Sixth installment of recent articles on political theology:
Pini Ifergan (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), "Cutting to the Chase: Carl Schmitt and Hans Blumenberg on Political Theology and Secularization", New German Critique, 37 (3), fall 2010: pp. 149-71.
Abstract: "Is modernity a distinct historical epoch that can be radically distinguished from the one that preceded it? What are the implicit philosophical assumptions regarding our understanding of historical time that determine the sort of answer that we are inclined to give to this question? The debate between Carl Schmitt and Hans Blumenberg concerning the conceptual status of secularization as an explanatory category for the emergence of modernity provides us with a paradigmatic case that sheds light on those questions. With the recent publication of the correspondence between Schmitt and Blumenberg, I suggest in my article a reading of the debate that exposes how they use each other's argument to sharpen their distinctive evaluation of modernity and its relation to Christian theology. These two arguments and their unique dynamic transcend the common ways of either defending or criticizing modernity's claim to be a distinct and legitimate historical epoch. The suggested conceptual reconstructions of the Schmitt-Blumenberg debate point to a revaluation of the terms of the quarrel over modernity, Christian theology, and the relations between them."
Mary Alberi (Pace University), "'Like the Army of God's Camp': Political Theology and Apocalyptic Warfare at Charlemagne's Court", Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 41 (2), 2010: pp. 1-20.
Abstract: "The political theology of Charlemagne's court drew upon theological concepts to interpret contemporary events and fashion an identity for the populus christianus of the Frankish empire. The formulation of this political theology occurred against a background of political and military crises. A number of sources written by his ecclesiastical courtiers refer to the castra Dei, the militant ecclesia, or 'assembly of God's people,' commanded by Charlemagne, on pilgrimage through the dangerous last days of world history. These apocalyptic dangers called for enhanced royal authority to defend the castra Dei through a program of correction. Correction supported consensus among the king and his ecclesiastical and lay magnates, stabilizing the kingdom internally. Correction also established 'liturgical frontiers' separating the orderly and peaceful castra Dei from the world's chaotic paganism and heresy. This attempt to distinguish the castra Dei from its spiritual enemies gave Charlemagne's empire coherence in its political and military conflicts with enemies over contested frontier zones. The apocalyptic rhetoric surrounding references to the castra Dei was connected to political necessity, rather than expectation of an imminent apocalypse."
Scott M. Thomas (University of Bath), "Living Critically and 'Living Faithfully' in a Global Age: Justice, Emancipation and the Political Theology of International Relations", Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39 (2), December 2010: pp. 505-24.
Abstract: "This article asks is there a place for religion and spirituality in a critical theory of international relations (IR)? The usual answer is 'no' because of critical theory's generally negative assessment of religion in domestic and international politics. However, while many of these criticisms can be acknowledged, a critical theory of IR still has to grapple with the more complex understanding of religion that already exists in critical theory, and the global resurgence of religion how [sic] Eurocentric its concept of religion actually is and how rooted it is in the European experience of modernisation. For the people of the global South – which comprises most of the people in the world – the struggle to 'live faithfully' amid the problems of world poverty, climate change, conflict and development can not be separated from their struggle for justice and emancipation. Therefore, a greater dialogue between critical theory and theology is necessary if critical theory is to more fully and creatively contribute to our understanding of some of the most important global issues in the study of IR in the 21st century."
Richard Lock-Pullan (University of Birmingham), "Challenging the Political Theology of America's 'War on Terror'", in "Just War on Terror? A Christian and Muslim Response", eds. David Fisher and Brian Wicker (Ashgate, July 2010): pp. 37-52.
www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=10155&edition_id=13263
Excerpt: "The events of 11 September 2001 and the response of the US to them have confronted many Christians with the question what is an appropriate Christian response to the challenges of living in an age of terror. In this context one can ask what insights Christian doctrine, as opposed to Christian ethics, has to contribute to understanding the present era and how these can then shape the nature of Christian engagement with the current issues [...]. This chapter will argue that one can generate a Christian perspective and subsequent ethics on the basis of seeing theology as an essentially interpretative task that mediates between Christian doctrine and political events. Using this approach President Bush's use of 'evil' is examined and shown to be a source of absolutist and self-righteous thinking, leading to a disastrous and unjust foreign policy. As an alternative, Reinhold Niebuhr's reinterpretation of the doctrine of sin will be shown to be an effective doctrinal lens to avoid these pitfalls, whilst itself generating a practice of Christian Realism that takes seriously the context of international affairs and Christian vision. The revisions of Niebuhr's theology are then used to develop a more liberal approach which gives the church a transformative role in addressing the 'war on terror', and concludes by examining how Obama's post-Niebuhrian liberal religious views shape current policy."
Jürgen Manemann (Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research), "New Orientations of the Political: On the Contemporary Challenge of Political Theology", in "Edward Schillebeeckx and Contemporary Theology", eds. Lieven Boeve, Frederiek Depoortere, and Stephan van Erp (Continuum, December 2010): pp. 67-81.
www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=136299
No abstract provided.
Julia Reinhard Lupton (University of California, Irvine), "Introduction to a Totem Meal: Hans Kelsen, Carl Schmitt and Political Theology", in "The Return of Theory in Early Modern English Studies: Tarrying with the Subjunctive", eds. Paul Cefalu and Bryan Reynolds (Palgrave Macmillan, February 2011): page numbers not known.
www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=371052
No abstract provided.
Graham Hammill (State University of New York at Buffalo), "The Marlovian Sublime: Imagination and the Problem of Political Theology", in "The Return of Theory in Early Modern English Studies: Tarrying with the Subjunctive", eds. Paul Cefalu and Bryan Reynolds (Palgrave Macmillan, February 2011): page numbers not known.
No abstract provided.
Ross Bender (independent researcher), "Changing the Calendar: Royal Political Theology and the Suppression of the Tachibana Naramaro Conspiracy of 757", Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 37 (2), 2010: pp. 223-45.
No abstract provided.
Namsoon Kang (Texas Christian University), "Towards a Cosmopolitan Theology: Constructing Public Theology from the Future", in "Planetary Loves: Spivak, Postcoloniality, and Theology", eds. Stephen D. Moore and Mayra Rivera (Fordham University Press, December 2010): pp. 258-280.
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823233267
Excerpt: "I believe cosmopolitanism can be an effective discourse with which to advocate a politics of trans-identity of overlapping interests and heterogeneous or hybrid subjects in order to challenge conventional notions of exclusive belonging, identity, and citizenship, and to envision a planetary love through an ethical singularity aimed at a more peaceful and just world. I regard cosmopolitanism as a 'stronger mobilizing discourse' that captures Spivak's call for a mind-changing love for the planet. This essay is an effort to illuminate cosmopolitanism as a discourse that calls simultaneously for a planetary love through ethical singularity, in accordance with Spivak's notion, and for a radical neighborly love, in accordance with the Christian notion. As such, it is also an effort to articulate a cosmopolitan theological discourse, which I believe can be a mobilizing discourse for a more just and egalitarian world regardless of who one is."
Wanda Deifelt (Luther College), "Advocacy, Political Participation, and Citizenship: Lutheran Contributions to Public Theology", Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 49 (2), summer 2010: pp. 108-14.
Abstract: "Martin Luther never developed a political theory, but his theology does inform the way Christians live in society, making it both public and political. Luther's 'two kingdom theory' often has been misinterpreted to justify passivity and obedience toward civil authorities. Under closer examination, however, his theology applies to the everyday practices of politics, economics, and religious affairs. In the context of nation-building, a Lutheran theology fosters citizenship not only as individual rights and responsibilities, but as active participation in civil society."
Robert Meister (University of California, Santa Cruz), "Athens, Jerusalem and Rome after Auschwitz: Still the Jewish Question?", Thesis Eleven: Critical Theory and Historical Sociology, 102 (1), August 2010: pp. 76-96.
Abstract: "This article treats post-Holocaust humanitarianism as a secular version of St Paul's 'Jewish Question': why are there still Jews now that the particularities of Jewish history have universal meaning? It considers Paul's Judaeo-Christianity, a distinctively Christian embrace of Jewish survival, as the prototype of today's secular project of conversion to human rights, and asks what it means within this project for Jews to regard themselves as the only Jews. The article concludes by defining an Islamic alternative to the imperial reach of today's human rights discourse, based on the recent publication of 1981 lectures by the late N.O. Brown, who presented Islam as an alternative to the Pauline synthesis of Athens-Jerusalem that would renew, rather than supersede, the prophetic tradition of Jewish monotheism. Following Brown, the article presents Muhammad as the anti-Paul, and considers the key differences between their respective political theologies on issues such as fidelity, cruelty and particularly the urgency of justice. Islam's insistence that there is no 'time between' the end of evil and the beginning of justice shows the limitations of today's human rights discourse as a religion of permanent transition that denies urgency to justice itself. The 'Jewish Question' that Paul formulated for Christians in a Roman world order thus illuminates issues posed by the Holocaust and Israel for professed humanitarians today."
Peniel Rajkumar (United Theological College, Bangalore), "'How' Does the Bible Mean? The Bible and Dalit Liberation in India", Political Theology, 11 (3), 2010: pp. 410-30.
Abstract: "This essay analyses the role of the Bible in Dalit liberation in a context where Dalit theology, despite being increasingly recognized as an academic theology, hasn't been effective practically in either sustaining the Dalits in their struggles for liberation or in challenging the perpetuation of caste discrimination within the Indian churches. In the light of the Dalits' own reception of the Bible as a potential source of Dalit liberation the essay critically revisits some of the defining biblical paradigms articulated by Dalit theologians, using as its epistemological tool the tensions between 'epic' and 'emic' forms of theological conceptualizations, in order to identify the reasons for the lacunae between Dalit theology and its practical viability for Dalit liberation. In the light of this analysis the essay explores and offers the synoptic healing stories as a viable biblical paradigm which can animate the Dalit struggles for liberation and thus enhance the practical efficacy of Dalit liberation."
David Grumett (University of Exeter), "Blondel, the Philosophy of Action and Liberation Theology", Political Theology, 11 (4), 2010: pp. 507-29.
Abstract: "Maurice Blondel's philosophy of action and concrete political theology provide foundations for modern theologies of action. By commencing with the reflective subject, Blondel compensates the deficiencies of collectivist Marxist social analysis. He did not live to complete his account of the social, political and economic implications of his philosophy, but they are realized in the work and witness of others: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Yves de Montcheuil, Henri de Lubac and John McNeill. Liberation theologians of diverse persuasions need especially to acknowledge their debt to Blondel in an era when, in Western societies, the fundamental context of action is no longer material but intellectual, spiritual and interpersonal. The abstract nature of his thought means that he frequently opens suggestive paths into further reflection rather than prescribing complete solutions to specific practical questions."
Vincent W. Lloyd (Georgia State University), "Review Essay: Political Theology of the Ordinary", Political Theology, 11 (4), 2010: pp. 607-18.
Abstract: "In her recent book, Emergency Politics, political theorist Bonnie Honig proposes a 'Jewish political theology' to support radical democratic theory. Instead of taking Carl Schmitt as the starting point for reflection on the political significance of religious concepts, Honig takes Franz Rosenzweig. This review essay enters Honig's work into conversations about political theology, and it explores the significance and novelty of her position. It suggests that Honig's argument repeatedly runs aground for the same reason: she relies on a background image of democracy as an ethos rather than as a tradition requiring faith."
Dominic O'Sullivan (Charles Sturt University), "Reconciliation: The Political Theological Nexus in Australasian Indigenous Public Policy", International Journal of Public Theology, 4 (4), 2010: pp. 426-45.
Abstract: "Reconciliation brings together Christological and anthropological dimensions of human thought to illustrate the nexus between religious principles and political means. For the state reconciliation is concerned with social cohesion and political stability. For the church, it extends the sacramental notion of reconciliation between God and penitent to public relationships. This article examines Roman Catholic contributions to secular reconciliation debates. It shows how religious precepts create moral imperatives to engagement with secular discourses as a necessary element of Christian mission. It also argues that the church's role in the disruption of indigenous societies creates an additional moral imperative to engage in reconciliation as mission and to articulate a Christian vision of indigenous rights."
Kalemba Mwambazambi (University of South Africa), "A missiological glance at South African Black Theology", Verbum et Ecclesia, 31 (1), 2010: without page numbers. Refereed electronic journal, full text available online:
www.ve.org.za/index.php/VE/article/view/53/412
Abstract: "Black South African theologians created South African Black theology during the late 1960s and early 1970s as a conscious and theological dimension of the liberation struggle against apartheid. They drew inspiration from African-American theology, biblical hermeneutics and the raw material of their own experiences and suffering, whilst simultaneously creating a new theological paradigm and political orientation to liberate Black South Africans from apartheid and European domination. Inevitably, South African Black theology was a liberation theology aimed at helping to eradicate the existing socio-political order. This article gave a missiological overview of Black theology and examined and assessed the relevance of this theology to contemporary post-apartheid South Africa. The critical-theological research method was used."
Showing posts with label political theology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political theology. Show all posts
17 February 2011
Book: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology
Just published: David Fitch, "The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology" (Cascade Books, February 2011):
http://wipfandstock.com/store/The_End_of_Evangelicalism_Discerning_a_New_Faithfulness_for_Mission_Towards_an_Evangelical_Political_Theology
Publisher's description: "In The End of Evangelicalism? David Fitch examines the political presence of evangelicalism as a church in North America. Amidst the negative image of evangelicalism in the national media and its purported decline as a church, Fitch asks how evangelicalism's belief and practice has formed it as a political presence in North America. Why are evangelicals perceived as arrogant, exclusivist, duplicitous, and dispassionate by the wider culture? Diagnosing its political cultural presence via the ideological theory of Slavoj Zizek, Fitch argues that evangelicalism appears to have lost the core of its politic: Jesus Christ. In so doing its politic has become 'empty.' Its witness has been rendered moot. The way back to a vibrant political presence is through the corporate participation in the triune God's ongoing work in the world as founded in the incarnation. Herein lies the way towards an evangelical missional political theology. Fitch ends his study by examining the possibilities for a new faithfulness in the current day emerging and missional church movements springing forth from evangelicalism in North America."
Endorsements: "In compelling fashion, Fitch digs deep to examine how key U.S. evangelical beliefs actually function as an ideology rather than gospel. He calls us from a Christianity that acts as 'ideology' to one that authentically incarnates Jesus' life and mission. What a book! This one will knock you back on your heels." (Howard A. Snyder, Tyndale Seminary)
"David Fitch explores three key issues that symbolize the evangelical conundrum – the inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and the Christian nation – by reframing them through missional theology. This is a timely and crucial read for those concerned about the evangelical movement." (Craig Van Gelder, Luther Seminary)
David Fitch is Betty R. Lindner Associate Professor of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary.
http://wipfandstock.com/store/The_End_of_Evangelicalism_Discerning_a_New_Faithfulness_for_Mission_Towards_an_Evangelical_Political_Theology
Publisher's description: "In The End of Evangelicalism? David Fitch examines the political presence of evangelicalism as a church in North America. Amidst the negative image of evangelicalism in the national media and its purported decline as a church, Fitch asks how evangelicalism's belief and practice has formed it as a political presence in North America. Why are evangelicals perceived as arrogant, exclusivist, duplicitous, and dispassionate by the wider culture? Diagnosing its political cultural presence via the ideological theory of Slavoj Zizek, Fitch argues that evangelicalism appears to have lost the core of its politic: Jesus Christ. In so doing its politic has become 'empty.' Its witness has been rendered moot. The way back to a vibrant political presence is through the corporate participation in the triune God's ongoing work in the world as founded in the incarnation. Herein lies the way towards an evangelical missional political theology. Fitch ends his study by examining the possibilities for a new faithfulness in the current day emerging and missional church movements springing forth from evangelicalism in North America."
Endorsements: "In compelling fashion, Fitch digs deep to examine how key U.S. evangelical beliefs actually function as an ideology rather than gospel. He calls us from a Christianity that acts as 'ideology' to one that authentically incarnates Jesus' life and mission. What a book! This one will knock you back on your heels." (Howard A. Snyder, Tyndale Seminary)
"David Fitch explores three key issues that symbolize the evangelical conundrum – the inerrant Bible, the decision for Christ, and the Christian nation – by reframing them through missional theology. This is a timely and crucial read for those concerned about the evangelical movement." (Craig Van Gelder, Luther Seminary)
David Fitch is Betty R. Lindner Associate Professor of Evangelical Theology at Northern Seminary.
Book: Crediting God: Sovereignty and Religion in the Age of Global Capitalism
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.
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.
31 December 2010
Book: Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin
Just published: Graham Adams, "Christ and the Other: In Dialogue with Hick and Newbigin" (Ashgate, October 2010):
www.ashgatepublishing.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=9967&edition_id=12703
Publisher's description: "How should we relate to 'others' – those within a particular tradition, those of different traditions, and those who are oppressed? In the light of these anxieties, and building on the work of Andrew Shanks, this book offers a vision of Christ as 'the Shaken One', rooted in community with others. Shaped through dialogue with the theologies of John Hick and Lesslie Newbigin, Adams urges Christian communities to attend more deeply to the demands of ecumenical, dialogical and political theologies, to embody an ever greater 'solidarity of others' – a quality of community better demonstrating Christlike 'other-regard'."
Endorsement: "Adams reviews the Christological thinking of two well-known figureheads of the debate on theological pluralism (John Hick) and Christian exclusivism (Lesslie Newbigin) with empathy, but not without criticism. In their ambition to universalize their particular visions of Jesus/Christ, both show in fact some sectarian tendencies. Very different, however, from the partisanship that characterizes both camps of the discussion, Adams enters into a theological conversation with both of them – a conversation, interestingly, that Hick and Newbigin themselves, though being active at the same time and in the same city, never had. The outcome is a Christology which is serious about decolonizing universalist concepts such as 'truth' and 'humanity', having open membranes towards the otherness around it and, inevitably, is resistant to the temptation of closure. Like all good theology, Adams' theological proposal does not lead us to God but to ourselves and to those around us." (Werner Ustorf, University of Birmingham)
Graham Adams is a minister with Lees Street Congregational Church, Manchester, and Training Development and Advocacy Enabler with the Congregational Federation. He holds a PhD from the University of Leeds.
www.ashgatepublishing.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=9967&edition_id=12703
Publisher's description: "How should we relate to 'others' – those within a particular tradition, those of different traditions, and those who are oppressed? In the light of these anxieties, and building on the work of Andrew Shanks, this book offers a vision of Christ as 'the Shaken One', rooted in community with others. Shaped through dialogue with the theologies of John Hick and Lesslie Newbigin, Adams urges Christian communities to attend more deeply to the demands of ecumenical, dialogical and political theologies, to embody an ever greater 'solidarity of others' – a quality of community better demonstrating Christlike 'other-regard'."
Endorsement: "Adams reviews the Christological thinking of two well-known figureheads of the debate on theological pluralism (John Hick) and Christian exclusivism (Lesslie Newbigin) with empathy, but not without criticism. In their ambition to universalize their particular visions of Jesus/Christ, both show in fact some sectarian tendencies. Very different, however, from the partisanship that characterizes both camps of the discussion, Adams enters into a theological conversation with both of them – a conversation, interestingly, that Hick and Newbigin themselves, though being active at the same time and in the same city, never had. The outcome is a Christology which is serious about decolonizing universalist concepts such as 'truth' and 'humanity', having open membranes towards the otherness around it and, inevitably, is resistant to the temptation of closure. Like all good theology, Adams' theological proposal does not lead us to God but to ourselves and to those around us." (Werner Ustorf, University of Birmingham)
Graham Adams is a minister with Lees Street Congregational Church, Manchester, and Training Development and Advocacy Enabler with the Congregational Federation. He holds a PhD from the University of Leeds.
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.
30 December 2010
CFP: The "New Monarchy" and political theology
Research Conference "The 'New Monarchy': Rethinking the Relations of Elites and Princes in Europe's Iron Century – 1590s to 1720s" of the European Science Foundation (ESF), Scandic Linköping Väst (hotel), Linköping, Sweden, 5-9 September 2011
www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/details/2011/confdetail358.html
Call for papers
Papers on early-modern political theology are particularly invited (see perspective B below).
Description: "Since the 1955 congress of European historians in Rome, the assumption of a completion of institutional absolutist state-building by the later seventeenth century has been steadily eroded. During the last fifty years, a large number of studies has emphasized that unprecedented wars and war related burdens were a major stimulus for crucial changes in the relation of regimes and elites during the seventeenth century, but that these changes should not be characterized primarily in terms of the building of a bureaucratic coercive tax state increasingly independent from society and its pressure groups. The actual early modern innovation was public debt on a hitherto unknown scale. Whatever relevance taxes had gained by 1500 (as in France, England or Castile), the exploding costs of the European arms- and war race severely qualified their contribution to paying overall cost; hence the fact of exploding public debt.
"The new monarchies such as Valois and Bourbon France, Stuart Britain, Habsburg Spain or Vasa Sweden were rather characterized by participation in an unprecedented war- and arms race and the consequences of confessionalisation, subsequent unprecedented rise in public funds, mainly financed by unprecedented debt, and a whole range of new opportunities for profit and challenges for the preservation of status for new and old elites. Rather then [sic] experiencing the emancipation of an institutional bureaucratic state from its social and ecclesiastical elites by way of secure regular enforceable taxes, regimes became increasingly dependant on old and new elites to organize and broker public debt, farm taxes, and buy or pre-finance offices, while these elites became more dependant on the vagrancies on [sic] national politics to participate in new forms of income and protect their assets.
"As Lucien Bely put it with reference to Louis XIV, 'les creanciers du roi sont des groupes financiers, et derriere eux, la noblesse et la bourgeoisie qui pretent ses avoirs'. While certain groups profited from these changes, others felt left behind. Jim Collins described for Brittany as Ronald Hutton for the officers of the royal army in the Civil War the emergence of new elites. Debates and struggles ensued among elites about the distribution of resources and privileges, about access to offices and spoils, about the best course in costly foreign wars and about the legitimacy of the whole process. In these debates, new modes of argument and ritual developed, such as national rhetoric and the imagery of monarchy as a whole. The resulting new modes of government were neither characterized by the power of a bureaucratic state nor did they resemble late medieval relationships between crown, magnates and nobility. They were rather determined by relations of the various units of the dynastic agglomerate among each other and by the new relations of regimes to old and new elites; hence the focus of this conference to compare patterns of relations among regimes and elites across Europe during the crucial 'Iron Century'.
"The most important current collections of essays dealing with the relation of regimes and elites under the impact of war, various volumes of the ESF series on the origins of the modern state, cover in each volume the whole period from 1300 to 1800. Though their value is undisputed, they necessarily attempt to capture very general developments across many centuries and cannot pinpoint the precise impact of the unprecedented burden of war on European societies precisely in Europe's Iron Century. For example, since the overriding importance of public debt is freely acknowledged and documented for the later sixteenth and seventeenth century, the volumes do not draw conclusions from this but rather insist on the long term importance of state taxes over the whole period from 1300 to 1800. Current research suggests three perspectives for the comparison here attempted, each to be approached via three topics:
"A: Representation and Integration: Negotiating Allegiance. This perspective focuses on the strategies of regimes to integrate the elites of their agglomerate polities. The emphasis here is on the forging of the unity of the agglomerate polity by whatever means (including national rhetoric) and on the representation of the regime in relation to their various political nations. Issues include constitutional responses to crises of the agglomerate polity by improvising alleged fundamental laws and constitutions embedded in an alleged 'national' past, coins, paintings, flags, coronation rites as means of political integration, and the role of the court as points of contact. B: Contemporary Analyses of the Agglomerate Polity. New kinds of analysis, in particular comparing the new regimes with the principate and emperorship of Rome, but also with the tyranny of Tiberius and the regime of favorites running illegitimate resources of power, attempted to come to terms with the new nature of politics under the pressure of war and the new needs for legitimacy and persuasion. Issues will be in particular Tacitism and Historiography and the new Political Theology.
"C: Societal Architecture and Social Integration under Pressure of War. The conference will look at the societal architecture under the pressure of war, at the new service elites and the way in which both lower nobility and burgesses and the higher aristocracy and magnates adapted to the shifts in influence happening around them. It is now widely accepted that 'as public (i.e. princely) service became a decisive criterion for social status', nobilities ceased to be elites 'constituted by their own self-consciousness and by the comportment that authorized them', but became dependant on the 'military, ecclesiastical and civil offices and privileges of precedence granted by the ruler'. But while the ability and willingness of nobilities to exercise force with means independent of the crown had significantly shrunken by 1700, we also now know that this resulted in anything but centralized modern bureaucracies. Groups that will be addressed include new service elites such as financiers and officers in church, army, and administration; lower Gentry and 'Noblesse Seconde', Magnates and Higher Aristocracy."
Invited senior scholars will participate in all parts of the programme. The ESF invites younger scholars to apply for participation with a short talk or a poster. Travel grants and financial support for up to 25 younger researchers (PhD required) are available.
Please find further information and an online application form on the above website.
Deadline: 9 June 2011
www.esf.org/activities/esf-conferences/details/2011/confdetail358.html
Call for papers
Papers on early-modern political theology are particularly invited (see perspective B below).
Description: "Since the 1955 congress of European historians in Rome, the assumption of a completion of institutional absolutist state-building by the later seventeenth century has been steadily eroded. During the last fifty years, a large number of studies has emphasized that unprecedented wars and war related burdens were a major stimulus for crucial changes in the relation of regimes and elites during the seventeenth century, but that these changes should not be characterized primarily in terms of the building of a bureaucratic coercive tax state increasingly independent from society and its pressure groups. The actual early modern innovation was public debt on a hitherto unknown scale. Whatever relevance taxes had gained by 1500 (as in France, England or Castile), the exploding costs of the European arms- and war race severely qualified their contribution to paying overall cost; hence the fact of exploding public debt.
"The new monarchies such as Valois and Bourbon France, Stuart Britain, Habsburg Spain or Vasa Sweden were rather characterized by participation in an unprecedented war- and arms race and the consequences of confessionalisation, subsequent unprecedented rise in public funds, mainly financed by unprecedented debt, and a whole range of new opportunities for profit and challenges for the preservation of status for new and old elites. Rather then [sic] experiencing the emancipation of an institutional bureaucratic state from its social and ecclesiastical elites by way of secure regular enforceable taxes, regimes became increasingly dependant on old and new elites to organize and broker public debt, farm taxes, and buy or pre-finance offices, while these elites became more dependant on the vagrancies on [sic] national politics to participate in new forms of income and protect their assets.
"As Lucien Bely put it with reference to Louis XIV, 'les creanciers du roi sont des groupes financiers, et derriere eux, la noblesse et la bourgeoisie qui pretent ses avoirs'. While certain groups profited from these changes, others felt left behind. Jim Collins described for Brittany as Ronald Hutton for the officers of the royal army in the Civil War the emergence of new elites. Debates and struggles ensued among elites about the distribution of resources and privileges, about access to offices and spoils, about the best course in costly foreign wars and about the legitimacy of the whole process. In these debates, new modes of argument and ritual developed, such as national rhetoric and the imagery of monarchy as a whole. The resulting new modes of government were neither characterized by the power of a bureaucratic state nor did they resemble late medieval relationships between crown, magnates and nobility. They were rather determined by relations of the various units of the dynastic agglomerate among each other and by the new relations of regimes to old and new elites; hence the focus of this conference to compare patterns of relations among regimes and elites across Europe during the crucial 'Iron Century'.
"The most important current collections of essays dealing with the relation of regimes and elites under the impact of war, various volumes of the ESF series on the origins of the modern state, cover in each volume the whole period from 1300 to 1800. Though their value is undisputed, they necessarily attempt to capture very general developments across many centuries and cannot pinpoint the precise impact of the unprecedented burden of war on European societies precisely in Europe's Iron Century. For example, since the overriding importance of public debt is freely acknowledged and documented for the later sixteenth and seventeenth century, the volumes do not draw conclusions from this but rather insist on the long term importance of state taxes over the whole period from 1300 to 1800. Current research suggests three perspectives for the comparison here attempted, each to be approached via three topics:
"A: Representation and Integration: Negotiating Allegiance. This perspective focuses on the strategies of regimes to integrate the elites of their agglomerate polities. The emphasis here is on the forging of the unity of the agglomerate polity by whatever means (including national rhetoric) and on the representation of the regime in relation to their various political nations. Issues include constitutional responses to crises of the agglomerate polity by improvising alleged fundamental laws and constitutions embedded in an alleged 'national' past, coins, paintings, flags, coronation rites as means of political integration, and the role of the court as points of contact. B: Contemporary Analyses of the Agglomerate Polity. New kinds of analysis, in particular comparing the new regimes with the principate and emperorship of Rome, but also with the tyranny of Tiberius and the regime of favorites running illegitimate resources of power, attempted to come to terms with the new nature of politics under the pressure of war and the new needs for legitimacy and persuasion. Issues will be in particular Tacitism and Historiography and the new Political Theology.
"C: Societal Architecture and Social Integration under Pressure of War. The conference will look at the societal architecture under the pressure of war, at the new service elites and the way in which both lower nobility and burgesses and the higher aristocracy and magnates adapted to the shifts in influence happening around them. It is now widely accepted that 'as public (i.e. princely) service became a decisive criterion for social status', nobilities ceased to be elites 'constituted by their own self-consciousness and by the comportment that authorized them', but became dependant on the 'military, ecclesiastical and civil offices and privileges of precedence granted by the ruler'. But while the ability and willingness of nobilities to exercise force with means independent of the crown had significantly shrunken by 1700, we also now know that this resulted in anything but centralized modern bureaucracies. Groups that will be addressed include new service elites such as financiers and officers in church, army, and administration; lower Gentry and 'Noblesse Seconde', Magnates and Higher Aristocracy."
Invited senior scholars will participate in all parts of the programme. The ESF invites younger scholars to apply for participation with a short talk or a poster. Travel grants and financial support for up to 25 younger researchers (PhD required) are available.
Please find further information and an online application form on the above website.
Deadline: 9 June 2011
CONF: Society of Christian Ethics annual meeting
2011 Annual Meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics (SCE), the Society of Jewish Ethics, and the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics, Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel, New Orleans, LA, USA, 6-9 January 2011
www.scethics.org/annual-meetings/all/2011
A number of sessions on political theology have been scheduled for this conference, including:
Pieter Dronkers (Protestant Theological University, Utrecht), "The Netherlands: One Nation under God? Christendom, Citizenship and the Re-sacralization of National Loyalty" (7 January, 11.00 am-12.30 pm, room: Grand Ballroom B)
Abstract: "Globalization puts the question what makes a good citizen on top of the Dutch public agenda. Today, some political parties define citizenship in secularist terms, limiting the space for public religious engagement. Others argue that undivided loyalty to the Dutch nation is required. Sometimes Christendom is used to frame and sacralize this allegiance. From a political-theological perspective, the paper evaluates the Dutch debate and especially the remarkable return of Christendom. It argues that the Christian conviction that allegiance to the state is temporal is an important antidote against the idea that absolute civic or national loyalty is a precondition for building a secure society."
John E. Senior (Emory University), "Cruciform Political Agency: Politics Between the Penultimate and the Ultimate" (7 January, 4.00-5.30 pm, room: Bourbon)
Abstract: "The dominant norm of political agency in both political theory and political theology is cooperative, relational, and public discourse. But what, if any, theological sense can be made of political agency when it is uncooperative, instrumental, and even aggressive? This paper first critiques recent Augustinian ontologies of political life, arguing that these fail to respond to the morally ambiguous character of political agency. The paper then develops an alternative model of political agency, which it terms 'cruciform political agency.' This framing posits a political ontology that negotiates the tension between the world and the eschaton and thereby renders theologically intelligible complex configurations of political agency."
Karen V. Guth (University of Virginia), "Beyond Nonviolence: The Feminist/Womanist Political Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr." (8 January, 9.00-10.30 am, room: Bienville)
Abstract: "Scholars often view Martin Luther King Jr.'s contributions to political theology in terms of his philosophy of nonviolence. Drawing on feminist and womanist thought, I argue that King's theo-political practice extends beyond nonviolent resistance to include any 'agapic activity' that forms and sustains community. I uncover in King's thought a conception of agape that resonates with a number of feminists' emphases on the relational and community-oriented nature of love, and I draw on womanist thought to highlight the role of creativity in King's thought. Both suggest a vision of the church's political role as a community of creativity."
Interest Group "Ethics and Catholic Theology" session on "Racism: A Theological Analysis", with the speakers J. Kameron Carter (Duke University) and Bryan N. Massingale (Marquette University; 9 January, 9.00-10.30 am, room: St. Charles B)
Abstract: "Prof. Jay Carter will speak on 'The Christological Problem Revisited; or, The Imperial God-Man and the Catholic Invention of Race' which is material for a book theorizing at the intersection of [C]hristology and political theology. Prof. Bryan Massingale will speak on 'Idolatry/Heresy and the Challenge of Cross-Racial Solidarity,' which will examine the liberationist contention that racism represents not simply an ethical failure, but a theological defect, one which qualifies the task of the virtue of solidarity in Catholic social thought. After their presentations, our speakers will have an opportunity to briefly respond to each other, with ample time for audience questions following."
A few sessions on liberation theology have also been scheduled.
Please find additional information, a full programme, and a registration form on the above website.
www.scethics.org/annual-meetings/all/2011
A number of sessions on political theology have been scheduled for this conference, including:
Pieter Dronkers (Protestant Theological University, Utrecht), "The Netherlands: One Nation under God? Christendom, Citizenship and the Re-sacralization of National Loyalty" (7 January, 11.00 am-12.30 pm, room: Grand Ballroom B)
Abstract: "Globalization puts the question what makes a good citizen on top of the Dutch public agenda. Today, some political parties define citizenship in secularist terms, limiting the space for public religious engagement. Others argue that undivided loyalty to the Dutch nation is required. Sometimes Christendom is used to frame and sacralize this allegiance. From a political-theological perspective, the paper evaluates the Dutch debate and especially the remarkable return of Christendom. It argues that the Christian conviction that allegiance to the state is temporal is an important antidote against the idea that absolute civic or national loyalty is a precondition for building a secure society."
John E. Senior (Emory University), "Cruciform Political Agency: Politics Between the Penultimate and the Ultimate" (7 January, 4.00-5.30 pm, room: Bourbon)
Abstract: "The dominant norm of political agency in both political theory and political theology is cooperative, relational, and public discourse. But what, if any, theological sense can be made of political agency when it is uncooperative, instrumental, and even aggressive? This paper first critiques recent Augustinian ontologies of political life, arguing that these fail to respond to the morally ambiguous character of political agency. The paper then develops an alternative model of political agency, which it terms 'cruciform political agency.' This framing posits a political ontology that negotiates the tension between the world and the eschaton and thereby renders theologically intelligible complex configurations of political agency."
Karen V. Guth (University of Virginia), "Beyond Nonviolence: The Feminist/Womanist Political Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr." (8 January, 9.00-10.30 am, room: Bienville)
Abstract: "Scholars often view Martin Luther King Jr.'s contributions to political theology in terms of his philosophy of nonviolence. Drawing on feminist and womanist thought, I argue that King's theo-political practice extends beyond nonviolent resistance to include any 'agapic activity' that forms and sustains community. I uncover in King's thought a conception of agape that resonates with a number of feminists' emphases on the relational and community-oriented nature of love, and I draw on womanist thought to highlight the role of creativity in King's thought. Both suggest a vision of the church's political role as a community of creativity."
Interest Group "Ethics and Catholic Theology" session on "Racism: A Theological Analysis", with the speakers J. Kameron Carter (Duke University) and Bryan N. Massingale (Marquette University; 9 January, 9.00-10.30 am, room: St. Charles B)
Abstract: "Prof. Jay Carter will speak on 'The Christological Problem Revisited; or, The Imperial God-Man and the Catholic Invention of Race' which is material for a book theorizing at the intersection of [C]hristology and political theology. Prof. Bryan Massingale will speak on 'Idolatry/Heresy and the Challenge of Cross-Racial Solidarity,' which will examine the liberationist contention that racism represents not simply an ethical failure, but a theological defect, one which qualifies the task of the virtue of solidarity in Catholic social thought. After their presentations, our speakers will have an opportunity to briefly respond to each other, with ample time for audience questions following."
A few sessions on liberation theology have also been scheduled.
Please find additional information, a full programme, and a registration form on the above website.
Book: The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation
Just published: Adam Kotsko, "The Politics of Redemption: The Social Logic of Salvation" (Continuum, October 2010):
www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=157985
Publisher's description: "Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of new perspectives on 'atonement theory,' the traditional name for reflections on the meaning of Christ's work. These new theologies view Christ as a political figure and mobilize social theory to understand the contemporary context and Christ's meaning for that context. Politics of Redemption demonstrates that pre-modern theologians also understood Christ's role in a fundamentally social way. The argument proceeds by analysing the most important and original contributors to the tradition of atonement theory (Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, and Abelard). The investigation reveals that they all work within a shared social-relational logic based on the solidarity of all human beings and the irreducible relatedness of humanity and the rest of creation. Having brought this social-relational logic to the surface, the work concludes by sketching out a fresh atonement theory as a way of showing that our understanding of Christ's work and of its relevance for our life together is enriched by foregrounding the question of how creation, and particularly the human social sphere, is structured."
Endorsement: "An indispensable contribution to the thorny theory of atonement. Hip to the feminist critique, inflected by the postmodern return to political theology, and steeped in the depths and potentialities of the doctrinal tradition, Kotsko's relational ontology for the doctrine of redemption offers a lucid and erudite resource for a wide spectrum of Christian theology." (Catherine Keller, Drew University)
Adam Kotsko is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College.
www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=157985
Publisher's description: "Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of new perspectives on 'atonement theory,' the traditional name for reflections on the meaning of Christ's work. These new theologies view Christ as a political figure and mobilize social theory to understand the contemporary context and Christ's meaning for that context. Politics of Redemption demonstrates that pre-modern theologians also understood Christ's role in a fundamentally social way. The argument proceeds by analysing the most important and original contributors to the tradition of atonement theory (Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Anselm, and Abelard). The investigation reveals that they all work within a shared social-relational logic based on the solidarity of all human beings and the irreducible relatedness of humanity and the rest of creation. Having brought this social-relational logic to the surface, the work concludes by sketching out a fresh atonement theory as a way of showing that our understanding of Christ's work and of its relevance for our life together is enriched by foregrounding the question of how creation, and particularly the human social sphere, is structured."
Endorsement: "An indispensable contribution to the thorny theory of atonement. Hip to the feminist critique, inflected by the postmodern return to political theology, and steeped in the depths and potentialities of the doctrinal tradition, Kotsko's relational ontology for the doctrine of redemption offers a lucid and erudite resource for a wide spectrum of Christian theology." (Catherine Keller, Drew University)
Adam Kotsko is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Kalamazoo College.
27 December 2010
Book: Wild Materialism: The Ethic of Terror and the Modern Republic
Jacques Lezra, "Wild Materialism: The Ethic of Terror and the Modern Republic" (Fordham University Press, September 2010):
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823232369
Publisher's description: "Wild Materialism speaks to three related questions in contemporary political philosophy. How, if different social interests and demands are constitutively antagonistic, can social unity emerge out of heterogeneity? Does such unity require corresponding universals, and, if so, what are they, where are they found, or how are they built? Finally, how must the concept of democracy be revised in response to economic globalization, state and nonstate terrorism, and religious, ethnic, or national fundamentalism? Polemically rehabilitating the term terror, Lezra argues that it can and should operate as a social universal. Perched perilously somewhere between the private and the public domains, terror is an experience of unboundable, objectless anxiety. It is something other than an interest held by different classes of people; it is not properly a concept (like equality or security) of the sort universal claims traditionally rest on. Yet terror's conceptual deficiency, Lezra argues, paradoxically provides the only adequate, secular way to articulate ethical with political judgments. Social terror, he dramatically proposes, is the foundation on which critiques of terrorist fundamentalisms must be constructed.
"Opening a groundbreaking methodological dialogue between Freud's work and Althusser's late understanding of aleatory materialism, Lezra shows how an ethic of terror, and in the political sphere a radically democratic republic, can be built on what he calls 'wild materialism.' Wild Materialism combines the close reading of cultural texts with detailed treatment of works in the radical-democratic and radical-republican traditions. The originality of its closely argued theses is matched and complemented by the breadth of its focus – encompassing the debates over the 'ticking bomb' scenario; the circumstances surrounding ETA's assassination of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid in 1973; the films of Gillo Pontecorvo; Sade's republican writing; Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right; and the roots of contemporary radical republicanism in early modern political theology (Bodin, Shakespeare, Parsons, Siliceo)." (some italics originally bold)
Endorsement: "An urgently contemporary study of the relation between 'terror' as a state of expectancy in relation to an event to come, and 'terrorism' as the deadly deployment of force in situations of radical exploitation and oppression." (Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine)
Jacques Lezra is Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish and Portuguese at New York University.
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823232369
Publisher's description: "Wild Materialism speaks to three related questions in contemporary political philosophy. How, if different social interests and demands are constitutively antagonistic, can social unity emerge out of heterogeneity? Does such unity require corresponding universals, and, if so, what are they, where are they found, or how are they built? Finally, how must the concept of democracy be revised in response to economic globalization, state and nonstate terrorism, and religious, ethnic, or national fundamentalism? Polemically rehabilitating the term terror, Lezra argues that it can and should operate as a social universal. Perched perilously somewhere between the private and the public domains, terror is an experience of unboundable, objectless anxiety. It is something other than an interest held by different classes of people; it is not properly a concept (like equality or security) of the sort universal claims traditionally rest on. Yet terror's conceptual deficiency, Lezra argues, paradoxically provides the only adequate, secular way to articulate ethical with political judgments. Social terror, he dramatically proposes, is the foundation on which critiques of terrorist fundamentalisms must be constructed.
"Opening a groundbreaking methodological dialogue between Freud's work and Althusser's late understanding of aleatory materialism, Lezra shows how an ethic of terror, and in the political sphere a radically democratic republic, can be built on what he calls 'wild materialism.' Wild Materialism combines the close reading of cultural texts with detailed treatment of works in the radical-democratic and radical-republican traditions. The originality of its closely argued theses is matched and complemented by the breadth of its focus – encompassing the debates over the 'ticking bomb' scenario; the circumstances surrounding ETA's assassination of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid in 1973; the films of Gillo Pontecorvo; Sade's republican writing; Marx's Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right; and the roots of contemporary radical republicanism in early modern political theology (Bodin, Shakespeare, Parsons, Siliceo)." (some italics originally bold)
Endorsement: "An urgently contemporary study of the relation between 'terror' as a state of expectancy in relation to an event to come, and 'terrorism' as the deadly deployment of force in situations of radical exploitation and oppression." (Julia Reinhard Lupton, University of California, Irvine)
Jacques Lezra is Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish and Portuguese at New York University.
CFP: Resistance to Finance
"Polygraph: An International Journal of Culture & Politics", an annual interdisciplinary publication affiliated with the Literature Programme and edited by humanities graduate students of Duke University, is planning an issue (no. 24) on "Resistance to Finance", to be published in 2012, and has released a call for papers. They particularly invite contributors with a background in political theology.
www.duke.edu/web/polygraph/cfp24.html
Description: "What does financial capitalism demand of us in thought and in action today? Financial capital is one of the fundamental structuring forces in our world. Evidence of this is ubiquitous: the severity and extent of the most recent global financial crisis, the collapse of whole national economies (as in Greece and Iceland), the steadily progressing securitization of pensions and savings, a growing volume of derivatives trading that already dwarfs 'real' global GDP. Yet many critical accounts of corporate globalization, free trade, neoliberalism, and so on all too rarely emphasize the fact that high finance constitutes the very condition of possibility of capitalism as we know it. Other available forms of economic critique, from world-systems theory to dependency theory to theories of Empire, often do grant high finance the central role that it in reality occupies, but rarely go beyond critique to directly address the question of resistance. Too often, critique remains mired in highlighting isolated acts and agents of malfeasance rather than producing totalizing, systemic claims with real leverage.
"We now know this state of affairs to be in need of immediate rectification. We also know that action is demanded, but its contours are not yet well defined. The clout of finance capital has received ample attention in Marxist economics, neo-classical economics, and other quarters – yet the accounts produced thus far of what is to be done have been less than satisfactory. What political responses on the part of on-the-ground social movements and both current and potential bodies of governance are necessary? Are some already underway but obscured from view? What alternative economic futures can we begin to construct out of the wreckage of the most recent crisis and the structural shifts that produced and accompany it? Is it necessary to break the global economy of its speculative bent and return it to its 'real' roots, or is this antithesis, stemming from Hilferding's classic critique of 'fictitious capital,' fundamentally ill-conceived? Should the focus of political action be shifted away from past struggles – against multinational corporations, free trade, and the powerful political allies of both – in the direction of the financial crux of the global economy? What would such a change in focus entail?
"Potential topics: Financial capitalism and Marxism (The continued efficacy or potential obsolescence of previous critical outlooks [world systems theory, Empire theory, etc.] in confronting global finance; The centrality of the question of global finance in any meaningful
critical engagement with globalization; Systemic global inequality, post-Fordism and crisis); Resistance (Forms of political subjectivity capable of comprehending and acting within [and against] high finance as it stands; What is the role of the state in confronting financial capital?; Real and hypothetical political movements and direct action; Strategies of flight and subtractive action, whether individual [e.g. walking away from mortgage contracts] or institutional [e.g. Argentina's post-crisis debt restructuring]; Alternative financial institutions and orders (Jacques Sapir's recent call for a 'new Bretton Woods' system [akin to Antonio Negri's call for a 'new New Deal']; Microfinance and financial decentralization; The global Tobin tax on of [sic] financial transactions and other forms of regulation; Neo-Luddism and the return to the 'real' economy; Radical political economy and the pursuit of anti-capitalist alternatives); Other (Historical perspectives on high finance, dealing with periodization, secular trends, particular crises and institutions, and exemplary modes of resistance; Mystification, abstraction and the 'new' digital/virtual economy; Epistemological barriers to adequate critique of the global financial system; Perception and belief as primary structural forces in the financial system; Artistic representations of the financial world as possible critical tools; Socio-political underpinnings of the financialization of the world)"
"Polygraph" welcomes work from a variety of disciplines, including political economy, critical geography, cultural anthropology, political theology, science studies, and systems theory. They also encourage the submission of a variety of formats and genres, i.e. field reports, surveys, interviews, photography, essays, etc.
Please e-mail complete manuscripts to the editor of this issue, Lucas Perkins (Duke University): lucas.perkins@duke.edu
Deadline: 31 January 2011
www.duke.edu/web/polygraph/cfp24.html
Description: "What does financial capitalism demand of us in thought and in action today? Financial capital is one of the fundamental structuring forces in our world. Evidence of this is ubiquitous: the severity and extent of the most recent global financial crisis, the collapse of whole national economies (as in Greece and Iceland), the steadily progressing securitization of pensions and savings, a growing volume of derivatives trading that already dwarfs 'real' global GDP. Yet many critical accounts of corporate globalization, free trade, neoliberalism, and so on all too rarely emphasize the fact that high finance constitutes the very condition of possibility of capitalism as we know it. Other available forms of economic critique, from world-systems theory to dependency theory to theories of Empire, often do grant high finance the central role that it in reality occupies, but rarely go beyond critique to directly address the question of resistance. Too often, critique remains mired in highlighting isolated acts and agents of malfeasance rather than producing totalizing, systemic claims with real leverage.
"We now know this state of affairs to be in need of immediate rectification. We also know that action is demanded, but its contours are not yet well defined. The clout of finance capital has received ample attention in Marxist economics, neo-classical economics, and other quarters – yet the accounts produced thus far of what is to be done have been less than satisfactory. What political responses on the part of on-the-ground social movements and both current and potential bodies of governance are necessary? Are some already underway but obscured from view? What alternative economic futures can we begin to construct out of the wreckage of the most recent crisis and the structural shifts that produced and accompany it? Is it necessary to break the global economy of its speculative bent and return it to its 'real' roots, or is this antithesis, stemming from Hilferding's classic critique of 'fictitious capital,' fundamentally ill-conceived? Should the focus of political action be shifted away from past struggles – against multinational corporations, free trade, and the powerful political allies of both – in the direction of the financial crux of the global economy? What would such a change in focus entail?
"Potential topics: Financial capitalism and Marxism (The continued efficacy or potential obsolescence of previous critical outlooks [world systems theory, Empire theory, etc.] in confronting global finance; The centrality of the question of global finance in any meaningful
critical engagement with globalization; Systemic global inequality, post-Fordism and crisis); Resistance (Forms of political subjectivity capable of comprehending and acting within [and against] high finance as it stands; What is the role of the state in confronting financial capital?; Real and hypothetical political movements and direct action; Strategies of flight and subtractive action, whether individual [e.g. walking away from mortgage contracts] or institutional [e.g. Argentina's post-crisis debt restructuring]; Alternative financial institutions and orders (Jacques Sapir's recent call for a 'new Bretton Woods' system [akin to Antonio Negri's call for a 'new New Deal']; Microfinance and financial decentralization; The global Tobin tax on of [sic] financial transactions and other forms of regulation; Neo-Luddism and the return to the 'real' economy; Radical political economy and the pursuit of anti-capitalist alternatives); Other (Historical perspectives on high finance, dealing with periodization, secular trends, particular crises and institutions, and exemplary modes of resistance; Mystification, abstraction and the 'new' digital/virtual economy; Epistemological barriers to adequate critique of the global financial system; Perception and belief as primary structural forces in the financial system; Artistic representations of the financial world as possible critical tools; Socio-political underpinnings of the financialization of the world)"
"Polygraph" welcomes work from a variety of disciplines, including political economy, critical geography, cultural anthropology, political theology, science studies, and systems theory. They also encourage the submission of a variety of formats and genres, i.e. field reports, surveys, interviews, photography, essays, etc.
Please e-mail complete manuscripts to the editor of this issue, Lucas Perkins (Duke University): lucas.perkins@duke.edu
Deadline: 31 January 2011
26 December 2010
Book: Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology
Just published: John Milbank, Slavoj Žižek, and Creston Davis, "Paul's New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology" (Brazos Press, November 2010):
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=0477683E4046471488BD7BAC8DCFB004&nm=&type=PubCom&mod=PubComProductCatalog&mid=BF1316AF9E334B7BA1C33CB61CF48A4E&tier=3&id=ADFAD5A4E6444C54BA7481B53085B80B
Publisher's description: "Are there moments in Christian history when non-Christians in some ways understand Christianity better than Christians? The church fathers and mothers often did especially acute theology because they could remember well what it meant to inhabit non-Christian philosophies and religions. The Hindu Gandhi saw and acted on something in Christ's witness that many confessing Christians overlooked. Today some leading secular thinkers have turned to a surprising source: the apostle Paul. The rediscovery of Paul by atheistic or agnostic European philosophers is one of the most striking recent developments in philosophy – and certainly one of keen interest to the church. Bringing together Radical Orthodox theologian John Milbank, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and Creston Davis, who has been a student of both, this book reflects on Paul's new moment in secular philosophy. In a debate format, Zizek brings Marxist and post-Marxist ideas into a discussion with Milbank about the influence of Paul. The book also includes a contribution from Catherine Pickstock."
Endorsement: "What is at stake is nothing less than our escape from the ubiquity of multitudinous fundamentalisms, bourgeois liberalism, and the late capitalism that has captured the West today. For those navigating theology and the political, this collection of essays is timely, riveting, and well worth our focus and attention." (David Fitch, Northern Seminary)
A year ago, Davis announced this book on his blog as being "on St. Paul, the Liturgy, and Political Theology".
John Milbank is Professor in Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham.
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Creston Davis is Assistant Professor of Religion at Rollins College.
www.bakerpublishinggroup.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=0477683E4046471488BD7BAC8DCFB004&nm=&type=PubCom&mod=PubComProductCatalog&mid=BF1316AF9E334B7BA1C33CB61CF48A4E&tier=3&id=ADFAD5A4E6444C54BA7481B53085B80B
Publisher's description: "Are there moments in Christian history when non-Christians in some ways understand Christianity better than Christians? The church fathers and mothers often did especially acute theology because they could remember well what it meant to inhabit non-Christian philosophies and religions. The Hindu Gandhi saw and acted on something in Christ's witness that many confessing Christians overlooked. Today some leading secular thinkers have turned to a surprising source: the apostle Paul. The rediscovery of Paul by atheistic or agnostic European philosophers is one of the most striking recent developments in philosophy – and certainly one of keen interest to the church. Bringing together Radical Orthodox theologian John Milbank, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and Creston Davis, who has been a student of both, this book reflects on Paul's new moment in secular philosophy. In a debate format, Zizek brings Marxist and post-Marxist ideas into a discussion with Milbank about the influence of Paul. The book also includes a contribution from Catherine Pickstock."
Endorsement: "What is at stake is nothing less than our escape from the ubiquity of multitudinous fundamentalisms, bourgeois liberalism, and the late capitalism that has captured the West today. For those navigating theology and the political, this collection of essays is timely, riveting, and well worth our focus and attention." (David Fitch, Northern Seminary)
A year ago, Davis announced this book on his blog as being "on St. Paul, the Liturgy, and Political Theology".
John Milbank is Professor in Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Nottingham.
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Creston Davis is Assistant Professor of Religion at Rollins College.
Book: The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa
Just published: Emmanuel Katongole, "The Sacrifice of Africa: A Political Theology for Africa" (Eerdmans, December 2010).Publisher's description: "Modern Africa, scarred by its founding narratives of colonial oppression and nation-state politics, has been especially vulnerable to chaos, war, and corruption. Its people – mired within a seemingly endless cycle of violence, plunder, and poverty – have seen their resources exploited and their lives wantonly sacrificed time and again to the greed and ambition of oppressive regimes. In The Sacrifice of Africa Emmanuel Katongole confronts this painful legacy and shows how it continues to warp the imaginative landscape of African politics and society. He demonstrates the real potential of Christianity to interrupt and transform entrenched political imaginations and create a different story for Africa – a story of self-sacrificing love that values human dignity and 'dares to invent' a new and better future for all Africans. Compelling accounts of three African Christian leaders and their work – Bishop Paride Taban in Sudan, Angelina Atyam in Uganda, and Maggy Barankitse in Burundi – cap off Katongole's inspiring vision of hope for Africa."
www.eerdmans.com/shop/product.asp?p_key=9780802862686
Endorsements: "Drawn from the wells of Emmanuel Katongole's faith and faith on the ground, The Sacrifice of Africa is a work of singular importance and power. Its insights and implications are prophetic and compelling. One of the most visionary theologians of our day, Katongole helps the whole church see itself in a new way. This is the theology we need – and indeed must have." (Mark R. Gornik, City Seminary of New York)
"Sometimes churches are the only viable, if inadequate, social institutions left to shoulder the burden of society. [...] The demands of the moment require the sacrifice of the churches on behalf of Africa's long-suffering peoples. This book is a valuable installment in that cause." (Lamin Sanneh, Yale)
Ugandan-born Emmanuel Katongole is Associate Professor of Theology and World Christianity at Duke University and a priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kampala.
Book: Robert Bellarmine and Thomas Hobbes: Political theologies in comparison (in Italian)
For those able to read Italian: Enrica Fabbri, "Roberto Bellarmino e Thomas Hobbes: Teologie politiche a confronto" (Robert Bellarmine and Thomas Hobbes: Political theologies in comparison; my translation; Aracne editrice, 2009):
http://store.aracneeditrice.com/it/libro_new.php?id=2810
Publisher's description: "In the wake of the renewed urgency of the issue of the relationship between religion and politics and, more specifically, the themes of political theology, the book explores some aspects of the thought of Thomas Hobbes, on the one hand offering a possibly more analytical reconstruction of the presence of Robert Bellarmine in his texts, on the other problematizing the relationship between the theologico-political views of the English philosopher and those of the Presbyterians. The basic intention is to account for the continued interest in theology shown by Hobbes and to highlight the specifically political reasons for this attention, in order to propose a reading of Hobbesian thought that, while it cannot disregard Carl Schmitt's interpretation, aims to show its problematic, especially on the side of the question of neutralization of religious conflicts." (my very rough translation, helped by Google Translate)
Enrica Fabbri holds a research doctorate in Political Studies from the University of Turin and is continuing her research in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Florence.
http://store.aracneeditrice.com/it/libro_new.php?id=2810
Publisher's description: "In the wake of the renewed urgency of the issue of the relationship between religion and politics and, more specifically, the themes of political theology, the book explores some aspects of the thought of Thomas Hobbes, on the one hand offering a possibly more analytical reconstruction of the presence of Robert Bellarmine in his texts, on the other problematizing the relationship between the theologico-political views of the English philosopher and those of the Presbyterians. The basic intention is to account for the continued interest in theology shown by Hobbes and to highlight the specifically political reasons for this attention, in order to propose a reading of Hobbesian thought that, while it cannot disregard Carl Schmitt's interpretation, aims to show its problematic, especially on the side of the question of neutralization of religious conflicts." (my very rough translation, helped by Google Translate)
Enrica Fabbri holds a research doctorate in Political Studies from the University of Turin and is continuing her research in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Florence.
10 December 2010
CFP: The Political in Bonhoeffer's Theology Reconsidered
XI. International Bonhoeffer Congress "A Spoke in the Wheel: The Political in Bonhoeffer's Theology Reconsidered", at the Sigtuna Foundation, Sigtuna, Sweden, 27 June-1 July 2012
Call for papers
Description: "On account of its Christology and ecclesiology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology is intrinsically political. On the one hand, his theological convictions make possible opposition to government authority. Already early on in his critical engagement against the Nazi regime, in 'The Church and the Jewish Question' (1933), Bonhoeffer expected the church to oppose the state when the rights of those disdained by the state were violated. Ultimately, this stance resulted in Bonhoeffer's participation in the resistance and his violent death. On the other hand, however, Bonhoeffer advocated a conservative non-democratic political order for Germany after the war. How can one explain these seeming contradictions? How should we understand Bonhoeffer's political theology? The aim of the XI. International Bonhoeffer Congress is to encourage reflections on the continuing relevance of Bonhoeffer's political theology and ethics for the Christian church in a world that is characterized by an increasing gap between the rich and the poor. Is the church once again expected to put up political resistance?"
Sigtuna is the historical place where Bonhoeffer during the war met Bishop George Bell in secret mission. The historical Sigtuna Foundation is located only 15 minutes from the international airport of Stockholm (Arlanda). President of the congress is Bishop Martin Lind (Linköping).
The planning committee of the congress invites paper proposals for the three working days of the conference, each of which will consist of main speakers in the morning and seminar sessions in the afternoon. The topics of the three days are: "Bonhoeffer's Political Resistance" (28 June, with the subtopics: Democracy; Nationalism; Politics and Oikoumene; Europe and the Refugees), "Bonhoeffer on Church, State and Civil Society" (29 June, subtopics: Human Rights; Public Theology; Lutheran Heritage), and "How Do We Live Responsibly?" (30 June, subtopics: Religion and Ethics; Migration and Refugee Studies; Global Economy; Climate Change). The subtopics should not be seen as binding for the proposals. The organizers welcome papers discussing other dimensions of the topic of the day than the ones mentioned.
The proposals, which should explain topic, main arguments, and conclusions of the paper, should have no more than 500 words. They can be written in German or English, and the presentations at the conference can be held in English or German. Younger scholars, e.g. PhD students, are especially invited to propose papers. Proposals are to be submitted to Kirsten Busch Nielsen (University of Copenhagen): bonhoeffer2012@teol.ku.dk
Deadline: 1 June 2011
The decision, taken by a small committee, as to which proposals are accepted will be communicated via e-mail by the end of August 2011. The afternoon on which the accepted papers will be placed is not necessarily connected to the topic of the day.
Registration for the congress will be possible from June/July 2011. Congress fees, including accommodation and meals at the venue, will be approximately 500 Euro. Information about reduced fees for students is to follow.
Call for papers
Description: "On account of its Christology and ecclesiology, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology is intrinsically political. On the one hand, his theological convictions make possible opposition to government authority. Already early on in his critical engagement against the Nazi regime, in 'The Church and the Jewish Question' (1933), Bonhoeffer expected the church to oppose the state when the rights of those disdained by the state were violated. Ultimately, this stance resulted in Bonhoeffer's participation in the resistance and his violent death. On the other hand, however, Bonhoeffer advocated a conservative non-democratic political order for Germany after the war. How can one explain these seeming contradictions? How should we understand Bonhoeffer's political theology? The aim of the XI. International Bonhoeffer Congress is to encourage reflections on the continuing relevance of Bonhoeffer's political theology and ethics for the Christian church in a world that is characterized by an increasing gap between the rich and the poor. Is the church once again expected to put up political resistance?"
Sigtuna is the historical place where Bonhoeffer during the war met Bishop George Bell in secret mission. The historical Sigtuna Foundation is located only 15 minutes from the international airport of Stockholm (Arlanda). President of the congress is Bishop Martin Lind (Linköping).
The planning committee of the congress invites paper proposals for the three working days of the conference, each of which will consist of main speakers in the morning and seminar sessions in the afternoon. The topics of the three days are: "Bonhoeffer's Political Resistance" (28 June, with the subtopics: Democracy; Nationalism; Politics and Oikoumene; Europe and the Refugees), "Bonhoeffer on Church, State and Civil Society" (29 June, subtopics: Human Rights; Public Theology; Lutheran Heritage), and "How Do We Live Responsibly?" (30 June, subtopics: Religion and Ethics; Migration and Refugee Studies; Global Economy; Climate Change). The subtopics should not be seen as binding for the proposals. The organizers welcome papers discussing other dimensions of the topic of the day than the ones mentioned.
The proposals, which should explain topic, main arguments, and conclusions of the paper, should have no more than 500 words. They can be written in German or English, and the presentations at the conference can be held in English or German. Younger scholars, e.g. PhD students, are especially invited to propose papers. Proposals are to be submitted to Kirsten Busch Nielsen (University of Copenhagen): bonhoeffer2012@teol.ku.dk
Deadline: 1 June 2011
The decision, taken by a small committee, as to which proposals are accepted will be communicated via e-mail by the end of August 2011. The afternoon on which the accepted papers will be placed is not necessarily connected to the topic of the day.
Registration for the congress will be possible from June/July 2011. Congress fees, including accommodation and meals at the venue, will be approximately 500 Euro. Information about reduced fees for students is to follow.
09 December 2010
CFP: Daniel Paul Schreber: The Modern Experience and the Performance of Paranoia
International Conference "Daniel Paul Schreber: 100 Years Later: The Modern Experience and the Performance of Paranoia" of the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin (Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung Berlin), Tel Aviv University, the Saxon Memorial Foundation (Stiftung Sächsische Gedenkstätten), and the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften), at Sonnenstein Castle, near Dresden, Germany, 13-15 April 2011
Call for papers
Description: "Since its publication in 1903, Daniel Paul Schreber's Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken [English: Memoirs of My Nervous Illness] fascinated a broad spectrum of scholars spanning from Freud and Lacan to Canetti, Foucault and Deleuze, giving rise to a wide variety of interpretations. Schreber's experience, manifested in his Denkwürdigkeiten, exposes paradoxes, a crisis of meaning and the problematic forms of his own subjective mental and physical existence. It seems that Schreber leaves none of the conventional dichotomies intact, be it man/woman, body/soul, conscious/unconscious, private/collective, God/human, etc. Consequently Schreber's unique account of his mental condition and therapy also constitutes a radical perspective on modernity.
"His transgressions and displacements open up a whole array of discursive fields, turning the discomfort and unease shared by many of Schreber's readers into a fruitful journey that has been evoking inspiring and critical ideas ever since. Exactly two hundred years after the establishment of the fortress Sonnenstein as a mental asylum (in 1811) and one hundred years after the death of Daniel Paul Schreber (on April 14, 1911) we would like to rethink Schreber's legacy through an interactive, interdisciplinary seminar, to take place at the Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein, where Schreber was hospitalized. Sonnenstein ironically gives an example to one of the most horrific consequences that modern political theology has caused, a theme we will reflect upon by bringing these two topics together spatially and conceptually.
"The seminar will be comprised of four main sessions, each focusing on one central theme, with three presentations in each session, followed by discussions. In addition we will hold reading sessions in small groups as well as an art installation and a musical performance. The first association evoked by the word Schreber in German is the Schrebergarten, an allotment garden, named after Daniel Paul's father who pursued various educational techniques inventing iron machines to control behaviour and movement of children – not least his own. Contrary to his father's constraining realm, Daniel Paul Schreber's world retains none of the fatherly visions and reveals to some extent where the moles are in Schreber's garden that rather turns out to be a paranoid park."
The conference organizers ask potential participants to submit a 300-word abstract of their interest in Schreber, the conference, and the context, together with a short biographical note. Unfortunately, their call for papers does not specify what kind of papers are invited. For further questions or assistance, or to submit an abstract, please contact: anton.pluschke@fu-berlin.de
Deadline: 9 January 2011
Speakers include: Friedrich Kittler (Humboldt University of Berlin), Eric Santner (University of Chicago), José Brunner (Tel Aviv University), Alan Read (King's College London), Zvi Lothane (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City), and Moshe Zuckermann (Tel Aviv University)
Call for papers
Description: "Since its publication in 1903, Daniel Paul Schreber's Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken [English: Memoirs of My Nervous Illness] fascinated a broad spectrum of scholars spanning from Freud and Lacan to Canetti, Foucault and Deleuze, giving rise to a wide variety of interpretations. Schreber's experience, manifested in his Denkwürdigkeiten, exposes paradoxes, a crisis of meaning and the problematic forms of his own subjective mental and physical existence. It seems that Schreber leaves none of the conventional dichotomies intact, be it man/woman, body/soul, conscious/unconscious, private/collective, God/human, etc. Consequently Schreber's unique account of his mental condition and therapy also constitutes a radical perspective on modernity.
"His transgressions and displacements open up a whole array of discursive fields, turning the discomfort and unease shared by many of Schreber's readers into a fruitful journey that has been evoking inspiring and critical ideas ever since. Exactly two hundred years after the establishment of the fortress Sonnenstein as a mental asylum (in 1811) and one hundred years after the death of Daniel Paul Schreber (on April 14, 1911) we would like to rethink Schreber's legacy through an interactive, interdisciplinary seminar, to take place at the Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein, where Schreber was hospitalized. Sonnenstein ironically gives an example to one of the most horrific consequences that modern political theology has caused, a theme we will reflect upon by bringing these two topics together spatially and conceptually.
"The seminar will be comprised of four main sessions, each focusing on one central theme, with three presentations in each session, followed by discussions. In addition we will hold reading sessions in small groups as well as an art installation and a musical performance. The first association evoked by the word Schreber in German is the Schrebergarten, an allotment garden, named after Daniel Paul's father who pursued various educational techniques inventing iron machines to control behaviour and movement of children – not least his own. Contrary to his father's constraining realm, Daniel Paul Schreber's world retains none of the fatherly visions and reveals to some extent where the moles are in Schreber's garden that rather turns out to be a paranoid park."
The conference organizers ask potential participants to submit a 300-word abstract of their interest in Schreber, the conference, and the context, together with a short biographical note. Unfortunately, their call for papers does not specify what kind of papers are invited. For further questions or assistance, or to submit an abstract, please contact: anton.pluschke@fu-berlin.de
Deadline: 9 January 2011
Speakers include: Friedrich Kittler (Humboldt University of Berlin), Eric Santner (University of Chicago), José Brunner (Tel Aviv University), Alan Read (King's College London), Zvi Lothane (Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City), and Moshe Zuckermann (Tel Aviv 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)
03 November 2010
Public lecture: Žižek on "emancipatory political theology"
New York Public Library (NYPL), Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Celeste Bartos Forum, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, New York City, USA, 9 November 2010, 7.00 pm
Public lecture by Slavoj Žižek: "God Without the Sacred: The Book of Job, The First Critique of Ideology"
www.nypl.org/events/programs/2010/11/09/salvoj-zizek?nref=56896
Description: "The three religions of the Book each help us to differentiate the divine from the sacred. This liberating concept culminates in Paul's claim, from Ephesians, that 'our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against leaders, against authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual wickedness in the heavens.' Can religious fundamentalism be overcome only with the help of an emancipatory political theology? Philosopher Slavoj Zizek debates this and other incendiary questions [...]."
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London.
$25 general admission, $15 Friends of the NYPL, seniors and students with valid ID. Tickets can be bought from the website above.
Public lecture by Slavoj Žižek: "God Without the Sacred: The Book of Job, The First Critique of Ideology"
www.nypl.org/events/programs/2010/11/09/salvoj-zizek?nref=56896
Description: "The three religions of the Book each help us to differentiate the divine from the sacred. This liberating concept culminates in Paul's claim, from Ephesians, that 'our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against leaders, against authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual wickedness in the heavens.' Can religious fundamentalism be overcome only with the help of an emancipatory political theology? Philosopher Slavoj Zizek debates this and other incendiary questions [...]."
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at Birkbeck College, University of London.
$25 general admission, $15 Friends of the NYPL, seniors and students with valid ID. Tickets can be bought from the website above.
25 October 2010
CFP: New Chaucer Society 2012 call for session proposals
The 18th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society (NCS) will take place in Portland, Oregon, USA, in 2012 (the exact date has not yet been set, it seems).
Call for session proposals
The congress will be comprised equally of sessions tied to a particular thematic thread and open sessions. The thread "Neighbor" invites proposals for sessions on political theology.
Description: "The neighbor is uniquely situated between friend and enemy, and long linked to the golden rule – the imperative to love the neighbor as the self. This thread welcomes sessions considering aspects of neighbors, neighborhoods, or neighborliness, including but not limited to the following: the vicissitudes of community, the ethics of charity, recent theoretical work on the political theology of neighbor love, borders between human and divine, unusual neighborhoods of people or texts; relations of proximity between peoples, cultures, authors, languages, or literatures. This thread will conclude with a session on 'Neighbor/Oceans,' bringing together different ways of thinking about propinquity and community."
Sessions may be proposed in any of the following formats: Paper Panels (either three papers at 20 minutes each or four papers at 15 minutes each); Roundtables (discussions between 5-7 speakers on a topic of common interest; speakers do not deliver papers, though they may speak from notes); Seminars (limited to ten participants; convened to consider works in progress by participants, or some text of common interest); Working Groups (extended seminars that convene virtually in advance of the congress, with a culminating session in Portland).
Proposals for sessions should be sent to the thread convenor (and programme co-chair), Patricia Ingham (Indiana University): pingham@indiana.edu
Deadline: 22 November 2010
After the sessions and session organizers have been determined by the programme committee, a call for papers will be announced in early February 2011. Session organizers are expected to select session participants from among proposals submitted in response to the February CFP.
More information on the NCS is to be found here:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~chaucer/
Call for session proposals
The congress will be comprised equally of sessions tied to a particular thematic thread and open sessions. The thread "Neighbor" invites proposals for sessions on political theology.
Description: "The neighbor is uniquely situated between friend and enemy, and long linked to the golden rule – the imperative to love the neighbor as the self. This thread welcomes sessions considering aspects of neighbors, neighborhoods, or neighborliness, including but not limited to the following: the vicissitudes of community, the ethics of charity, recent theoretical work on the political theology of neighbor love, borders between human and divine, unusual neighborhoods of people or texts; relations of proximity between peoples, cultures, authors, languages, or literatures. This thread will conclude with a session on 'Neighbor/Oceans,' bringing together different ways of thinking about propinquity and community."
Sessions may be proposed in any of the following formats: Paper Panels (either three papers at 20 minutes each or four papers at 15 minutes each); Roundtables (discussions between 5-7 speakers on a topic of common interest; speakers do not deliver papers, though they may speak from notes); Seminars (limited to ten participants; convened to consider works in progress by participants, or some text of common interest); Working Groups (extended seminars that convene virtually in advance of the congress, with a culminating session in Portland).
Proposals for sessions should be sent to the thread convenor (and programme co-chair), Patricia Ingham (Indiana University): pingham@indiana.edu
Deadline: 22 November 2010
After the sessions and session organizers have been determined by the programme committee, a call for papers will be announced in early February 2011. Session organizers are expected to select session participants from among proposals submitted in response to the February CFP.
More information on the NCS is to be found here:
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~chaucer/
15 October 2010
Book: Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love
Grant N. Havers, "Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love" (University of Missouri Press, November 2009):
http://press.umsystem.edu/fall2009/havers.htm
From the publisher's description: "Abraham Lincoln extolled the merit of 'loving thy neighbor as thyself,' especially as a critique of the hypocrisy of slavery, but a discussion of Christian love is noticeably absent from today's debates about religion and democracy. In this provocative book, Grant Havers argues that charity is a central tenet of what Lincoln once called America's 'political religion.' He explores the implications of making Christian love the highest moral standard for American democracy, showing how Lincoln's legacy demands that a true democracy be charitable toward all – and that only a people who lived according to such ideals could succeed in building democracy as Lincoln understood it. [...] This carefully argued work defends Lincoln's understanding of charity as essential to democracy while emphasizing the difficulty of fusing this ethic with the desire to spread democracy to people who do not share America's Christian heritage. In considering the prospect of America's leaders rediscovering a moral foreign policy based on charity rather than the costly idolization of democracy, Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love makes a timely contribution to the wider debate over both the meaning of religion in American politics and the mission of America in the world – and opens a new window on Lincoln's lasting legacy."
Excerpts: "Despite my discussion of political philosophy in the pages to follow, I am inclined to classify this work as political theology. Most secular academics tend to separate the two fields: political philosophy studies the human understanding of politics, while political theology reflects God's revelation. My contention is that, at least since Lincoln, this separation has never been successful in American political thought, although there have been many procrustean attempts to impose an artificial separation. The fact is that religion and politics have always been mutually dependent in American history [...]. Whereas [the founding fathers] Jay, Hamilton, and Madison are describing the meaning and process of government in profoundly secular terms (they rarely mention Christianity), Lincoln's speeches resonate with theological themes. Whereas The Federalist presents a new 'science of politics,' Lincoln offers a political theology. [...] Lincoln expected charity alone to be the primary foundation of a new political theology."
Grant N. Havers is Professor of Philosophy and Political Studies at Trinity Western University, Canada.
http://press.umsystem.edu/fall2009/havers.htm
From the publisher's description: "Abraham Lincoln extolled the merit of 'loving thy neighbor as thyself,' especially as a critique of the hypocrisy of slavery, but a discussion of Christian love is noticeably absent from today's debates about religion and democracy. In this provocative book, Grant Havers argues that charity is a central tenet of what Lincoln once called America's 'political religion.' He explores the implications of making Christian love the highest moral standard for American democracy, showing how Lincoln's legacy demands that a true democracy be charitable toward all – and that only a people who lived according to such ideals could succeed in building democracy as Lincoln understood it. [...] This carefully argued work defends Lincoln's understanding of charity as essential to democracy while emphasizing the difficulty of fusing this ethic with the desire to spread democracy to people who do not share America's Christian heritage. In considering the prospect of America's leaders rediscovering a moral foreign policy based on charity rather than the costly idolization of democracy, Lincoln and the Politics of Christian Love makes a timely contribution to the wider debate over both the meaning of religion in American politics and the mission of America in the world – and opens a new window on Lincoln's lasting legacy."
Excerpts: "Despite my discussion of political philosophy in the pages to follow, I am inclined to classify this work as political theology. Most secular academics tend to separate the two fields: political philosophy studies the human understanding of politics, while political theology reflects God's revelation. My contention is that, at least since Lincoln, this separation has never been successful in American political thought, although there have been many procrustean attempts to impose an artificial separation. The fact is that religion and politics have always been mutually dependent in American history [...]. Whereas [the founding fathers] Jay, Hamilton, and Madison are describing the meaning and process of government in profoundly secular terms (they rarely mention Christianity), Lincoln's speeches resonate with theological themes. Whereas The Federalist presents a new 'science of politics,' Lincoln offers a political theology. [...] Lincoln expected charity alone to be the primary foundation of a new political theology."
Grant N. Havers is Professor of Philosophy and Political Studies at Trinity Western University, Canada.
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.
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