. During the last decades, in strong connection with European institutional framing, a heterogeneous discourse tries to impose by means of symbolic violence and authoritative arguments its own truth about Europe's 'Common Legal Past' in order to legitimize European politics in the field of legal integration. In doing so, it conjures both a shared legal tradition and a paradigm for understanding the status of the legal, the jus commune, a kind of Roman Law, a patchwork of Canon Law and scholar interpretation techniques, that emerged in the twelfth century and might have been at work throughout Europe as late as the beginning of nineteenth century. What this discourse also brings to the fore is the idea of a common legal culture that has been largely informed by the religious milieu where most of modern legal concepts have been forged. From this point of view this arguments reveal themselves as variations on Carl Schmitt's problematic stand of a political theology. This paper tries to unravel the internal tensions that undermine the discourse and questions its relation to historical truth and the phantasmatic dimension of meaning construction in historical enterprise. On the other hand, it tries to give an account by means of genealogy of the uncanny relation between this contemporary emergence of the jus commune and other legal ontologies of European modernity that presuppose a strong relation between the legal and the religious. In respect to this, I try to sketch the image of the contemporary discourse on the European 'Common Legal Past' as a discursive strategy that hasn't dealt with its own idiosyncrasies and proffers a doubtful legal ontology with dubious intellectual links that places it in an history of exclusionist and essentialist conservative thought."
Pamela Slotte (University of Helsinki), "Political Theology within International Law and Protestant Theology: Some Comparative Remarks", Studia Theologica: Nordic Journal of Theology, 64 (1), June 2010: pp. 22-58.
Abstract: "An upsurge of efforts to understand history, society and law through their Christian roots has been witnessed in recent years. Some of these attempts are explicitly referred to as political theology, and some are not. However, they do share the feature of seeking to explicate social phenomena by tracing their theological and political roots. This article reflects on this current trend. The primary focus is international legal discourse. The article asks questions about the theological in political theology found in this discourse by presenting thoughts about political theology as found in writings of the Protestant feminist theologian Dorothee Sölle."
Vendulka Kubálková (University of Miami), "A 'Turn to Religion' in IR?", Perspectives: Review of International Affairs, 17 (2), 2009: pp. 13-42.
Abstract: "The Anglo-American discipline of International Relations defends its main principles and resists with an almost religious fervor any change to them, although the explanation of world affairs has been eluding it since its inception. The article attempts to draw up possibly the first historiography of the IR scholarship about religion in world affairs since the 90s, showing the heightened interest in the subject from most other social sciences and humanities. The article proposes the use of the term 'International Political Theology' to bridge the multiple literatures as well as to underscore the theological commitment of the IR discipline to its basic creeds and dogmas."
Mika Luoma-aho (University of Lapland), "International Relations and the Secularisation of Theological Concepts: A Symbolic Reading", Perspectives: Review of International Affairs, 17 (2), 2009: pp. 71-92.
Abstract: "This article takes seriously Carl Schmitt's argument that secular political concepts share structural identity with certain concepts in Christian theology and exposes its implications for contemporary International Relations. The key for understanding Schmitt's argument is in its orporeal [sic] social imaginary. What connects the theological structures of Christianity with those of the contemporary social order is the corpus mysticum: the image of an embodied polis. The origin of the image is in scripture and it has been a subject of much theological speculation in the Christian tradition. The same image has a secular incarnation in the institution of the state, wchich [sic] is, of course, an omnipresent element in contemporary IR as well as in the everyday discourse of international relations. The article concludes with a thought on the role of political theology in the study of IR."
John P. McCormick (University of Chicago), "From Roman Catholicism to Mechanized Oppression: On Political-Theological Disjunctures in Schmitt's Weimar Thought", Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 13 (2-3), June 2010: pp. 391-8.
Abstract: "This essay uses Carl Schmitt's often overlooked Roman Catholicism and political form to highlight generally neglected changes in Schmitt's thinking as it develops from the early to the late 1920s and then to the mid-1930s. In particular, the essay notes significant alterations in Schmitt's attitudes to the Roman Catholic Church, the concept of 'humanity', liberalism, the Jews and Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan state."
Samuel J. Kuruvilla (University of Exeter), "Theologies of Liberation in Latin America and Palestine-Israel in Comparative Perspective: Contextual Differences and Practical Similarities", Holy Land Studies, 9 (1), May 2010: pp. 51-69.
Abstract: "This article concerns the development of a theology of Christian liberation and contextual polity from its early origins in Latin America to one of its present manifestations as part of the Palestinian people's struggle for justice and freedom from the state of Israel. This article will be primarily dedicated to a historical and political analysis of the theological context, which includes three different strands. First, there was the development of theologies of liberation, as they are made manifest in Latin America and elsewhere. Next, there was the theology of other Palestinian Christians, and particularly that of the Al-Liqa group that contributed to the development of a contextual Palestinian theology of liberation within the 'occupied' context that is Palestine today. And finally there was the case of Palestinian Protestant Christian theologians such as the Rev. Dr Naim Ateek and the Rev. Dr Mitri Raheb who have raised definitional issues regarding liberation theology and Palestinian contextual Christianity."
Yaniv Belhassen (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), "Fundamentalist Christian Pilgrimages as a Political and Cultural Force", Journal of Heritage Tourism, 4 (2), May 2009: pp. 131-44.
Abstract: "Based on fieldwork on a Midwestern American grassroots organization that conducts evangelical tours to Israel, this paper seeks to enrich analysis of the pilgrimage experience by suggesting a more contextualized approach to its study. To illustrate the implementation of the contextualized perspective, three thematic examples from the fieldwork are presented: men's emotional expression; religious deeds and their political meanings; and a case on the theo-political symbolism embedded in evangelical pilgrimage itineraries. It is argued that understanding not only the theological but also the historical, socio-cultural and political contexts in which evangelical tours operate can illuminate the way individual pilgrims construe meaning during their travel experiences. The paper concludes by suggesting that each of the examined examples illustrates the role of the pilgrimage as a cohesive force in the evangelical sub-culture."
Frederick Guyette (Erskine College and Theological Seminary), "Jonathan Edwards, The Ethics of Virtue and Public Theology", International Journal of Public Theology, 4 (2), 2010: pp. 158-74.
Abstract: "In The Nature of True Virtue, Jonathan Edwards does not deny that common morality is important; benevolence, beauty, conscience, justice, love for family and country are all threads in the fabric of a common morality. Without love for God as their chief end, however, the 'virtues' of common morality do not rise to the level of true virtue. This incommensurability can be problematic for Christian ethics in the public square. Edwards understood his project within the horizon of a commonwealth founded on Christian faith, but modern liberal democracies envision a different relationship between religious discourse and public life. In these contexts, so different from Edwards' setting, pluralism and tolerance are among the keys to a peaceful pursuit of the common good. With these differences in view, then, I explore what contribution Edwards' work on virtue might make to the practice of public theology in the areas of environmental ethics, bioethics and immigration policy."
Kirsteen Kim (Leeds Trinity University College), "Christianity's Role in the Modernization and Revitalization of Korean Society in the
Twentieth-Century", International Journal of Public Theology, 4 (2), 2010: pp. 212-36.
Abstract: "The development of South Korea and its growth to become the world's eleventh largest economy has been accompanied by the introduction of Christianity and its increase to become the major religious group, to which nearly thirty per cent of the population are affiliated. This article probes the connection between these two spectacular examples of development; economic and religious. By highlighting moments or episodes of Christian contribution to aspects of development in Korean history and linking these to relevant aspects of Korean Christian theology, there is shown to be a constructive, although not always intentional, link between Korean Christianity and national development. The nature of the Christian contribution is seen not primarily in terms of the work ethic it engenders (as argued by Max Weber in the case of European capitalism) but mainly in the realm of aspirations (visions, hope) of a new society and motivation (inspiration, empowerment) to put them into effect. In other words, it was the public theology of Christianity that played a highly significant role in the modernization and revitalization of Korean society in the twentieth century."
Max L. Stackhouse (Princeton Theological Seminary), "Public Theology and Democracy's Future", The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 7 (2), summer 2009: pp. 49-54.
Abstract: "Enduring civilizations have had a religious, moral architecture to guide leaders and evoke sacrificial commitments. The Judeo-Christian tradition offers two biblicalthemes [sic] that undergird the 'principled pluralism' that presses society toward democracy: the recognition of sin and the possibility of covenant. A serious public theology will engage the great world religions to find comparable concepts and prospects for an emerging global civil society. A viable democracy depends on a division of powers not only within the government, but among the institutions outside state control in a viable civil society. And civil society is strongest where multiple religious institutions are well developed."
Lisa O'Connell (University of Queensland), "The Theo-political Origins of the English Marriage Plot", Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 43 (1), spring 2010: pp. 31-7.
Abstract: "My paper re-historicizes the eighteenth-century marriage plot by shifting attention away from both the history of literary genres and the modes of social history that have generally informed accounts of the rise of the novel. Drawing instead on recent historiography of the period's religious-political currents, I argue that the novel's marriage plot emerged as both a cultural agent of the Erastian state and an expression of a highly labile, conservative, patriot opposition. It did so, therefore, as an English marriage plot which placed Anglican ritual and relations between vicars and squires at the heart of an imagined English nation. By returning a key tradition of the novel to its theo-political origins, and by offering an account of how marriage itself gained and retained intense topicality across the long eighteenth century in struggles between church and state, I show how the novel's new marriage plot worked to place prose fiction at the center of the literary field and, by that move, radically to augment literature's social resonance."
Leora Batnitzky (Princeton), "Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Predicament", in "The Cambridge Companion to Leo Strauss", ed. Steven B. Smith (Cambridge University Press, May 2009): pp. 41-62.
www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521703994
Excerpt: "This essay considers what Strauss meant by 'theologico-political predicament,' suggesting that there are at least two senses in which he employs the term, the first diagnostic, the second reconstructive. In its diagnostic sense, 'theologico-political predicament' refers to the ultimate results of the early modern attempt to separate theology from politics. However, Strauss in no way favors a return to theocracy or, like his contemporary Carl Schmitt, a return toward political theology. Strauss attempts to recover classical political philosophy, not to return to the political structures of the past, but to reconsider ways in which premodern thinkers thought it necessary to grapple and live with the tensions, if not contradictions, that by definition arise from human society. It is in this sense that Strauss's use of the theologico-political problem is reconstructive. [...] The conclusion considers the contemporary implications of Strauss's analyses."
Adam Kotsko (Kalamazoo College), "Dismantling the Theo-Political Machine: On Agamben's Messianic Nihilism", in "After the Postsecular and the Postmodern", eds. Anthony Paul Smith and Daniel Whistler (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, May 2010): pp. 209-224.
www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/After-the-Postsecular-and-the-Postmodern--New-Essays-in-Continental-Philosophy-of-Religion1-4438-1987-5.htm
Excerpt: "In both cases [Jacques Derrida and Slavoj Žižek's], the impetus behind the turn to religion comes in large parts from within their own intellectual projects [...] but the end goal of their engagement with theology remains the same: to find a way out of religion, recognizing that 'the only way out is through.' This essay is in part an attempt to demonstrate that a similar pattern is at work in the philosophy of Giorgio Agamben. [...] In retrospect, [...] one can see that Agamben had all along been shifting fluently between the religious and the political, a procedure he rarely thematises because the example of Walter Benjamin, perhaps his most significant intellectual influence, makes it seem like the obvious route to take. A significant portion of this essay will be taken up with a rereading of the Homo Sacer project with special attention to this continual slippage between the religious and the political. Yet for my purposes, Agamben's account of the theologico-political structure of the West is less important than the means he proposes for escaping or suspending that structure, a means that I will characterize as 'messianic nihilism.' Once I have established the basic outlines of Agamben's diagnosis of what ails Western culture and his proposed way out, I will turn from the exegetical to the constructive task, considering Agamben as one of the most fruitful interlocutors among the representatives of the 'theological turn' for interrogating the relationship between theology and philosophy."
CFP: Between Rawls and Religion: Liberalism in a Postsecular World
International conference "Between Rawls and Religion: Liberalism in a Postsecular World" of the International Research Network on Religion and Democracy (IRNRD), LUISS Guido Carli University, and John Cabot University, Rome, Italy, 16-18 December 2010
Call for papers
The conference will bring together scholars in philosophy, sociology, political theory, legal theory, religious studies, and theology to discuss the problematic relationship between religion and politics in contemporary public life. It will focus particularly on John Rawls' influential treatment of liberalism in pluralist societies and on the challenges posed to such a treatment by the re-emergence of religions in public life and the development of what some have called a postsecular world.
The conference will thus consider such topics as: Religion in Rawls; Political liberalism in a postsecular world; Religious doctrines and the idea of public reason; Religions and overlapping consensus; Liberalism and political theology; The philosophical and political foundations of postsecular pluralism; Redefining the relations and boundaries between religion and public life; Accommodating religious identities in liberal societies
Speakers include: Alessandro Ferrara (University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Andrew March (Yale, tbc); David Rasmussen (Boston College); Johannes van der Ven (Radboud University); Maeve Cooke (University College Dublin); Paul Weithman (University of Notre Dame); Peter Jonkers (Tilburg University); Samuele Sangalli (Gregoriana); Sebastiano Maffettone (LUISS Guido Carli University); Stephen Macedo (Princeton); Tariq Modood (University of Bristol, tbc); Theo de Wit (Tilburg University)
Scholars and graduate students wishing to present papers on these or related topics are invited to submit abstracts to the organizing committee. A paper suitable for presentation in 20 minutes and a 500-word abstract, both prepared for blind review, should be sent to: infophd@luiss.it
Deadline: 1 October 2010
Notice of acceptance will be provided by 15 October 2010. Selected papers will be considered for publication.
Registration fee (includes conference dinner, lunches, and refreshments): Faculty €100, Students €50.
Call for papers
The conference will bring together scholars in philosophy, sociology, political theory, legal theory, religious studies, and theology to discuss the problematic relationship between religion and politics in contemporary public life. It will focus particularly on John Rawls' influential treatment of liberalism in pluralist societies and on the challenges posed to such a treatment by the re-emergence of religions in public life and the development of what some have called a postsecular world.
The conference will thus consider such topics as: Religion in Rawls; Political liberalism in a postsecular world; Religious doctrines and the idea of public reason; Religions and overlapping consensus; Liberalism and political theology; The philosophical and political foundations of postsecular pluralism; Redefining the relations and boundaries between religion and public life; Accommodating religious identities in liberal societies
Speakers include: Alessandro Ferrara (University of Rome "Tor Vergata"); Andrew March (Yale, tbc); David Rasmussen (Boston College); Johannes van der Ven (Radboud University); Maeve Cooke (University College Dublin); Paul Weithman (University of Notre Dame); Peter Jonkers (Tilburg University); Samuele Sangalli (Gregoriana); Sebastiano Maffettone (LUISS Guido Carli University); Stephen Macedo (Princeton); Tariq Modood (University of Bristol, tbc); Theo de Wit (Tilburg University)
Scholars and graduate students wishing to present papers on these or related topics are invited to submit abstracts to the organizing committee. A paper suitable for presentation in 20 minutes and a 500-word abstract, both prepared for blind review, should be sent to: infophd@luiss.it
Deadline: 1 October 2010
Notice of acceptance will be provided by 15 October 2010. Selected papers will be considered for publication.
Registration fee (includes conference dinner, lunches, and refreshments): Faculty €100, Students €50.
04 May 2010
CFP: Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010
Please circulate widely!
CALL FOR PAPERS
Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010
Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
Location: Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the University of Geneva, Château de Bossey, near Geneva, Switzerland
Date: 18-19 August 2010
The "Political Theology Agenda" (www.political-theology-agenda.blogspot.com) has been run by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society since January 2009. The blog is the premier resource on the net for the comparative study of political theology and political theologies across the boundaries of various traditions and academic disciplines.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010 will be the first event we organize in conjunction with the blog. It will build up though on two highly successful events on comparative political theology SCIS organized earlier. Namely, in September 2007, a section and symposium at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Pisa, Italy, and, in July 2008, a stand-alone symposium at Sciences Po/the Institute for Political Studies (IEP) in Paris, France. Both events drew participants from the world over.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010 is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Theology, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, International Relations, Law, Literature, History, Jewish Studies, Education, Cultural Studies, Geography, and so on. Papers may not only cover any and all aspects of political theology, but also related concepts, such as liberation theology, public theology, black theology, the Christian Right, radical Orthodoxy, religious anarchism, minjung theology, Dalit theology, radical Islam, religious Zionism, political religion, civil religion, etc. Have a look at the blog to see what might be of interest and falls within our remit. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Although not a condition, we particularly encourage a comparative perspective. Work in progress is welcome too.
We expect that 15-20 participants will be attending the workshop-style Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010. Over the course of two full days, each presenter will have 45-60 minutes (depending on the number of participants) to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others.
As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' travel and accommodation expenses. We will be glad to issue letters of invitation on request to assist participants in securing funding from their usual sources. The 18th-century Château de Bossey, set in an outstanding natural environment overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps, offers comfortable accommodation at reasonable prices. Alternatively, participants may decide to stay in Geneva and commute to the symposium. Further information will be provided to confirmed participants. The symposium starts early on Wednesday and ends Thursday late in the afternoon.
Please send your proposal to: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Extended deadline: 15 July 2010
Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.
Cordially,
Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.sussexcentre.org
E-mail: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland
SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010
Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
Location: Ecumenical Institute of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the University of Geneva, Château de Bossey, near Geneva, Switzerland
Date: 18-19 August 2010
The "Political Theology Agenda" (www.political-theology-agenda.blogspot.com) has been run by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society since January 2009. The blog is the premier resource on the net for the comparative study of political theology and political theologies across the boundaries of various traditions and academic disciplines.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010 will be the first event we organize in conjunction with the blog. It will build up though on two highly successful events on comparative political theology SCIS organized earlier. Namely, in September 2007, a section and symposium at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research in Pisa, Italy, and, in July 2008, a stand-alone symposium at Sciences Po/the Institute for Political Studies (IEP) in Paris, France. Both events drew participants from the world over.
The Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010 is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Theology, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, International Relations, Law, Literature, History, Jewish Studies, Education, Cultural Studies, Geography, and so on. Papers may not only cover any and all aspects of political theology, but also related concepts, such as liberation theology, public theology, black theology, the Christian Right, radical Orthodoxy, religious anarchism, minjung theology, Dalit theology, radical Islam, religious Zionism, political religion, civil religion, etc. Have a look at the blog to see what might be of interest and falls within our remit. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Although not a condition, we particularly encourage a comparative perspective. Work in progress is welcome too.
We expect that 15-20 participants will be attending the workshop-style Political Theology Agenda Symposium 2010. Over the course of two full days, each presenter will have 45-60 minutes (depending on the number of participants) to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others.
As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' travel and accommodation expenses. We will be glad to issue letters of invitation on request to assist participants in securing funding from their usual sources. The 18th-century Château de Bossey, set in an outstanding natural environment overlooking Lake Geneva and the French Alps, offers comfortable accommodation at reasonable prices. Alternatively, participants may decide to stay in Geneva and commute to the symposium. Further information will be provided to confirmed participants. The symposium starts early on Wednesday and ends Thursday late in the afternoon.
Please send your proposal to: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Extended deadline: 15 July 2010
Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.
Cordially,
Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.sussexcentre.org
E-mail: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland
SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.
30 January 2010
CONF: Political and Legal Theology in Comparative Perspective
Conference "Political and Legal Theology in Comparative Perspective", co-sponsored by the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy and the Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School, 55 Fifth Avenue at 12 Street, Suite 542, New York, 21-22 February 2010
www.cardozo.yu.edu/MemberContentDisplay.aspx?ccmd=ContentDisplay&ucmd=UserDisplay&userid=10374&contentid=14096&folderid=340
Political theology is a mode of inquiry that understands the modern period as incompletely secularized. Theology has been adapted, reworked, and translated for secular use, but its hold on the political imagination remains strong. Although the Enlightenment and the rise of western political liberalism attempted to keep the public, political sphere completely secular while relegating religion to the private sphere, political theology argues that modern political systems have reoccupied the space that was once held by religious and theological systems. With the rise of political Islam abroad, and the increasing political power of the Christian Right in the United States, the exploration of the theological roots of the political imagination takes on great contemporary significance. Political theology, however, has been primarily concerned with ancient and medieval conceptions of the City of God and the theological polity, due to its links to western political nationalism after the fall of Christendom. In an age of political and religious globalization, there is a pressing need to bring non-Christian religions into these conversations.
Scholars have, for the most part, studied the impact of theology on our contemporary political commitments, but much less attention has been paid to the theological underpinnings of secular legal systems. Yet, a small but growing body of literature on legal theology has demonstrated that both in its origins and in its content, western law preserves and reoccupies spaces once held by God, revelation, prophets, and priests. The increasing presence of religion in the public square, both in the United States and abroad, has led to a rethinking of time-honored understandings of the relationship between religion, theology, and law. In an age in which political globalization has been accompanied by legal globalization, there is a need not only for disparate studies of political and legal theology, but to bring political theology and legal theology into productive conversation with one another. This conference aims to begin this new comparative and interdisciplinary conversation in political and legal theology.
Please note that this conference is not open to the public. Interested academics or students may want to contact the organizers, though, to see whether and how they can participate.
There will be one public panel on "American Exceptionalism and the Relevance of Political Theology in America", in the Moot Court Room, on 21 February, 6-8 pm (yes, that's a Sunday)
Panelists: Peter Berkowitz (Hoover Institution, Stanford), Paul Kahn (Yale Law School), Hendrik Hartog (History, Princeton), and Samuel Moyn (History, Columbia)
The concept of the qualitative uniqueness of America, known as American exceptionalism, dates back to Alexis de Tocqueville's nineteenth-century description of American democracy as "exceptional". American exceptionalism has been used both to describe and explain America's unique political, legal, social and religious landscapes. It has served as a justification of American foreign policy and America's frequent choice to act alone, rather than among the community of nations. American exceptionalism has been derided as a jingoist manifestation of American arrogance; it has been praised by proud Americans as an expression of their nation’s uniqueness. The term has been used neutrally by scholars attempting to compare America and other nations, and by those attempting to evaluate the validity of the expression. In recent decades, American exceptionalism has been re-examined by a number of scholars and thinkers, and has once again become a subject of heated debate in scholarship as well as public policy.
Claims of uniqueness and exceptionalism can be understood as secularized versions of claims to theological chosenness and uniqueness that lie in the foreground of American history, and the perennial quest to serve as a "city on a hill" or a "light among the nations". In this sense, American exceptionalism merits exploration in the context of political theology, a concept famously encapsulated by Carl Schmitt as the notion that all modern political concepts are secularized theological ones. In a forthcoming book, legal scholar Paul Kahn argues that a re-examination of Schmitt's concept of political theology and his associated understanding of sovereignty can be tremendously useful in a re-examination of American exceptionalism, and the continual tension in America between the rule of law and the concept of popular sovereignty. Panelists will address the nexus between American exceptionalism and the enduring relevance of political theology in contemporary American society.
Followed by a reception.
Please RSVP to: jewishlaw@yu.edu
www.cardozo.yu.edu/MemberContentDisplay.aspx?ccmd=ContentDisplay&ucmd=UserDisplay&userid=10374&contentid=14096&folderid=340
Political theology is a mode of inquiry that understands the modern period as incompletely secularized. Theology has been adapted, reworked, and translated for secular use, but its hold on the political imagination remains strong. Although the Enlightenment and the rise of western political liberalism attempted to keep the public, political sphere completely secular while relegating religion to the private sphere, political theology argues that modern political systems have reoccupied the space that was once held by religious and theological systems. With the rise of political Islam abroad, and the increasing political power of the Christian Right in the United States, the exploration of the theological roots of the political imagination takes on great contemporary significance. Political theology, however, has been primarily concerned with ancient and medieval conceptions of the City of God and the theological polity, due to its links to western political nationalism after the fall of Christendom. In an age of political and religious globalization, there is a pressing need to bring non-Christian religions into these conversations.
Scholars have, for the most part, studied the impact of theology on our contemporary political commitments, but much less attention has been paid to the theological underpinnings of secular legal systems. Yet, a small but growing body of literature on legal theology has demonstrated that both in its origins and in its content, western law preserves and reoccupies spaces once held by God, revelation, prophets, and priests. The increasing presence of religion in the public square, both in the United States and abroad, has led to a rethinking of time-honored understandings of the relationship between religion, theology, and law. In an age in which political globalization has been accompanied by legal globalization, there is a need not only for disparate studies of political and legal theology, but to bring political theology and legal theology into productive conversation with one another. This conference aims to begin this new comparative and interdisciplinary conversation in political and legal theology.
Please note that this conference is not open to the public. Interested academics or students may want to contact the organizers, though, to see whether and how they can participate.
There will be one public panel on "American Exceptionalism and the Relevance of Political Theology in America", in the Moot Court Room, on 21 February, 6-8 pm (yes, that's a Sunday)
Panelists: Peter Berkowitz (Hoover Institution, Stanford), Paul Kahn (Yale Law School), Hendrik Hartog (History, Princeton), and Samuel Moyn (History, Columbia)
The concept of the qualitative uniqueness of America, known as American exceptionalism, dates back to Alexis de Tocqueville's nineteenth-century description of American democracy as "exceptional". American exceptionalism has been used both to describe and explain America's unique political, legal, social and religious landscapes. It has served as a justification of American foreign policy and America's frequent choice to act alone, rather than among the community of nations. American exceptionalism has been derided as a jingoist manifestation of American arrogance; it has been praised by proud Americans as an expression of their nation’s uniqueness. The term has been used neutrally by scholars attempting to compare America and other nations, and by those attempting to evaluate the validity of the expression. In recent decades, American exceptionalism has been re-examined by a number of scholars and thinkers, and has once again become a subject of heated debate in scholarship as well as public policy.
Claims of uniqueness and exceptionalism can be understood as secularized versions of claims to theological chosenness and uniqueness that lie in the foreground of American history, and the perennial quest to serve as a "city on a hill" or a "light among the nations". In this sense, American exceptionalism merits exploration in the context of political theology, a concept famously encapsulated by Carl Schmitt as the notion that all modern political concepts are secularized theological ones. In a forthcoming book, legal scholar Paul Kahn argues that a re-examination of Schmitt's concept of political theology and his associated understanding of sovereignty can be tremendously useful in a re-examination of American exceptionalism, and the continual tension in America between the rule of law and the concept of popular sovereignty. Panelists will address the nexus between American exceptionalism and the enduring relevance of political theology in contemporary American society.
Followed by a reception.
Please RSVP to: jewishlaw@yu.edu
05 January 2010
Journal articles on political theology 2009
Some articles on political theology published in 2009 in academic journals of all conceivable disciplines:
David Theo Goldberg (University of California, Irvine), "A Political Theology of Race: Articulating Racial Southafricanization", Cultural Studies, 23 (4), July 2009: pp. 513-37.
Abstract: "Over the past three decades Stuart Hall has provided many of the key terms for (re)thinking the social, the cultural, and the political. Largely absent from his work has been consideration of religion and, given more recent theoretical developments, of the theologico-political. I pose a series of questions to Stuart Hall by considering an analysis of race as political theology, exemplified by a focus on the history of South African apartheid and its afterlife."
Mika Luoma-aho (University of Lapland), "Political Theology, Anthropomorphism, and Person-hood of the State: The Religion of IR", International Political Sociology, 3 (3), September 2009: pp. 293-309.
Abstract: "In this article I identify international relations as a form of religion. My identification takes two epistemological paths. The first one has been cleared by political theologians such as Carl Schmitt, who teach that 'secular' political ideas not only have a divine origin, but also structural identity with Christian theology. I will clear the second path with help from a cognitive theory of religion that identifies anthropomorphism as a defining criterion of religion. International relations is a religion, because it is a system of thought that takes the metaphorical image of the personified, embodied state more seriously than other, more idiosyncratic forms of anthropomorphism. What we have in academic IR is, thus, a theology that works to generalize and systematize this religious image into a disciplinary form."
Dimitris Vardoulakis (University of Western Sydney), "Stasis: Beyond Political Theology?", Cultural Critique, 73, fall 2009, pp. 125-47.
From the preview: "Political theology refers to the impossibility of both to completely separate and to completely conflate politics and religion. [...] It remains a point of contention, however, what the repercussions of the trespassing of theological concepts into the political are. [...] Despite the differences between these thinkers, there is one abiding characteristic. There is a constitutive disjunction between politics and the political, between law and justice. As a result, political theology forecloses meaning in politics – that is, no political party or representative can be thought to represent the political ideal. More emphatically, there is no end of history. I will explore here whether it is possible to understand the foreclosure of meaning not as the conclusion, but rather as the condition of the possibility of the political. Can the meaningless or the irrational function as the basis of the intertwining and imbrication of the secular and the sacred?"
Nur Masalha (St Mary's University College), "Reading the Bible with the Eyes of the Canaanites: Neo-Zionism, Political Theology and the Land Traditions of the Bible (1967 to Gaza 2009)", Holy Land Studies, 8 (1), May 2009: pp. 55-108.
Abstract: "In modern times, a whole range of colonial enterprises have used the Bible. The book of Joshua and other biblical texts evoking the exploits of ancient Israelites have been deployed in support of secular Zionism and settler colonisation in Palestine. The mega narratives of the Bible, however, appeared to mandate the ethnic cleansing and even genocide of the indigenous population of Canaan. This article argues that, with the rise of messianic Zionism since 1967, a Jewish theology of zealotocracy, based on the land traditions of the Bible, has emerged in Israel – a political theology that demanded the destruction of the so-called modern Canaanites; since 1967 fundamentalist rabbis have routinely compared the Palestinian people to the ancient Canaanites, Philistines and Amalekites, whose annihilation or expulsion by the ancient Israelites was predestined by a divine design. This article focuses on the politics of reading the Bible by neo-Zionists and examines the theology of the messianic current which embraces the paradigm of Jews as a divinely 'chosen people' and sees the indigenous Palestinians as no more than illegitimate squatters, and a threat to the process of messianic redemption; their human and civil rights are no match for the biblically ordained holy war of conquering and settling the 'Promised Land'."
Rutger Henneman (researcher and activist) and Alastair McIntosh (University of Strathclyde), "The Political Theology of Modern Scottish Land Reform", Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 3 (3), 2009: pp. 340-75.
Abstract: "This paper gathers evidence that modern Scottish land reform was influenced by applied liberation theology from both grassroot community activists and institutional churches. Scotland's land tenure was feudal to the late twentieth century. Plutocratic ownership impacted the economics and psychology of community wellbeing. The 1990s produced a land reform movement culminating in the new Scottish Parliament's Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. These created a conditional 'community right to buy' and affirmed freedom of 'right to roam'. Two percent of Scottish land is now in community ownership. Our research interviewed fifteen movers and shakers – both national theologians and local activists from the vanguard land trusts of Eigg, Assynt and Gigha. We conclude that spirituality and religion can be subtle drivers of community empowerment. By inspiring, informing and legitimising socio-political transformation, a 'Remnant' theology factored into Scottish legislation of international significance."
Erin Runions (Pomona College), "Detranscendentalizing Decisionism: Political Theology after Gayatri Spivak", Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 25 (2), fall 2009, pp. 67-85.
Abstract: "This essay uses the thought of Gayatri Spivak to reread one religious trope – the antichrist – commonly used in conservative political discourse to motivate a masculinist theopolitical decisionism. Runions draws a connection between Spivak's insistence on detranscendentalizing radical alterity – which is a deconstructive literary approach to religious narratives – and Spivak's larger concern with ethics. The project of detranscendentalizing is an important first step toward the impossible ethical encounter with the other; it thus charts a course for critiquing theopolitics and imagining new modes of political engagement, in ways that resist the usual conservative accusations of neutrality. To illustrate, the essay draws to the fore the ancient Near Eastern mythological filiations between Christ and antichrist; it reads the antichrist as a detranscendentalized figure that ironically disrupts the masculinist authority of decisions made in the name of Christ and makes room for the singular encounter with the political other."
Anthony O'Mahony (Heythrop College), "The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI", International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 9 (3), August 2009, pp. 177-94.
Abstract: "The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the 'Idea of Europe' in papal thought against a background of changing political context – the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI."
Victoria Kahn (University of California at Berkeley), "Political Theology and Fiction in The King's Two Bodies", Representations, 106, spring 2009: pp. 77-101.
Abstract: "This essay argues that Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies is intended as a contribution to twentieth-century debates about political theology and that modern students of political theology can learn from Kantorowicz's association of political theology with legal fiction."
Jennifer R. Rust (Saint Louis University), "Political Theology and Shakespeare Studies", Literature Compass, 6 (1), January 2009: pp. 175-90.
Abstract: "The current focus on political theology in Shakespeare studies is largely devoted to tracing how Shakespeare's dramas illuminate the structural link between religious and political forms in both early modernity and modern liberal democracy. Critics concerned with addressing Shakespeare's engagement with political theology are also interested in how Shakespeare's portrayal of sovereign bodies in crisis constitute an early representation of 'biopolitics'. These critics draw on theorists ranging from Carl Schmitt to Giorgio Agamben to inform their analyses of the way Shakespeare dramatizes sovereignty in a 'state of emergency' in his histories and tragedies. Plays such as Richard II, Coriolanus, and Hamlet have drawn particular attention insofar as they vividly interrogate the nature of the sovereign exception and decision highlighted by theorists of political theology. While this line of criticism adds a new theoretical dimension to Shakespeare studies, it also offers the potential for remapping our understanding of the religious and political history of early modern England in its attention to the deforming pressure of religious schism on traditional structures of sovereignty."
Aaron Riches (University of Nottingham), "Political Theology and Pauline Law: Notes Toward a Sapiential Legality", Telos, 146, spring 2009, pp. 140-57.
Excerpt: "In 1979, on the thirty-ninth anniversary of the closing of the Franco-Spanish border at Port Bou and one day before the anniversary of the suicide of Walter Benjamin, Jacob Taubes and Carl Schmitt opened the Bible in the Sauerland. The two men sat down in Plettenburg to read St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapters 9-11. As if in memory of Benjamin, they spoke 'under a priestly seal': Schmitt, the most important state law theorist of the twentieth century, a Roman Catholic and sometime member of the Nazi Party; Taubes, a Jewish philosopher of a Messianic and oddly left-wing disposition ..."
Mike Grimshaw (University of Canterbury), "Responding not Believing: Political Theology and Post-Secular Society", Political Theology, 10 (3), fall 2009: pp. 537-57.
Abstract: "In the past decade social theorists and Continental philosophers have returned again to an engagement with Christianity and the legacy of Christian belief. This is framed in the context of a Europe seen in transition to a post-secular identity and, often implicitly, against what is seen as an encroaching Islamic presence within Europe. This move has often brought together Marxist, post-Marxist, and Catholic-legacy philosophers, together with philosophical Protestants in an attempt to recover what I term a political theology of response. Response, in opposition to belief, signals an alternative post-secular turn of attempted inclusion out of a perceived shared cultural legacy. This essay asks if, in such a cultural philosophical turn, the alternative post-secular turn of a political theology of response signals that belief remains within the private sphere as we seek to engage in a public conversation of non-believing 'response'?"
The same journal, "Political Theology", carried, on occasion of the 500th birthday of John Calvin, in issue 3 of its 10th volume (fall 2009) a symposium on "John Calvin and Political Theology":
www.politicaltheology.com/ojs/index.php/PT/issue/view/690
Articles include: "Editorial: Remembering Geneva's Calvin" by Marilynne Robinson (University of Iowa); "John Calvin and the Jews: A Problem in Political Theology" by David C. Steinmetz (Duke Divinity School); "Calvin and Natural Rights" by David Little (Harvard Divinity School); "Calvin's Legacy for Public Theology" by Richard J. Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary); and "What Reformed Theology in a Calvinist Key Brings to Conversations about Justice" by Douglas F. Ottati (Davidson College).
Aristide Tessitore (Furman University), "Political Theology and the Theological-Political Problem", Perspectives on Political Science, 38 (1), winter 2009: pp. 5-12.
Abstract: "This essay offers a critical appreciation of Mark Lilla's Stillborn God. To his credit, Lilla understands the primacy and enduring appeal of political theology, as well as the danger of intellectual complacency about the underlying principles of modern politics. Lilla maintains that modern politics is a relatively recent and radically novel experiment that aims at nothing less than displacing a primordial and perennial way of constituting politics with reference to the divine. My essay compares Lilla's analysis of the fundamental antagonism between political theology and modern liberal politics to Strauss's analysis of the theological-political problem. In doing so, I bring to light both the strengths and limits of Lilla's attempt to clarify the relationship between politics, biblical religion, and philosophic rationalism."
Sandrine Baume (University of Lausanne), "On Political Theology: A Controversy Between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt", History of European Ideas, 35 (3), September 2009: pp. 369-81.
Abstract: "This article pays special attention to the large number of references to political theology by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, particularly in the interwar period, and seeks to interpret these references in a new way. While Schmitt's analogies between God and state are to be expected considering his strong Catholic roots, such comparisons are much more surprising for a positivist like Hans Kelsen, who always tried to relieve state and law from transcendental elements. The article concludes that, far from being marginal in the doctrinal dispute between Schmitt and Kelsen, references to political theology express and summarize their major controversy about the relation between state and law, as well as about the sources of the state's unity. The heart of the disputatio between the two jurists concerned the ability of the political power to emancipate itself from the juridical order. The 'legal miracle' – in this context meaning the occasional autonomization of the state from law – was for Schmitt the manifestation of sovereign power. However, for Kelsen it represented the negation of the state's essence, whose actions must be determined only by the legal order."
Anna Schmidt (University of Munich), "The Problem of Carl Schmitt's Political Theology", Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 36 (3), summer 2009: pp. 219-52.
No abstract available.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos (University of Coimbra, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Warwick), "If God Were a Human Rights Activist: Human Rights and the Challenge of Political Theologies", Law, Social Justice and Global Development Journal (LGD), 13, 2009 (1), March, refereed electronic journal, full text available online:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2009_1/santos
Abstract: "Citing the inability of conventional human rights thinking to address the 'strong' questions raised by our times, this article pursues a twofold objective: to identify the major challenges that the rise of political theologies at the beginning of the twentieth-first [sic] century posed to human rights; and second, to select within a broad landscape of theological analysis the types of reflections and practices that might contribute to expand and deepen the canon of human rights politics. In order to achieve this double goal the article uses complexity as its main analytical guideline making distinctions from which significant consequences were drawn: on one side, distinctions among different types of political theologies (pluralist versus revelationist, traditionalist versus progressive); and, on the other, between two contrasting discourses and practices of human rights politics (hegemonic versus counter-hegemonic). Depending on the circumstances, even conventional or hegemonic human rights struggles may be a progressive tool against social practices and norms derived from traditionalist and revelationist theologies. Pluralist and progressive theologies, in turn, may be a source of radical energy toward more ambitious, counter-hegemonic human rights struggles."
Please let me know if I missed any important articles.
David Theo Goldberg (University of California, Irvine), "A Political Theology of Race: Articulating Racial Southafricanization", Cultural Studies, 23 (4), July 2009: pp. 513-37.
Abstract: "Over the past three decades Stuart Hall has provided many of the key terms for (re)thinking the social, the cultural, and the political. Largely absent from his work has been consideration of religion and, given more recent theoretical developments, of the theologico-political. I pose a series of questions to Stuart Hall by considering an analysis of race as political theology, exemplified by a focus on the history of South African apartheid and its afterlife."
Mika Luoma-aho (University of Lapland), "Political Theology, Anthropomorphism, and Person-hood of the State: The Religion of IR", International Political Sociology, 3 (3), September 2009: pp. 293-309.
Abstract: "In this article I identify international relations as a form of religion. My identification takes two epistemological paths. The first one has been cleared by political theologians such as Carl Schmitt, who teach that 'secular' political ideas not only have a divine origin, but also structural identity with Christian theology. I will clear the second path with help from a cognitive theory of religion that identifies anthropomorphism as a defining criterion of religion. International relations is a religion, because it is a system of thought that takes the metaphorical image of the personified, embodied state more seriously than other, more idiosyncratic forms of anthropomorphism. What we have in academic IR is, thus, a theology that works to generalize and systematize this religious image into a disciplinary form."
Dimitris Vardoulakis (University of Western Sydney), "Stasis: Beyond Political Theology?", Cultural Critique, 73, fall 2009, pp. 125-47.
From the preview: "Political theology refers to the impossibility of both to completely separate and to completely conflate politics and religion. [...] It remains a point of contention, however, what the repercussions of the trespassing of theological concepts into the political are. [...] Despite the differences between these thinkers, there is one abiding characteristic. There is a constitutive disjunction between politics and the political, between law and justice. As a result, political theology forecloses meaning in politics – that is, no political party or representative can be thought to represent the political ideal. More emphatically, there is no end of history. I will explore here whether it is possible to understand the foreclosure of meaning not as the conclusion, but rather as the condition of the possibility of the political. Can the meaningless or the irrational function as the basis of the intertwining and imbrication of the secular and the sacred?"
Nur Masalha (St Mary's University College), "Reading the Bible with the Eyes of the Canaanites: Neo-Zionism, Political Theology and the Land Traditions of the Bible (1967 to Gaza 2009)", Holy Land Studies, 8 (1), May 2009: pp. 55-108.
Abstract: "In modern times, a whole range of colonial enterprises have used the Bible. The book of Joshua and other biblical texts evoking the exploits of ancient Israelites have been deployed in support of secular Zionism and settler colonisation in Palestine. The mega narratives of the Bible, however, appeared to mandate the ethnic cleansing and even genocide of the indigenous population of Canaan. This article argues that, with the rise of messianic Zionism since 1967, a Jewish theology of zealotocracy, based on the land traditions of the Bible, has emerged in Israel – a political theology that demanded the destruction of the so-called modern Canaanites; since 1967 fundamentalist rabbis have routinely compared the Palestinian people to the ancient Canaanites, Philistines and Amalekites, whose annihilation or expulsion by the ancient Israelites was predestined by a divine design. This article focuses on the politics of reading the Bible by neo-Zionists and examines the theology of the messianic current which embraces the paradigm of Jews as a divinely 'chosen people' and sees the indigenous Palestinians as no more than illegitimate squatters, and a threat to the process of messianic redemption; their human and civil rights are no match for the biblically ordained holy war of conquering and settling the 'Promised Land'."
Rutger Henneman (researcher and activist) and Alastair McIntosh (University of Strathclyde), "The Political Theology of Modern Scottish Land Reform", Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 3 (3), 2009: pp. 340-75.
Abstract: "This paper gathers evidence that modern Scottish land reform was influenced by applied liberation theology from both grassroot community activists and institutional churches. Scotland's land tenure was feudal to the late twentieth century. Plutocratic ownership impacted the economics and psychology of community wellbeing. The 1990s produced a land reform movement culminating in the new Scottish Parliament's Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 and the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. These created a conditional 'community right to buy' and affirmed freedom of 'right to roam'. Two percent of Scottish land is now in community ownership. Our research interviewed fifteen movers and shakers – both national theologians and local activists from the vanguard land trusts of Eigg, Assynt and Gigha. We conclude that spirituality and religion can be subtle drivers of community empowerment. By inspiring, informing and legitimising socio-political transformation, a 'Remnant' theology factored into Scottish legislation of international significance."
Erin Runions (Pomona College), "Detranscendentalizing Decisionism: Political Theology after Gayatri Spivak", Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 25 (2), fall 2009, pp. 67-85.
Abstract: "This essay uses the thought of Gayatri Spivak to reread one religious trope – the antichrist – commonly used in conservative political discourse to motivate a masculinist theopolitical decisionism. Runions draws a connection between Spivak's insistence on detranscendentalizing radical alterity – which is a deconstructive literary approach to religious narratives – and Spivak's larger concern with ethics. The project of detranscendentalizing is an important first step toward the impossible ethical encounter with the other; it thus charts a course for critiquing theopolitics and imagining new modes of political engagement, in ways that resist the usual conservative accusations of neutrality. To illustrate, the essay draws to the fore the ancient Near Eastern mythological filiations between Christ and antichrist; it reads the antichrist as a detranscendentalized figure that ironically disrupts the masculinist authority of decisions made in the name of Christ and makes room for the singular encounter with the political other."
Anthony O'Mahony (Heythrop College), "The Vatican and Europe: Political Theology and Ecclesiology in Papal Statements from Pius XII to Benedict XVI", International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church, 9 (3), August 2009, pp. 177-94.
Abstract: "The article examines the origins and evolution of the Vatican's political theology and ecclesiology for Europe from Pius XII (especially after the Second World War) and including the pontificates of John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. It seeks to examine the continuities of the 'Idea of Europe' in papal thought against a background of changing political context – the end of the Second World War, the Cold War, the fall of the communist state system, the emergence of a united but diverse Europe after 1989. The political structures of the continent now include within its geographic sweep Western and Eastern Christian churches which, divided by tradition and modern history, find their relationship a key marker in the contemporary religious identity of Europe. This reality is a significant framework for Vatican thinking on Europe especially for John Paul II and Benedict XVI."
Victoria Kahn (University of California at Berkeley), "Political Theology and Fiction in The King's Two Bodies", Representations, 106, spring 2009: pp. 77-101.
Abstract: "This essay argues that Ernst Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies is intended as a contribution to twentieth-century debates about political theology and that modern students of political theology can learn from Kantorowicz's association of political theology with legal fiction."
Jennifer R. Rust (Saint Louis University), "Political Theology and Shakespeare Studies", Literature Compass, 6 (1), January 2009: pp. 175-90.
Abstract: "The current focus on political theology in Shakespeare studies is largely devoted to tracing how Shakespeare's dramas illuminate the structural link between religious and political forms in both early modernity and modern liberal democracy. Critics concerned with addressing Shakespeare's engagement with political theology are also interested in how Shakespeare's portrayal of sovereign bodies in crisis constitute an early representation of 'biopolitics'. These critics draw on theorists ranging from Carl Schmitt to Giorgio Agamben to inform their analyses of the way Shakespeare dramatizes sovereignty in a 'state of emergency' in his histories and tragedies. Plays such as Richard II, Coriolanus, and Hamlet have drawn particular attention insofar as they vividly interrogate the nature of the sovereign exception and decision highlighted by theorists of political theology. While this line of criticism adds a new theoretical dimension to Shakespeare studies, it also offers the potential for remapping our understanding of the religious and political history of early modern England in its attention to the deforming pressure of religious schism on traditional structures of sovereignty."
Aaron Riches (University of Nottingham), "Political Theology and Pauline Law: Notes Toward a Sapiential Legality", Telos, 146, spring 2009, pp. 140-57.
Excerpt: "In 1979, on the thirty-ninth anniversary of the closing of the Franco-Spanish border at Port Bou and one day before the anniversary of the suicide of Walter Benjamin, Jacob Taubes and Carl Schmitt opened the Bible in the Sauerland. The two men sat down in Plettenburg to read St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, chapters 9-11. As if in memory of Benjamin, they spoke 'under a priestly seal': Schmitt, the most important state law theorist of the twentieth century, a Roman Catholic and sometime member of the Nazi Party; Taubes, a Jewish philosopher of a Messianic and oddly left-wing disposition ..."
Mike Grimshaw (University of Canterbury), "Responding not Believing: Political Theology and Post-Secular Society", Political Theology, 10 (3), fall 2009: pp. 537-57.
Abstract: "In the past decade social theorists and Continental philosophers have returned again to an engagement with Christianity and the legacy of Christian belief. This is framed in the context of a Europe seen in transition to a post-secular identity and, often implicitly, against what is seen as an encroaching Islamic presence within Europe. This move has often brought together Marxist, post-Marxist, and Catholic-legacy philosophers, together with philosophical Protestants in an attempt to recover what I term a political theology of response. Response, in opposition to belief, signals an alternative post-secular turn of attempted inclusion out of a perceived shared cultural legacy. This essay asks if, in such a cultural philosophical turn, the alternative post-secular turn of a political theology of response signals that belief remains within the private sphere as we seek to engage in a public conversation of non-believing 'response'?"
The same journal, "Political Theology", carried, on occasion of the 500th birthday of John Calvin, in issue 3 of its 10th volume (fall 2009) a symposium on "John Calvin and Political Theology":
www.politicaltheology.com/ojs/index.php/PT/issue/view/690
Articles include: "Editorial: Remembering Geneva's Calvin" by Marilynne Robinson (University of Iowa); "John Calvin and the Jews: A Problem in Political Theology" by David C. Steinmetz (Duke Divinity School); "Calvin and Natural Rights" by David Little (Harvard Divinity School); "Calvin's Legacy for Public Theology" by Richard J. Mouw (Fuller Theological Seminary); and "What Reformed Theology in a Calvinist Key Brings to Conversations about Justice" by Douglas F. Ottati (Davidson College).
Aristide Tessitore (Furman University), "Political Theology and the Theological-Political Problem", Perspectives on Political Science, 38 (1), winter 2009: pp. 5-12.
Abstract: "This essay offers a critical appreciation of Mark Lilla's Stillborn God. To his credit, Lilla understands the primacy and enduring appeal of political theology, as well as the danger of intellectual complacency about the underlying principles of modern politics. Lilla maintains that modern politics is a relatively recent and radically novel experiment that aims at nothing less than displacing a primordial and perennial way of constituting politics with reference to the divine. My essay compares Lilla's analysis of the fundamental antagonism between political theology and modern liberal politics to Strauss's analysis of the theological-political problem. In doing so, I bring to light both the strengths and limits of Lilla's attempt to clarify the relationship between politics, biblical religion, and philosophic rationalism."
Sandrine Baume (University of Lausanne), "On Political Theology: A Controversy Between Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt", History of European Ideas, 35 (3), September 2009: pp. 369-81.
Abstract: "This article pays special attention to the large number of references to political theology by Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, particularly in the interwar period, and seeks to interpret these references in a new way. While Schmitt's analogies between God and state are to be expected considering his strong Catholic roots, such comparisons are much more surprising for a positivist like Hans Kelsen, who always tried to relieve state and law from transcendental elements. The article concludes that, far from being marginal in the doctrinal dispute between Schmitt and Kelsen, references to political theology express and summarize their major controversy about the relation between state and law, as well as about the sources of the state's unity. The heart of the disputatio between the two jurists concerned the ability of the political power to emancipate itself from the juridical order. The 'legal miracle' – in this context meaning the occasional autonomization of the state from law – was for Schmitt the manifestation of sovereign power. However, for Kelsen it represented the negation of the state's essence, whose actions must be determined only by the legal order."
Anna Schmidt (University of Munich), "The Problem of Carl Schmitt's Political Theology", Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy, 36 (3), summer 2009: pp. 219-52.
No abstract available.
Boaventura de Sousa Santos (University of Coimbra, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and University of Warwick), "If God Were a Human Rights Activist: Human Rights and the Challenge of Political Theologies", Law, Social Justice and Global Development Journal (LGD), 13, 2009 (1), March, refereed electronic journal, full text available online:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2009_1/santos
Abstract: "Citing the inability of conventional human rights thinking to address the 'strong' questions raised by our times, this article pursues a twofold objective: to identify the major challenges that the rise of political theologies at the beginning of the twentieth-first [sic] century posed to human rights; and second, to select within a broad landscape of theological analysis the types of reflections and practices that might contribute to expand and deepen the canon of human rights politics. In order to achieve this double goal the article uses complexity as its main analytical guideline making distinctions from which significant consequences were drawn: on one side, distinctions among different types of political theologies (pluralist versus revelationist, traditionalist versus progressive); and, on the other, between two contrasting discourses and practices of human rights politics (hegemonic versus counter-hegemonic). Depending on the circumstances, even conventional or hegemonic human rights struggles may be a progressive tool against social practices and norms derived from traditionalist and revelationist theologies. Pluralist and progressive theologies, in turn, may be a source of radical energy toward more ambitious, counter-hegemonic human rights struggles."
Please let me know if I missed any important articles.
29 December 2009
CONF: Early Modern/Postmodern: Inventing the Political Subject
8th Annual West Coast Conference on Law and Literature "Early Modern/Postmodern: Inventing the Political Subject", at the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law, University Park Campus, Musick Law Building, Faculty Lounge, Room 433,
13 January 2010, 2-6 pm
http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/32/event/871394
The West Coast Conference on Law and Literature explores how the early modern period invented the political subjecthood we inhabit to this day.
How do contemporary studies in political theory, ranging from Hannah Arendt to Carl Schmitt to Michel Foucault, transform our understanding of these debates, and how are the postmodern thinkers in turn inflected (or is it infected?) by those of the earlier period? Are we modern, pre-modern, postmodern, or somehow residing in all three moments at once?
The organizers' goal is not only to return to central questions of the relationship between the individual and the political and turn them a little onto their heads, but to draw anew the connections between law, literature, and the social.
Speakers for the conference include: Julia Reinhard Lupton (English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine), "Arendt in Italy: Or, The Taming of the Shrew"; Victoria Kahn (English and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley) who will also turn to Arendt, this time in the context of Spinoza, Old Testament law, political theology, and literature; Bernadette Meyler (Law, Cornell University), connecting law and literature, in her case drawing on Schmitt, Foucault, and Hobbes.
The conference will be followed by a reception.
Organizers: Center for Law, History and Culture, in collaboration with the Early Modern Studies Institute at USC.
RSVP: clhcserv@law.usc.edu
13 January 2010, 2-6 pm
http://web-app.usc.edu/ws/eo2/calendar/32/event/871394
The West Coast Conference on Law and Literature explores how the early modern period invented the political subjecthood we inhabit to this day.
How do contemporary studies in political theory, ranging from Hannah Arendt to Carl Schmitt to Michel Foucault, transform our understanding of these debates, and how are the postmodern thinkers in turn inflected (or is it infected?) by those of the earlier period? Are we modern, pre-modern, postmodern, or somehow residing in all three moments at once?
The organizers' goal is not only to return to central questions of the relationship between the individual and the political and turn them a little onto their heads, but to draw anew the connections between law, literature, and the social.
Speakers for the conference include: Julia Reinhard Lupton (English and Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine), "Arendt in Italy: Or, The Taming of the Shrew"; Victoria Kahn (English and Comparative Literature, UC Berkeley) who will also turn to Arendt, this time in the context of Spinoza, Old Testament law, political theology, and literature; Bernadette Meyler (Law, Cornell University), connecting law and literature, in her case drawing on Schmitt, Foucault, and Hobbes.
The conference will be followed by a reception.
Organizers: Center for Law, History and Culture, in collaboration with the Early Modern Studies Institute at USC.
RSVP: clhcserv@law.usc.edu
07 November 2009
CONF: Rawlsian Liberalism in Context(s)
Symposium "Rawlsian Liberalism in Context(s)", at the University of Tennessee, Baker Center for Public Policy, Toyota Auditorium, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, 26-27 February 2010
Over a period of fifty years, John Rawls developed and gave voice to the most powerful and systematic moral theory of constitutional liberal democracy since John Stuart Mill's work a century earlier. The recent publication of Rawls' undergraduate thesis, "A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith", has encouraged a profitable re-reading of his political philosophy in the context and light of his personal and scholarly engagement with theological ethics and political theology in general and Christianity in particular.
Building on this development, "Rawlsian Liberalism in Context(s)" aims to shed further light on Rawls' work by situating it within multiple disciplinary contexts. Symposium speakers will address the relationships between Rawls' thought and twentieth-century developments in economics and political economy, in analytic philosophy, in American pragmatist thought, in normative theorizing of American foreign policy and international relations, and in theological ethics and political theology.
Symposium speakers, each an expert on Rawls' work, include:
- Jerry Gaus (James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy, University of Arizona)
- Richard Miller (Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University)
- David Reidy (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee)
- Robert Talisse (Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, Vanderbilt University)
- Paul Weithman (Professor of Philosophy, Notre Dame University)
Sessions are free and open to the public. Schedule details will be available late fall 2009. For further information, please contact David Reidy: dreidy@utk.edu
The Symposium is sponsored by the Office of Research, the School of Law, the Baker Center for Public Policy, the departments of Philosophy and Political Science, and the American Studies programme, all at the University of Tennessee.
Over a period of fifty years, John Rawls developed and gave voice to the most powerful and systematic moral theory of constitutional liberal democracy since John Stuart Mill's work a century earlier. The recent publication of Rawls' undergraduate thesis, "A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith", has encouraged a profitable re-reading of his political philosophy in the context and light of his personal and scholarly engagement with theological ethics and political theology in general and Christianity in particular.
Building on this development, "Rawlsian Liberalism in Context(s)" aims to shed further light on Rawls' work by situating it within multiple disciplinary contexts. Symposium speakers will address the relationships between Rawls' thought and twentieth-century developments in economics and political economy, in analytic philosophy, in American pragmatist thought, in normative theorizing of American foreign policy and international relations, and in theological ethics and political theology.
Symposium speakers, each an expert on Rawls' work, include:
- Jerry Gaus (James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy, University of Arizona)
- Richard Miller (Professor of Philosophy, Cornell University)
- David Reidy (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Tennessee)
- Robert Talisse (Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, Vanderbilt University)
- Paul Weithman (Professor of Philosophy, Notre Dame University)
Sessions are free and open to the public. Schedule details will be available late fall 2009. For further information, please contact David Reidy: dreidy@utk.edu
The Symposium is sponsored by the Office of Research, the School of Law, the Baker Center for Public Policy, the departments of Philosophy and Political Science, and the American Studies programme, all at the University of Tennessee.
23 April 2009
CONF: Re-Describing the Sacred/Secular Divide: The Legal Story II
University of Buffalo Law School, 1-2 May 2009
Conference: "Re-Describing the Sacred/Secular Divide: The Legal Story II"
"For the walls collapse and the spaces which were once distinct intermingle and penetrate each other, as in a labyrinthine architecture of light." (Carl Schmitt, Political Theology II)
This conference brings together scholars of law, humanities and the social sciences for a sustained conversation regarding contemporary relations between law and religion. Public policy in this area is being reconsidered at every level of government in many parts of the world, and the boundaries between the "sacred" and the "secular" seem very much in play in a variety of contexts and traditions. The conference seeks to diagnose and re-describe our current environment and to deepen understanding of the dynamics connecting law and religion.
www.law.buffalo.edu/baldycenter/sacredSecularDivide09.html
Panel II on 1 May, 1-3 pm, is particularly concerned with "Law and Political Theology":
- Paul Kahn (Yale Law School): "Why Political Theology Again"
- Robert Yelle (History, University of Memphis): "Moses' Veil: Secularization as Christian Myth"
- Leonard Kaplan (Law, University of Wisconsin): "The Political as Prior: Arendt, Schmitt and Strauss"
- Bruce Rosenstock (Religious Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana): "Sovereign Impunity: The Theologico-Political Horizon of the International Criminal Court"
Two papers from Panel VI "Sacrifice" on 2 May, 3-5 pm:
- Banu Bargu (Politics, New School for Social Research): "Stasiology: Political Theology and the Figure of the Sacrificial Enemy"
- Thomas Blom Hansen (Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam): "Cool Passion: The Political Theology of Modern Conviction"
Abstracts of all papers can be found on the conference website.
Registration is open for both Friday and Saturday, 1 and 2 May. Register for the conference by sending your name, address (including institutional affiliation), email address, and telephone number to Anita Mazurek: amazurek@buffalo.edu
Indicate whether you will attend on Friday, Saturday, or both days. There is no registration fee, but registration is required as space is limited.
Conference: "Re-Describing the Sacred/Secular Divide: The Legal Story II"
"For the walls collapse and the spaces which were once distinct intermingle and penetrate each other, as in a labyrinthine architecture of light." (Carl Schmitt, Political Theology II)
This conference brings together scholars of law, humanities and the social sciences for a sustained conversation regarding contemporary relations between law and religion. Public policy in this area is being reconsidered at every level of government in many parts of the world, and the boundaries between the "sacred" and the "secular" seem very much in play in a variety of contexts and traditions. The conference seeks to diagnose and re-describe our current environment and to deepen understanding of the dynamics connecting law and religion.
www.law.buffalo.edu/baldycenter/sacredSecularDivide09.html
Panel II on 1 May, 1-3 pm, is particularly concerned with "Law and Political Theology":
- Paul Kahn (Yale Law School): "Why Political Theology Again"
- Robert Yelle (History, University of Memphis): "Moses' Veil: Secularization as Christian Myth"
- Leonard Kaplan (Law, University of Wisconsin): "The Political as Prior: Arendt, Schmitt and Strauss"
- Bruce Rosenstock (Religious Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana): "Sovereign Impunity: The Theologico-Political Horizon of the International Criminal Court"
Two papers from Panel VI "Sacrifice" on 2 May, 3-5 pm:
- Banu Bargu (Politics, New School for Social Research): "Stasiology: Political Theology and the Figure of the Sacrificial Enemy"
- Thomas Blom Hansen (Sociology and Anthropology, University of Amsterdam): "Cool Passion: The Political Theology of Modern Conviction"
Abstracts of all papers can be found on the conference website.
Registration is open for both Friday and Saturday, 1 and 2 May. Register for the conference by sending your name, address (including institutional affiliation), email address, and telephone number to Anita Mazurek: amazurek@buffalo.edu
Indicate whether you will attend on Friday, Saturday, or both days. There is no registration fee, but registration is required as space is limited.
03 March 2009
CFP: Law, Literature and Religion
First Annual Law and Literature Symposium "Law, Literature and Religion" at Villanova University, School of Law and Department of English, 1-3 October 2009.
Interested scholars are invited to submit abstracts of proposed papers.
Peter Goodrich (Professor of Law and Director of Law and Humanities, Cardozo School of Law), Steven Mailloux (Professor of English and Chancellor’s Professor of Rhetoric, Department of English, University of California at Irvine), and Robin West (Associate Dean, Research and Academic Programs, and Frederick J. Haas Professor of Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University Law Center) will be keynote speakers.
The conference theme for 2009, “Law, Literature and Religion”, is broadly conceived. Papers may include but are not limited to papers on any literary, rhetorical, narrative, or textual aspects of law and religion; the exegesis and hermeneutics of legal texts or topics; interpretation in law, literature, and religion; shared languages and histories of law and religion; discursive intersections of civil and canon law; ethics and justice explored in religious and secular literature; the comparative poetics or rhetoric of legality and religion; legal priesthoods; political theology; orthodoxies and/or heterodoxies; humanisms; Pauline studies; religious images in law; literary works about religion in/and/as law; and law as a civil religion. Papers will be 20-25 minutes long to permit time for discussion.
Abstracts of proposed papers should be sent to Professor Penelope Pether, to whom inquires may also be addressed: pether@law.villanova.edu
Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words, and should arrive before 15 March 2009. Invitees will be notified by 30 April 2009 and will receive room and board at (but not transportation to and from) the symposium provided by Villanova University School of Law.
Interested scholars are invited to submit abstracts of proposed papers.
Peter Goodrich (Professor of Law and Director of Law and Humanities, Cardozo School of Law), Steven Mailloux (Professor of English and Chancellor’s Professor of Rhetoric, Department of English, University of California at Irvine), and Robin West (Associate Dean, Research and Academic Programs, and Frederick J. Haas Professor of Law and Philosophy, Georgetown University Law Center) will be keynote speakers.
The conference theme for 2009, “Law, Literature and Religion”, is broadly conceived. Papers may include but are not limited to papers on any literary, rhetorical, narrative, or textual aspects of law and religion; the exegesis and hermeneutics of legal texts or topics; interpretation in law, literature, and religion; shared languages and histories of law and religion; discursive intersections of civil and canon law; ethics and justice explored in religious and secular literature; the comparative poetics or rhetoric of legality and religion; legal priesthoods; political theology; orthodoxies and/or heterodoxies; humanisms; Pauline studies; religious images in law; literary works about religion in/and/as law; and law as a civil religion. Papers will be 20-25 minutes long to permit time for discussion.
Abstracts of proposed papers should be sent to Professor Penelope Pether, to whom inquires may also be addressed: pether@law.villanova.edu
Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words, and should arrive before 15 March 2009. Invitees will be notified by 30 April 2009 and will receive room and board at (but not transportation to and from) the symposium provided by Villanova University School of Law.
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