New Book – Reexamining Deconstruction and Determinate Religion
Given the invigorating discussions that occur on this blog about the intersection of religion and postmodernism, I wanted to just note the publication of a new book that Stephen Minister and I have edited that is likely to be of interest to “Church and Postmodernism” readers. It is entitled, Reexamining Deconstruction and Determinate Religion: Toward a Religion with Religion (Duquesne University Press, 2012), and features essays by Stephen and I as well as scholars... Read More
Response to Downing: Police at Play
Mea culpa. How else could I respond to Crystal Downing’s gracious, rightly-critical engagement with The Fall of Interpretation? In what was a moment of (rather Caputo-an?[1]) flourish, I seem to have blamed an entire discipline for mis-readings of Derrida. And this despite the fact that, as Downing rightly points out, there are plenty of professors of philosophy and religious studies who are equally to blame, and plenty of professors of English who offered astute readings... Read More
The Ghost in The Fall
Unlike Jacques Derrida, who was haunted by specters of Karl Marx, I am haunted by specters of JKA Smith. My first glimpse of Smith’s ghostly presence came in 2005, when an anonymous reader for my soon-to-be published book on postmodernism berated me for never mentioning The Fall of Interpretation. As I checked Smith’s text out of my college library, planning to include it in my last-minute revisions, I noted how well worn it was, as though, like Hamlet’s ghost, it had wandered... Read More
“I am the Church, you are the Church, we are the Church together…”
I first read The Fall of Interpretation (FoI) in the Fall of 2002. I had learned shortly before the semester had begun that the Philosophy of Language class I had signed up for was going to be taught by a new prof, some young guy who looked like he belonged in an Old Navy catalogue rather than in the Ivory Tower (when all you’ve got to go by is a headshot on the department homepage, you make these kind of characterizations, fair or otherwise). As it turned out, he was a pretty... Read More
What Facebook Makes Us
In an interview toward the end of his life, Michel Foucault pointed out that for all the interest in power that his work had generated, he was really more interested in the subject and what effects various forces of power had in terms of creating certain kinds of subjectivities. Those of us who work within and think about the church ought to be concerned about subjectivity. One obvious reason: liturgical formation is meant to make us certain kinds of subjects, or perhaps more... Read More
RESOURCE: Jamie Smith on A/Theism
A/Theism is an interesting move within the conversation about postmodern theology and the church. An effort by some to overcome onto-theological concerns, you can find it in the writings of the emerging church leader Peter Rollins and in the academic work of John D. Caputo — to name only a couple of thinkers familiar to readers of this blog. Our own series editor, James K. A. Smith, offered a lecture at the University of Ottawa in 2010 entitled “Beyond A/Theism: Postmodernity... Read More
Resource: Derrida and Theology
From time to time, one of the new things we’ll try to do here at churchandpomo is offer resources to you hungry readers. As a practitioner and academic, I’ve found it helpful to delve into the vast virtual realm of the interwebs to mine them for whatever interesting tidbits I might find on continental thought, postmodern theology, and the very elusive bit which brings both of those together with practical ministry concerns. So the Resources will hopefully be digital... Read More
