I’m in the middle of completing a funding application for an Irish Research Council (IRC) post-doctoral research fellowship (2 years), based at the Belfast campus of Trinity College Dublin’s Irish School of Ecumemics. The project brings back together a more philosophical study of the suspension and potentiality of being of my research interests (which I focused on here for this - unsuccessful - PhD in Philosophy application) with the empirical study of the emerging church practice of identity suspension in ‘suspended space’ to examine their potential to affect socio-political transformation.

If successful in my application, the project would be mentored by Gladys Ganiel, Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation, and Ireland’s foremost expert on the emerging church.

The project is entitled, ‘Saint Paul, the Emerging Church, and the Politics of Identity Suspension: Exploring New Religious Approaches to Socio-Political Transformation’, and here’s some of the proposal I’ve been putting together:

Abstract

Contemporary philosophical interpretations of Saint Paul argue against identity politics and standpoint epistemologies in favour of a generic humanity or universal humanism. For philosophers such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, identity politics fragments humanity into special interest groups competing for recognition within the existing social system, thereby weakening possibilities for political resistance and collective action. Elements of the ‘emerging church’ – a diverse, transnational milieu exploring Christian belief, faith and life in conversation with both inherited traditions and contemporary cultures – seek to embody insights from philosophers like Badiou and Žižek in their lived, everyday practices.

This is the first project to ask how elements within a small but burgeoning religious movement are gathering around the religious turn in radical political thought and what its implications might be for the relationship between religion, identity, and socio-political transformation.

Bringing recent scholarship on Paul together with a focused, ethnographic study of Ikon, Belfast, and Ikon, New York City (NYC), this approach is in contrast to much of the current literature on emerging Christianity, which portrays it as the contextualisation of church structures and mission forms, thereby domesticating the radicality of the emerging theologies and practices that are the focus of my research. Instead, I argue that radical collectives within this milieu should be more properly understood as forming part of a wider political movement.

I heard today that my funding application for a PhD in Philosophy at Oxford Brookes was unsuccessful. I’d been so hopeful that I’d be able to have a nice three year chunk of time to study continental philosophy, philosophical interpretations of Saint Paul, the notions of suspension and potentiality, feminist philosophy of religion, and critiques of identity politics. Not to mention three years when my husband and I would finally, finally, know what was happening in our lives. Sigh. I’m really disappointed.

The feedback from the shortlisting panel was that they were ‘very impressed with the quality of [my proposal’s] structure and the richness of its content’. But that, after much discussion, they thought my application ‘had the character of a proposal for a research project which included a monograph rather than [for] a postgraduate research studentship as commonly understood’.

So, in essence, it seems like my proposal was too good.

But Bev Clack and the head of the History, Philosophy and Religion department seem keen to meet up to talk about writing a post-doctoral funding application, and they seem genuine rather than just being placatory after disappointing me about the PhD in Philosophy. So we’ll see what comes of that.

Still no money. 

But at least there’s another funding bid on the horizon.

To celebrate three years of unemployment since I finished my PhD in Religious Studies, I’m applying for a second doctorate, this time in Philosophy, in the History, Philosophy and Religion department at Oxford Brookes University. While this is obviously an attempt to fund my work any way I can, I’ve thought hard about how a PhD in Philosophy will enable me to position myself as a philosopher, as well as a researcher of religion, and I’m really looking forward to working with Bev Clack and gaining more of a grounding in feminist philosophy of religion. As a PhD in Philosophy, my proposal focuses on the philosophical aspects of my work in more detail, leaving aside the empirical study of the emerging church practice of ‘suspended space’ which has been a feature of some of my other research proposals. Here’s some of the final draft:

Introduction

Contemporary philosophical interpretations of Saint Paul argue against identity politics and standpoint epistemologies in favour of a generic humanity or universal humanism. For philosophers such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek, identity politics fragments humanity into special interest groups competing for recognition within the existing social system, thereby weakening possibilities for political resistance and collective action. However, feminist approaches to religion and politics have traditionally utilised identity politics and standpoint epistemologies in both scholarship and activism. This project asks what a political, feminist philosophy of religion might look like against the backdrop of this ‘turn to Paul’, by examining the relationship between these readings of Paul’s Letters, on the one hand, and feminist philosophy of religion, political philosophy, and approaches to the study of Paul, on the other.

I’ve been trying to get a post-doc project funded for a while now - on identity politics, secular philosophical interpretations of Saint Paul and emerging Christianity (see, for example, this post about it, here). Over the last month, I’ve been mulling over a way of combining this previous idea with more of a focus in the feminist philosophy of religion. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Research Title

Ir/Religion and Society: Saint Paul and the Philosophy of Identity Suspension

Introduction

This project examines the relationship between contemporary philosophical interpretations of Paul’s Letters (Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Slavoj Žižek, etc), which argue against identity politics and standpoint epistemologies in favour of a generic humanity or universal humanism, and feminist philosophy of religion and approaches to the study of Saint Paul. It contributes in particular to knowledge of the relationship between philosophy of religion and lived or material religious practices, as well as to debates about political subjectivity and collective political action.

I’ve just sent off my Expression of Interest to Gordon Lynch at the University of Kent, which is a kind of application to apply through Kent to the Leverhulme Trust for a three year Early Career Fellowship. My proposed project is entitled “Saint Paul and the Politics of Identity Suspension”, so I’m really excited that Ward Blanton will be moving to Kent in January. He’s really interested in my project and hopes it gets funded. Fingers crossed others in the department agree and that I get to apply to the Leverhulme Trust through them. Here’s the proposal:

I heard a while back that my abstract (see here) for the International Society for Religion, Literature and Culture conference at the University of Copenhagen had been accepted and I then applied for a bursary to cover the conference fees (£170-200), which I heard a few days ago I got. This means I’ll only have to pay for flights and accommodation.

My husband and I had been hoping to make Copenhagen our holiday this year, having a few nights either side of the conference for sight-seeing etc., but we’ve come to realise that we just can’t afford to both go, which is really sad. 

Greenbelt 2012 it is, then.

From the Introduction (download PDF for free here) to Political Theology’s special issue (13/2) on speculative philosophies and religious practices, which contains my article, “Retrospective Speculative Philosophy: Looking for Traces of Zizek’s Communist Collective in Emerging Christian Praxis”:

Katharine Moody… [studies] the work of Zizek and his atheistic speculative philosophy as it might relate to emerging religious practice as represented in the practice of Peter Rollins in particular. Zizek talks about a “God who dies” and the surviving Christian community of believers driven by the Holy Spirit as what remains following Christ’s death. He does, however, tend to suggest that it is only outside the boundaries of institutional religion and churches that this residual revolutionary praxis is to be encountered.

Moody questions this and suggests that Rollins’s emerging transformative and creative movements, as found in Ikon (an emerging church project in Belfast, Northern Ireland), offer an example of an heretical and apocalyptic practice which exists, albeit uncomfortably, both within and beyond institutional boundaries. This is a religious collective, but one that exhibits a “faith beyond religion” and is close to Caputo’s deconstructive theology. Perhaps the crucial characteristic of this movement is that beliefs are held lightly, whilst it is the embodied practices of emerging and often doubt-driven collective worship and activity that are the central aspects of what is now developing.

Whether or not this bears much resemblance to Zizek’s new communist collective is a question that Moody suggests requires further research.

If someone would just give me some MONEY!!!

A round-up of posts on church resources for a “Forsaken by God” Good Friday or Holy Saturday service to mark the end of Atheism for Lent. I’d love to hear about any other ideas for resources (readings, prayers, music, liturgy, rituals, etc.):

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 1)

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 2)

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 3)

Interrupting God: Take Jesus Down from the Cross

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 4)

Ed Harcourt’s “Church of No Religion”

Atheism for Lent: Forsaken by God (Resources 5)

Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours”

Kester Brewin’s “God is Dead. Good.”

Sydney Carter’s “Friday Morning”

Ann Kim’s “Eloi eloi lama sabachthani”

Pádraig ô Tuama’s “Maranatha”

REM’s Losing my Religion (in a major rather than minor key)

Here’s the link to all Atheism for Lent related posts:

katharinesarahmoody.tumblr.com/tagged/atheism-for-lent 

The 2nd Power of the Word conference (organised jointly by the Institute of English Studies and Heythrop College, University of London) will be on the theme of Poetry and Prayer: Continuities and Discontinuities. (Senate House, University of London, 29-30 June 2012).

Here’s the Call for Papers:

Prayer is the little implement
Through which Men reach
Where Presence—is denied them

Emily Dickinson

The second Power of the Word conference focuses on the theme of poetry and prayer. It seeks to promote further the dialogue, begun successfully at Heythrop College in last June’s conference, between theologians, philosophers, literary scholars and creative writers about the following questions:

What do poetry and prayer share?

How do they differ?

In what ways do they relate to each other?

Having spent yesterday writing my Expression of Interest for the University of Nottingham’s Advance Research Fellowship Scheme, I’m abandoning this funding bid after advice from the department I had hoped would support my application. I was told that the key criteria they are looking for are:

• a steller track record at the world’s top universities;
• a considerable list of significant publications, including at least a contract for a major book based on a PhD dissertation; and
• prior experience of a post-doctoral fellowship.

They then said that only after these criteria are met do they consider the intrinsic significance of the research project.

The Dean of Faculty has specified that a published book should be the minimum for a successful candidate, so I’m wasting my time applying. “It is probably not worth re-working the EOI [Expression of Interest] at this stage.”

Well, at least they were honest about my chances and didn’t string me along giving me false hope!

I’m coming to the conclusion that I need to stop applying for jobs, since it has been distracting me from writing my book which, in turn, stops me from getting appointed when I do get shortlisted for interview.

So I’m going to spend the next few months on my various writing projects and hope that enough things are published by the 31 Dec 2013 REF publication submission deadline to make me irresistible to employers.

I have to remind myself to stop getting distracted by applying for jobs.

The University of Nottingham’s Advance Research Fellowship Scheme deadline is a week today (5pm, Nov 7).

I’ll be applying to be hosted by the Centre of Thelogy and Philosophy, in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies.

My proposal is a two-year version of the three-year proposal that I’ve been using to apply for funding elsewhere, “Ir/Religion and Society: Derrida, Zizek and Political Theology“ (see abstract here).

I’ve just submitted an application to the British Academy post-doctoral fellowship scheme for a project based in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool.

The proposal is for a three year project entitled “ Ir/Religion and Society: Derrida, Zizek and Political Theology.”  Here’s the abstract:

Theological engagements with the work of Jacques Derrida and Slavoj Zizek are catching the imaginations of many western Christians. This project further examines a previously identified “a/theism” in emerging Christian discourse that celebrates the complex relationship between John D. Caputo’s Derridean theology and Zizek’s materialist atheology.

The practice of “suspended space” is imagined to disrupt conventional social distinctions to create “ir/religious” collectives with the potential to form an alternative sociality (Peter Rollins). I interrogate qualitative data to evaluate the relationship between this performance of identity suspension and the transformation of social and political practices outside such liturgical spaces.

I ask what the implications of a/theism might be for political theology and European philosophy of religion and society, and explore the impact of ir/religious political collectives, formed from the position of those excluded or subtracted from the existing order, on debates about individualism and communitarianism, cosmopolitanism and identity politics.

This is my third (and final, given the date of my 2010 viva voce) attempt at a BA fellowship. So, fingers crossed. The results of the first round of applications (the outline stage) come out during January.