“The Humanities and Lived Religion: Philosophy, Religious Studies and the Impact Agenda” was the first workshop of the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded network, Philosophy and Religious Practices. It brought together over 50 delegates from a variety of disciplines working in universities throughout the UK, as well as many non-academics with a vested interest in religion from the local area. Follow this link for a report of the day.

A rough cut of an interview I did after “Subverting the Norm II: Can Postmodern Theology Live in the Churches?” (Apr 5-6 2013, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri). George Elerick was asking me questions on behalf of Emigre New Monasticism.

In my first ever interview, I talk mainly about my work at the intersection of philosophy, theology and religious studies, exploring in particular how continental philosophy and radical theology are impacting everyday religious discourse and practice. I also introduce the direction that I want to go in next, looking at the political potential of various philosophies of identity suspension and of the emerging practice of suspended space.

Apparently there were a load of questions that didn’t get asked, so I’ll think about posting responses to them when I get back from this event in Belfast next week.

The second in a series of posts over at the Philosophy and Religious Practices blog, introducing those closely involved with this new research network. 

Hollis Phelps, who will be presenting at “Subverting the Norm II: Can Postmodern Theology Live in the Churches?” (Apr 5-6 2013, Drury University, Springfield, Missouri), previews his forthcoming book, Alain Badiou: Between Theology and Anti-Theology (Acumen Pubishing, 2013).

New book on the topic of theopoetics forthcoming August 2013, Roland Faber and Jeremy Fackenthal, eds, Theopoetic Folds: Philosophizing Multifariousness (Fordham University Press), containing chapters from Jack Caputo and Catherine Keller. Here’s a brief blurb:

In complex philosophical ways, theology is, should, and can be a “theopoetics” of multiplicity. The ambivalent term theopoetics is associated with poetry and aesthetic theory; theology and literature; and repressed literary qualities, myths, and metaphorical theologies. On a more profound basis, it questions the establishment of the difference between philosophy and theology and resides in the dangerous realm of relativism. The chapters in this book explore how the term theopoetics contributes to cutting-edge work in theology, philosophy, literature, and sociology.

I’ve been ill for a week, which was frustrating, but I’m starting to resurface now. It’s the new year, and I’ve got some new titles.

I emailed my editor at Ashgate to give her a new subtitle to go with the new title of my first monograph, Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity: Deconstruction, Materialism and Religious Practice. I think it signals the different philosophical traditions that I’m focusing on deconstruction and materialism) and that I’m holding philosophy of religion with the study of lived religion. I could’ve gone with Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity: John D. Caputo, Slavoj Zizek and Religious Practice, but I wanted to indicate a broader focus than that, especially since I also include some work on Alain Badiou in this book.

Also, from Jan 1st, I’ve been able to introduce myself as Katharine Sarah Moody, University of Liverpool, because of my work on our AHRC-funded Philosophy and Religious Practices network. Even though I’m only working for the university four hours a week, it will hopefully help first impressions, when I apply for full-times, to give my current title as Research Associate, Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool.

Dan and I just submitted an abstract for this “Impact of Religion: Challenges for Society, Law and Democracy” conference, May 20-23 2013, Uppsala University, Sweden. We had a lovely abstract for an organised panel session where we’d give a paper each. The call for papers said 200 word paper abstracts, so we figured we could have 400 words for a panel session abstract. But then I had to butcher it down to this to get it to fit in the designated box (1300 characters) in the online abstract submission system. Grrr.

Panel Session Title

THE IMPACT OF RESEARCH ON RELIGION IN A HUMANITIES CONTEXT

Panel Session Abstract

Humanities research on religion has typically been marginalised, and often for good reason. Its ‘disregard of reality’ (as Brian Clack puts it) is damning when it comes to its lack of engagement with actual religious practices. Yet the wager of this panel is that the Humanities do have much to offer research on religion.

Organised by the UK’s Philosophy and Religious Practices Network, this panel considers not just the impact of religion on society but the social impact of research on religion. That is, what is of interest here is the way in which Humanities research can and should feed back into the everyday lives of religious practitioners and, in particular, what distinctive contribution philosophy of religion and theology can make to concrete religious discourse and practice.

We provide the context for contemporary engagement in the Humanities with lived religion and recent attempts to overcome (especially) philosophy of religion’s famed indifference here, honing in on two specific areas in which philosophy of religion can play a distinctive role in research on religion, society, law and democracy. We then introduce a series of impact events designed to explore how the impact of Humanities research on religion be encouraged and measured.

“My atheism gets on in the churches, all the churches, do you understand that?” -- Jacques Derrida

Subverting the Norm — a two-day event that brings together pastors, theologians, philosophers, church practitioners, and researchers in religion — asks a follow-up question:Can postmodern theology live in the churches? As such, we are interested in presentations that explore the relationship between radical theologies and the church.

I’m excited today to be working with Phil Snider on the call for presentations for the second international Subverting the Norm conference, “Can Postmodern Theology Live in the Churches?” (Drury University, Springfield, Missouri, Apr 5-6 2013). We’re looking for presentations in a variety of formats that explore the relationship between radical theology, continental philosophy and religious practice. Hopefully the CFPs will be up on the website in a few days.

I’m also really glad that Namsoon Kang will be presenting at this conference. I didn’t know her or her work, but the blurb for her forthcoming book Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World (Chalice Press, 2013) looks really interesting:

In Cosmopolitan Theology, Namsoon Kang proposes that cosmopolitan theology embraces and at the same time moves beyond collective identity position and group-based allegiances. It crosses borders of gender, race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, and ability. Kang offers a vision of a global community of radical inclusion, solidarity, and deep compassion and justice for others. Blending theology with philosophy, she crosses borders of academism and activism, and the discursive borders of modernism, postmodernism, feminism, and postcolonialism. Cosmopolitan Theology sheds a new light both in academia and the community of Christian believers by providing a public relevance of Jesus’ teaching of neighbor-love, hospitality, and solidarity in our world today.

I think that we’ll have overlapping research interests in theology, philosophy and identity politics, so I’m looking forward to meeting her.

At the suggestion of my editor at Ashgate, I’ve changed the title of my first monograph from Truth as Event: Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity to Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity. I’m going to have a think about a new subtitle.

I’ve just heard from Dan Whistler (University of Liverpool) that our AHRC funding bid for a research impact network, ‘Philosophy and Religious Practices’, has been successful. This is great news. It means that I’ll have 5 hrs work a week for the duration of the project (Dec 2012 - Apr 2014) and will no longer be (totally) jobless. I will be able to put Administrator and Impact Co-ordinator as my current employment on my CV. At last! Current employment!!!

The research impact network is based on collaborative research links between the Departments of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool and of Theology, Philosophy and Religious Studies at Liverpool Hope University, the Centre for Faiths and Public Policy at the University of Chester, and faith communities in the North West of England.

I got an email last night from US publishers Wipf and Stock to say that they’ve accepted my book for publication under their imprint Cascade. It means that I’ll have two monographs stemming from my doctoral research on how the notion of truth is conceptualized in emerging Christian discourse.

The first book, Truth as Event: Radical Theology and Emerging Christianity (forthcoming in Spring 2013 with Ashgate), focuses on truth as an event, tracing this notion as it emerges in the work of Jacques Derrida, John D. Caputo, Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek, and exploring how these ‘thinkers of the event’ impact contemporary religious practice within the emerging church milieu.

The second book, currently entitled Post-Secular Theology and the Church: A New Kind of Christian is A New Kind of Atheist (although I keep changing my mind on the main title), focuses on the relationship between Radical Orthodoxy, deconstruction, and emerging Christianity. Here’s some blurb:

Both Radical Orthodoxy and deconstruction have been suggested as theologically apt for emerging Christianity. This book provides an accessible introduction to these ‘post-secular’ theologies, demonstrating how emerging church discourse positions them into narratives to make sense of two divergent forms of emergent religiosity: Deep Church and A/Theism.

Focusing in particular on James K.A. Smith’s ‘Reformed’ Radical Orthodoxy and Deep Church, on the one hand, and John D. Caputo’s deconstructive ‘weak theology’ and A/Theism, on the other, Post-Secular Theology and the Church is about the relationship between institutional religion and the ‘postmodern turn’.

While Smith has distinguished between his own ‘two cheers approach’ to postmodernism and others’ three cheers, Caputo has recently argued against the tendency to settle for ‘an abridged postmodernism’. This book uses emerging church participants’ own words, stories and practices, gathered through interviews, observations, literature and media, to chart some of the ways in which these differing postmodern theologies are impacting lived religion. It details how contemporary Christianity has responded to the postmodern turn to create what Brian McLaren calls ‘a new kind of Christian’ and suggests that such a new kind of Christian is also a new kind of atheist – the ‘a/theist’. 

I’m hoping that it will come out some time in 2013.

Out now by Ola Sigurdson, Theology and Marxism in Eagleton and Zizek: A Conspiracy of Hope (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012):

Taking its cue from the renewed interest in theology among Marxist and politically radical philosophers or thinkers, this study inquires into the reasons for this interest in theology focusing on the British literary theorist Terry Eagleton and the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek, as two contemporary prominent Marxist thinkers.

The Society for the Study of Theology is hosting its 61st annual conference, on the theme of ”The Holy Spirit.”

How does the Spirit shape human life and history? How is the Spirit present to the Father and the Son? How is the Spirit active in the Church? Does the Spirit elude representation?

Plenary speakers will include Valerie Cooper, Rachel Muers, Alan Sell and Amos Yong, and Graham Ward will deliver his Presidential Address.

The SST invite proposals for short papers (2,000 words) on the conference theme and for seminar papers on a range of ongoing topics (seminars running in 2012 include: Church, Theology and Ministry; Doctrine after Christendom; Philosophy and Theology; Theological Anthropology; Theological Ethics; Theology and the Arts; Theology, Feminism and Gender; and Trinity and Christology). There’s also a bursary fund.

I’m going to submit something around my work extending Slavoj Zizek’s notion of the Holy Spirit.