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"Sister Death: Political Theologies for Living and Dying (this is the final iteration of the title) borrows the figure of Sister Death from Francis of Assisi in order to stage a critique of political theologies, found in all western "religions of the book"-Christianity, Judaism, Islam-and in other traditions as well, such as Zoroastrianism, that pit life and death against each other as ultimate enemies. This metaphor activates, within our mortal bodies, a permanent state of war. And it creates a social bifurcation between people who are said to be on the side of life and others who are on the side of death-the ultimate good and the ultimate evil. The book argues that this political theology ...
The essays in this book take an exciting and creative approach to doing theology in the twenty-first century
The Allure of Things: Process and Object in Contemporary Philosophy contests the view that metaphysics is something to be overcome. By focusing on process and object oriented ontology (OOO) and rejecting the privileging of human existence over the existence of non-human objects, this collection explores philosophy's concern with things themselves. Interest in Latour, Stengers, Whitehead, Harman and Meillassoux has prompted a resurgence of ontological questions outside the traditional subject-object framework of modern critical thought. This new collection consequently proposes a pragmatic and pluralist approach to 'modes of existence'. Drawing together an international range of leading scholars, The Allure of Things fully covers the similarities between OOO and process philosophy, and is an essential addition to the literature on metaphysics.
It feels like the world is ending. In the midst of apocalyptic times it’s tempting to cling on tightly to what we still have. But what if our desire to save the world is part of the problem? Theology for the End of the World suggests that in responding to the deeply entwined systems of capitalism, racism and patriarchy we should stop trying to unearth a ‘good version’ of Christianity which stands opposed to these forms of violence and seek instead to reckon with the role that Christianity has played in making the world we now inhabit. How has Christianity shaped the histories of marriage and the family? How did Christianity invent race and give birth to capitalism? Grappling with the ambivalent inheritance of Christianity, a tradition passed down by enslaved people and enslavers; by violent husbands, resourceful wives and courageous sex workers; by rich people and the dispossessed, the book suggests Christians should give up on trying to redeem the world – a social order founded on violence and exploitation – and seek instead to end it.
This book explores how contemporary approaches to the meaning of time and history follow patterns that are simultaneously political and theological. Even after postsecular critiques of Christianity, religion, and secularity, many influential ways of dividing time and history continue to be formed by providential narratives that mediate between experience and expectation in movements from promise to fulfilment. In response to persistent theological influences within ostensibly secular ways of understanding time and history, Postsecular History revisits and revises the concept of periodization by tracing powerful efforts to divide time into past, present, and future, and by critiquing historical partitions between the Reformation and Enlightenment. Developing a postsecular critique of theopolitical periodization in six chapters, Postsecular History questions how relations of possession, novelty, freedom, and instrumentality implied in the prefix ‘post’ are reproduced in postsecular discourses and the field of political theology.
From the Editorial Introduction: "If the first volume of Speculations was enough of an explicit wager, a willing blind leap in the terra incognita of the publishing world, then this volume forces us to stop and evaluate the reasons for the journal's protracted existence. This is all the more important when we consider how the range of meanings of the term 'speculative realism' seems to be growing--with increasing numbers of thinkers situating themselves in its trail, or holding a somewhat cautious interest in it--while its e ective reference seems nowhere to be found. ..."
Same essence, same food: nourishment, formation, and education in early Christianity -- The symbolic power of food in the Greco-Roman world -- Mother's milk as ethno-religious essence in ancient Judaism -- Ruminating on Paul's food in the second century -- Animal, vegetable, milk: Origen's dietary system -- Gregory of Nyssa at the breast of the bridegroom -- Milk without growth: Augustine and the limits of formation -- Conclusion
In Wonder as a New Starting Point for Theological Anthropology: Opened by the World, José Francisco Morales Torres constructs a new theological anthropology that begins with wonder. He contends that the visceral experience of wonder is an opening up of the human by an excess that saturates the world. This opened-by-ness points to a transforming receptivity as the basis of the person and to an extravagant Generosity that grounds all creation. Thus, wonder, which is grounded in generous Excess, is not only a gift but a demand: it calls for a liberative praxis that resist the forces that flatten the fullness of life into what is ‘useful’ and profitable and that reduce the limitless worth of fellow humans to mere commodities to be exploited and exchanged at the altar of the idolatrous ‘Market’. Wonder reveals a primordial receptivity in the human person, which demands of us an ethic of sustainability that does not reduce the other to commodity, a vulnerability that risks being opened by the other, a commitment to solidarity and liberation that resist the forces of an insatiable, idolatrous Market that seeks “only to steal and kill and destroy.”
If death is the cessation of life, then, as a concept, it draws its meaning from the preceding life. While death and dying are inextricably connected, dying is still a part of life—unlike death. The Meaning of Death: A Philosophical Investigation analyzes death and dying, the biotechnical quest for immortality, the afterlife, and the rationality of self-chosen death. Assuming eternal life will one day become possible, Kai Horsthemke argues that immortality is not obviously desirable, and that. even if the right to life in principle includes the right to eternal life, it must also include the right to self-determined dying and death. Although there is no creationist basis for existence and the finality of death remains a universal, inevitable prospect, this need not undermine confidence in the personal and transpersonal value of human activities. Life is valuable not only because of its uniqueness and unrepeatability, but also because it is finite. The meaning of death is essentially that it gives meaning to life.
This book explores how a group of Victorian literary writers - including George Eliot, Walter Pater, and Matthew Arnold - became interested in the emerging anthropology of religion, which sought to explain religion not in terms of doctrines or beliefs but as a function of race or ethnicity.