Status of Summer work...

Since my work has taken the turn to the historical, I thought that this would increase the amount of time it would take for me to finish this bloody dissertation thing. Instead I am about 55 pages completed with three other chapters on the horizon. Here is some of the progress of my work:

 I have explored the work of recent theologians and philosophers for the last couple of years thinking about how this actually has helped my overall work.  First, struggling with concepts is rewarding in and of itself, but what my reading of thinkers like Zizek, Agamben and others have taught me is that they are often leaning on older thinkers within the philosophical tradition. The main figures, who are obviously having an impact on theological thought today, are, for me, Hegel and Spinoza. One of the things I have taken from both philosophers is that, one, labeling them in a particular school is hard and sometimes anachronistic, and, two, I found that it is better to see their historical impact and appreciate their contribution than to whine and complain about how they took things down a wrong turn or that they need to somehow be overcome. Their discussion of theological matters has had an important impact in all factors of human thought (see Jonathan Israel's majestic work if you think Spinoza is not important).

 Again, exploring the history of this tradition (and yes, I think one can see a flow from Spinoza to Schleiermacher and Hegel) has moved the trajectory on how we have historically thought about God, among other things. One can judge the merits of this turn, but, as I just start to wrestle with this history, I must admit that I stand with a certain awe of the so-called Spinozian line and the way Hegel wrestled with post-Kantian thought.  Hegel and Spinoza are very difficult thinkers that need real dedication to understand their ideas, but I have a feeling that the payoff is extremely rewarding.

 Where does Barth fit in? Well, for some who follow the neo-orthodox argument he really does not, because he is anti-modern; but if Bruce McCormack's recent interpretation of modern theology is correct then it helps lead Barth to a more actualistic understanding of God, which is very modern because it is built around a terminology that came from both Spinoza and Hegel (and Kant).  I think that my driving point here has been to articulate a thoroughly Protestant theology and to see an intellectual history that moves from the late seventeenth century into the twentieth century.  However, even against a certain Barthianism, I want to follow a sort of German tradition that notes how much Barth inherited his ideas from the nineteenth century tradition he is so noted for taking on.

Cohen on Judaism and Christianity

Enlightenment, Kant and Race

I have been buried deep in historical works on the Enlightenment, paying close attention to the issue of religion and the eighteenth century (also issues of secularization).  One aspect I will at least try to incorporate is the way the Enlightenment has been challenged in the last thirty years from the postmodern, postcolonial ans subaltern studies; from what I can tell, some of these works border the ahistorical and the imaginary.  However, J. Kameron Carter's work Race does a good job in making the point that modern racism has its roots in supersessionism.  Here is a key quote on his damning chapter on the Prussian philosopher:

For Kant, the teleological movement toward the perfect race—carried out by white flesh and contrasted to the limitations of the black race—is not yet complete. Indeed, his project, I claim, from the great critical and moral philosophy, with its account of aesthetics and its teleology of culture, to his political and religious outlook, is an attempt to work out how Aufkla¨rung as humankind’s stepping out (Ausgang) of immaturity into maturity is the sociopolitical process by which the project of whiteness is to be completed as the project of reason. The reconstituted and enlightened body politic completes the task of the (perfect) ‘‘race-ing’’ of the body (90).

Israel's work on the Enlightenment

I finally decided to dive into Jonathan Israel's enormous work.  He has written 3 large tomes numbering around 3,000 pages total on the Enlightenment.  His major contribution to modern scholarship is to define the time period along its intellectual bearings.  He classifies it by two categories: the moderate and the radical.  The radical Enlightenment is the one he favors because it is more democratic and egalitarian and has its roots in the thought of Spinoza.

What I am really looking forward to with regards to his last of the trilogy, the Democratic Enlightenment, is his attempt in defining the Enlightenment itself in the first chapter.  This is a serious, well-researched book that  non-historians who think in the shadow of the Enlightenment should at least be aware of.  The more we take the historians seriously when they produce massive works of erudition then the more we will not continue the silly, generalized statements about the Enlightenment.

My article on Barth and Zizek in new Vol 6:1 (2012)

My article on Barth and Zizek and Dialectical Theology is now in the new Zizek journal.  Check it out!!!

http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/view/360/431

It's all Nominalism's Fault???

Part of my dissertation preparation is to read as many books on the "theological" origins of modernity like the recent books by Michael Allen Gillespie and Joshua Mitchell.  In other words, to look at books and essays that note how important religious issues were at the beginning of modernity until the present.  Even the Enlightenment itself was a contest of competing religious options and not simply the triumph of science and rationality over superstition (even though it was probably the French that popularized this particular narrative).

I guess in some cases of popular wisdom, religion has ceased to be a major factor in the continual quest of Western societies quest for modernization.  However, research has shown that the narrative that says religion will be passed by because of growing secularization is a myth.

Now the more and more I read about this issue, the more and more I come to the conclusion that 1) religion is here to stay because it is adaptable (much like many other things in society-see Giddens post on tradition) and 2) in many cases, the religious element has learned to correspond with the secular elements quite well.  In short, it is a very complex relationship between the secular and religious forces.

The problem with books by theorists like Gillespie and others is the need to boil down this complexity to a single, overarching problem.  He claims that it was the Nominalism of Ockham, later inherited by Luther, that led Western society into secularization.  Now Gillespie joins a host of other thinkers (not typically historians, I might add) like Milbank and the RO, who lay blame for modernization at Nominalism.

A recent discussion with George Hunsinger led me to see this move toward the Nominalist bogeyman to be a traditionalist account of modernization.  In other words, when one pulls out the Nominalist card it usually is a catchword for "Catholic" defense of religious traditionalism where the Church is still the controlling center of society (I detect even some of this in Protestant thinkers like Pannenberg).  The fact that modernization and secularization has decreased religious influence in society is frowned upon by many of this group, but I think otherwise.  There is still religious influence in society, sometimes it crosses over the church/state borders, but again, I think that is due to its complexity and in a democratic society with competing structures, it is up to its subjects to work the messiness out.

Finally, of course Nominalism had a part to play in the beginning of modernity, but I do not think it had the central part.

Giddens and Tradition

As I get closer to actually writing my dissertation, I have really tried to look at all the possible ways to analyze "my" actual methodology.  Because of my experience in studying historiography, I have lately developed a sort of love affair with sociology.  Mind you, this is not a "Christianized" sociology, much like I don't like to talk about a "Christianized" history.  Since I will be teaching Historiography in the Fall, I will be dedicating much of my summer time to exploring important sociologist with regards to modernity.

A couple of sociologists I have warmed up to are Pierre Bourdieu and Anthony Giddens.  What makes both of these figures special is that they fall somewhere in the middle with regards to the structure and agency argument.   Being the Barth guy that I am, I believe that Barth is also somewhere in the middle of the two; one can see his late work on Christian witness as an effect in light of the Spirit's previous work in giving humans real agency but without losing the focus of our place in societies structures.

I have only read a little from Giddens; I have just purchased his Consequences of Modernity and just read his short book Runaway World.  One thing that stood out to me is his important words about traditions and the Enlightenment:

"In my view, it is entirely rational to recognise that traditions are needed in society.  We shouldn't accept the Enlightenment idea that the world should rid itself of tradition altogether.  Traditions are needed, and will always persist, because they give continuity and form to life." (62-3)

The valuable point Giddens makes is that traditions will never cease to exist, yet, in the globalized world, traditions will find it difficult not to change, adapt and reinvent themselves in order to survive.  In fact, tradtions have historically always adapted to their environment.  One of the mistakes that the "secular" Enlightenment made were to make superstition and ignorance synonymous with tradition.