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A radical, subjunctive, political theology of resistance: On religion and community
No full textThis dissertation argues for the possibility of theology of the political. It understands the distinctions between religion and politics to be porous. They are both exercises in the re-creation of the world. In the end, the dissertation reads radical theology alongside contemporary examples of political upheaval in a performance of a theology of resistance. The dissertation is a work of political theology, drawing on political philosophy, philosophy of religion, radical theology, and anthropology of religion. It argues that a better foundation for political theology than Carl Schmitt\u27s notion of sovereignty is the anthropologist, Roy A. Rappaport\u27s understanding of the ritual construction of society because the ritual act toward authority is more fundamental than the sovereign act of decision. Specifically, the dissertation argues that subjunctivity--living in and creating the world as it might be rather than as it is--provides a more fertile and open foundation for the political. Subjunctivity short circuits sovereignty, producing a reorientation of political theology. In elucidating the concept of subjunctivity, this dissertation performs it as well. As such, the dissertation is both a political project and a theological one. This dissertation is a deliberate and interdisciplinary investigation into, on the one hand, the common subjunctive foundation of both the political and the religious as well as, on the other, a construction of a theology of resistance. The bulk of the dissertation is an exercise in demarcating its conceptual terrain. The first two chapters establish subjunctivity as an alternative foundational concept for political theology. The third chapter argues for an understanding of religion without God--both in terms of personal practice and in the construction of religious community. The central argument here arises from creative readings of Martin Buber, René Girard, Paul Tillich, Thomas J. J. Altizer and William Hamilton: that religious community operates best without God. The fourth chapter performs creative readings of Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the story of the French village Le Chambon Sur Lignon\u27s resistance to the Nazis. It concludes that radical theology--a name for thinking theologically in the absence of God--contains within it a latent political imperative. Radical theology is already political theology. At that point, the dissertation undertakes a theology of contemporary political resistance, specifically in the case of Occupy Wall Street. The chapter begins by examining the concept of the city as it relates to both the political and the theological. Through critical readings of Michel de Certeau and Thomas Merton\u27s work on how people perform acts of resistance in cities, the first part of this chapter argues that the city is both a theological object and produces political resistance. The second half of the chapter performs a radical, subjunctive, political theology of Occupy Wall Street. This dissertation\u27s focus is twofold: to justify the methodological legitimacy of thinking theologically about resistance, and to experimentally perform that theology of resistance. In the end, this dissertation hopes to both prove and demonstrate that resistance is theological activity
Long View From the Front Range: A Century of Avifaunal Change in Colorado [video]
No full textJameson Chace, associate professor of biology and biomedical sciences and environmental studies at Salve Regina University, will share his sabbatical research. Drawing from field notebooks, museum collections, published and unpublished field studies and volumes of notes and records from amateur bird watchers, Chace documented a century of bird population and community change in Boulder County, Colorado from 1894 to 2010. Chace will present how the needs of a growing human population, change in landscape and conservation efforts have impacted the avifaunal community during this time period
Call For Papers: Changing Families, Changing Women. Deadline Extended to: November 1, 2015
Get PDFThe Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought invites contributions for its next issue: Changing Families, Changing Women. Deadline extended to: November 1, 2015. There is no denying that families, particularly in the West, are changing, and will continue to do so in the future. At the same time, women are also undergoing radical change. What are the implications for society as a whole and for each of us as individuals? While the traditional definition of family as a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether living together or not, still holds, the interpretation and lived experience varies according to culture, religious beliefs, geography, and economic conditions. Advances in medicine and technology raise the fundamental question as to what actually constitutes a family. In every case, women’s place and women’s role is central to the vitality of the family. In this issue of the “Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought,” we will explore the interrelationship between changing families and women. We join with on-going political and religious efforts to address this issue
Birth of a Nation\u27s Story in the Public Square
Get PDFReleased in 1915, when the Civil War still occupied a significant portion of the American populace\u27s living memory, The Birth of a Nation is ironically a reconstruction era film that aims to deconstruct the memory of any advances and achievements of that period immediately following the war. Griffith framed the rise of the black person toward equality as being what led to the fall of the white man, specifically the southern white man, in America. In the movie there are baseless depictions of black politicians alternately drinking, sleeping, and putting their bare feet on tables in houses of government
The Judge’s Hold: A Struggle for Voice in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian
Get PDFCormac McCarthy\u27s Blood Meridian is a novel that provides a clear critique on the ways in which the American west was acquired. The text is awash with gratuitous violence, symbolism and storytelling, together creating a piece that offers a modern interpretation of American identity. This analysis will approach the novel by examining a struggle for voice between the two main characters Judge Holden and The Kid in the narration. In doing so, it will be shown that Blood Meridian uses Holden\u27s voice to suppress all other worldviews within the text in order to show the invulnerability of the political rhetoric employed in the nineteenth century