If one has finally perceived that writing a good syllabus is difficult for the first time, choosing reading selections are much harder — especially for undergrad classes.
For those of you still looking for those last few readings, or just now beginning to write your syllabus (shame on you), take note of the collaborative project between AAR and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning: the syllabus project. See here and here.
I’ll be giving a paper at the Upper Midwest AAR on April 1-2 titled “An Impasse in American Theology and How We can Begin to Get Beyond It: Gary Dorrien, Stanley Hauerwas, Rowan Williams, and Sovereignty.” If you’ll be in the Twin cities then, be sure to stop by.
Anyone else going?
In case you are unaware, there is a call for papers at the next AAR on engagement with the political theology of Johannes Baptist Metz.
Yeah, I’ve already submitted mine. Here is the call:
The “Explorations in Christian Theology and Apocalyptic” working group invites individual paper proposals for an “additional meeting” at the 2010 American Academy of Religion meeting on the following topic: “Engagements with the Political Theology of Johannes Baptist Metz.” We especially welcome proposals that engage the turn to apocalyptic within Metz’s theology and the ideas particularly associated with this turn in his theology, such as: the “eschatological reserve”; “dangerous memory”; the Second Coming; discipleship; mysticism and prayer; the relation of the Kingdom of God to history; the nature and definition of “the political” and political authority/sovereignty (particularly “the authority of those who suffer”); and martyrdom/witness. We also encourage proposals that explore these themes by bringing Metz into critical conversation with other political and liberationist theologians (such as Jürgen Moltmann, Gustavo Gutierrez, and Jon Sobrino); political theorists (such as Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, and Giorgio Agamben); and prominent political activists and theologians (such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, William Stringfellow, Jacques Ellul, and Will Campbell). Paper presentations will be ca. 20 minutes in length and the panel will include an invited respondent. Proposals should include your name, institutional affiliation, and the title(s) of the proposed paper(s), as well as a 250 word abstract for each proposed paper. Proposals should be submitted via email to Nathan Kerr (nkerr@trevecca.edu) and/or Philip Ziegler (p.ziegler@abdn.ac.uk) no later than March 22, 2010.
Also, there looks to be a great panel on a new book by a professor of mine from Union — Christopher Morse. By the way, his Barth class was excellent. Here is the available information:
This will be a panel discussion of Christopher Morse’s new book, The Difference Heaven Makes: Rehearing the Gospel as News (Continuum, 2010). Panelists will include Katherine Sonderegger (Virginia Theological Seminary), Nancy Duff (Princeton Theological Seminary), Trevor Eppehimer (Hood Theological Seminary), and Donald Wood (University of Aberdeen). Christopher Morse himself will be present to reply. Phil Ziegler (University of Aberdeen) will chair the session. Details of time, place etc. will follow in due course.
I am quite excited for AAR 2010 already.
AAR was again good this year. Conversations were had, people met, and pub time well spent.
The sessions on apocalyptic were good, and there certainly was promise in them for forming an apocalyptic group. I sure hope so, I’ve got a paper in mind to submit for next year. However, I am aghast at how many cuss words Ben worked into his paper. Halden swore up and down they were already in the text and he wasn’t adding the language that no one could ever take back. The Aussie, who knew?
The interview of James Cone by Cornel West was like I was back in class at Union. They seemed to have recorded it, but does anyone know if AAR has ever published such recordings?
I didn’t end up in one session I disliked, although the death of God one went on for a long time. I’m sure people can guess why — the format was a good idea, but really, you expect to do that complex of a format when Zizek has the mic? Still it was rather informative and I appreciated it.
Next year, Atlanta.
In case you’re unaware of Halden’s and Ben’s notices, there will be two excellent sessions on apocalypticism:
A Saturday session (6:30 pm-9:00 pm, FQE-Hochelaga 5) titled “Whither Apocalyptic? Critical Reflections in the Wake of Nathan R. Kerr’s Christ, History and Apocalyptic: The Politics of Christian Mission”; it features Douglas Harink, Travis Kroeker and Cyril O’Regan, with a response by Nate.
And a Sunday session (6:30 pm-9:00 pm, FQE-Hochelaga 5) on “The Apocalyptic Gospel: Theological Responses to the Work of J. Louis Martyn”. This is chaired by Douglas Harink, with papers by David Belcher, Walter Lowe, Ben Myers, and Philip G. Ziegler.
I for one eagerly look forward to both.
My plane tickets are booked, hotel reserved, and reservation made. Who else is going to AAR this year?
I’m back from AAR. I have a few important things I learned:
1. Monty Python was invoked at the beginning of two separate papers in two separate sessions that I went to. Apparently the Flying Circus now passes for a legitimate academic source.
2. The pope was called the last good protestant.
3. There was “hanging out” — imbibing drink and yelling theology — with Ry, David, Thomas, and others who will remain nameless because they don’t have blogs to link to. Good times had by all me thinks.
4. Milbank and Hart should at least treat other people seriously. I just about got up during a session and left. Freaking annoying. Although Milbank’s lecture to the Paul Reading Group wasn’t too bad. I suppose I’ll just skip over sessions with Milbank and Hart at AAR from now on.
5. I was told I looked like Milbank. Gah! I hope it was because of the low light and the beer that the observer had. That puts an entirely new spin on beer goggles eh?
6. Perhaps my favorite quote, although from whom I can’t remember: “The political is a vector on the incarnation.”
7. The best session was by the Bonhoeffer Group talking about Martin Luther King Jr. (even though Elshtain was on it) with Traci C. West and J. Kameron Carter as respondents.
8. Speaking of Carter, his book sold out early Saturday morning.
9. Speaking of books, they’ve got some great discounts at AAR. I’m once again struggling with shelf space. I need a bigger place and more shelves.
10. Do not think you’ll get any homework done when you’re actually at AAR. It just won’t happen.
Some sessions at this coming AAR that really caught my eyes (and doesn’t include the “additional meetings” — the list just started getting too long):
SATURDAY MORNING, 9:00 am-11:30 am
Arts, Literature, and Religion Section
Theme: Milton Matters: A Quadricentennial Consideration of His Reception
Theology and Continental Philosophy Group
Theme: Theology and Materialism
Religions, Social Conflict, and Peace Group
Marla J. Selvidge, University of Central Missouri, Presiding
Theme: Teaching Peace
Drop by our session for reports on how people around the globe are integrating peace strategies into their curricula. There will be case studies from seminaries in Chicago about how they are using transforming strategies to teach peace. Netpeace is an organization that brings together non-religious and religious individuals with hopes of making peace. Others will help us to understand how to communicate in a non-violent way or to integrate peace topics into the academic study of religions.
Le Anne Clausen, Chicago Theological Seminary Unauthorized Peacemaking: Transforming Seminaries and Healing the World (Influences and Early Lessons from the Center for Faith and Peacemaking)
Anna Halafoff, Monash University Netpeace: Multifaith and Secular-religious Networks for Common Security
Elizabeth N. Agnew, Ball State University Needs and “Nonviolent Communication”: Peacemaking and the Religious Studies Curriculum
Atalia Omer, Harvard University Religious Studies and the Study of Religion and Peacebuilding
Heidi Tauscher, Emory University Atlanta World Pilgrims: An Interfaith Pedagogy for Peacemaking, Interreligious Cooperation, and Social Activism
Business Meeting:
Jon Pahl, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia and Marla J. Selvidge, University of Central Missouri, Presiding
Liberation Theologies Consultation
Thia Cooper, Gustavus Adolphus College, Presiding
Theme: Liberation Theologies for the Twenty-first Century
What does liberation theology mean in and for the twenty-first century? This panel of liberationists will engage their particular contexts (economics, politics, sex, gender, ethnicity, race, environment, etc.) with the themes of cross-over dialogue—between contexts and between disciplines; and reflection on the implications of liberationist discourse for the transformation of theology as a whole—both methodologically and theologically.
Panelists:
Rosemary R. Ruether, Claremont Graduate University
George E. Tinker, Denver, CO
Ivan Petrella, University of Miami
Benjamin Valentin, Andover Newton Theological School
Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Drew University
Emilie M. Townes, Yale University
Business Meeting:
Thia Cooper, Gustavus Adolphus College , Presiding
Space, Place, and Religious Meaning Consultation
Joanne Punzo Waghorne, Syracuse University, Presiding
Theme: The Physical, the Material, and the Aural in US Religious Spaces
The study of religion has been expanding to consider not only texts and oral sources gathered through fieldwork, but the role of space and place for understanding the meaning and significance of religion for historical and living communities. This consultation makes use this year of historical and contemporary ethnography to locate religion physically, materially, and aurally in both urban and rural environments in North America. We present visual and tactile expressions marking religious space and place in the form of material culture, folk art, architecture, pilgrimage, public and private display events, as well as the significance of situating religious space in the ever-present, but often over-looked and under-studied, world of human-produced sound.
Thomas E. Frank, Emory University Historic Houses of Worship in Community Memory and Imagination
Brian C. R. Zugay, Texas Tech University “You’re Trying to Make Episcopalians of Us”: Using Organizational Analysis to Understand Architectural Change in the Disciples of Christ, 1922-1946
Airen Hall, Syracuse University Religious World-Making: Pilgrimage and Scriptural
Narrative in the Construction of Latter-Day Saint Sacred Space
Joseph Sciorra, Queens College Built with Faith: Place Making and the Religious
Imagination in Italian New York City
Business Meeting:
Jeanne Halgren Kilde, University of Minnesota, Presiding
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, 1:00 pm-3:30 pm
Wildcard Session
Creston Davis, University of Virginia, Presiding
Theme: On the Relation between A/Theism and the Political; or, The Political Theology of the Void, Parmenides, and St. Paul
Alain Badiou, University of Paris St. Paul and the Politics of the Void
Ernesto Laclau, Northwestern University The Multiple and Hegemony: Badiou’s “Void” and the Via Negativa
Kenneth Reinhard, University of California, Los Angeles There is Something of One (God): Lacan and Political Theology
Mark C. Taylor, Columbia University Holy Terror: A Political Ontology
Responding:
Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana
Kenneth Surin, Duke University
SATURDAY, LATE AFTERNOON, 4:00 pm-6:30 pm
Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group and Theology of Martin Luther King Jr. Consultation
Willis Jenkins, Yale University, Presiding
Jennifer McBride, University of Virginia, Presiding
Theme: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King: Receiving Their Legacies for Christian Social Thought
This panel considers the legacies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. for Christian social thought, and discusses the promise and perils of interpreting the two together. Recognizing the contested claims on each figure, panelists reflect on whether and how to interpret their legacies together. Perhaps the analogous controversies open lines of mutual interpretation, or at least pedagogically useful tensions. Papers and responses from five scholars of Christian social thought describe angles of mutual interpretation that may precipitate new understandings of both King and Bonhoeffer, and that engage the social issues that construct their enduring American importance.
Panelists:
Josiah U. Young, Wesley Theological Seminary
Larry Rasmussen, Union Theological Seminary, New York
Jean Bethke Elshtain, University of Chicago
Traci C. West, Drew University
J. Kameron Carter, Duke University
Theology and the Political Consultation
Jeffrey W. Robbins, Lebanon Valley College, Presiding
Theme: The Politics of Theology, the Theology of Politics
The Theology and the Political Consultation provides a forum for religious studies scholars, philosophers, and theologians to critically reflect on different conceptions of the political and draw out the theoretical and practical significance for the tasks of theology. The theme for this year’s meeting is “The Politics of Theology, the Theology of Politics.” Our session will engage the cultural, economic, social, and theoretical politics that in/form the discourse of theology as well as the “theology” that underwrites historic and contemporary forms of politics and political theory. Papers will also engage the question: “How and in what ways do contemporary forms of political theology support, undermine, and/or transform the justifications and practices of war?”
Elizabeth Ann Pritchard, Bowdoin College Liberalism’s Theology of Consent
K. Christine Pae, Union Theological Seminary, New York Political Theology and Theology of Sex in the Context of Globalized Militarism: US Overseas Militarism and Military Prostitution in a Time of War
Todd D. Whitmore, University of Notre Dame Whose War? Which Genocide? Theology, Politics, and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Northern Uganda
SATURDAY NIGHT, 8:00 pm-9:00 pm
Presidential Plenary Address
Mark Juergensmeyer, University of California, Santa Barbara, Presiding
Theme: Walking on the Rimbones of Nothingness: Scholarship and Activism
Emilie M. Townes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale University, has been instrumental in constructing womanist theology. Her books, Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope; In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness; Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Care, and A Womanist Ethic of Care are considered ground-breaking texts in the field. An ordained American Baptist clergywoman, Townes served as an interim minister at the Christ the Redeemer Metropolitan Community Church in Evanston, Illinois and held teaching positions at theological schools and seminaries, including Union Theological Seminary. She holds three degrees from the University of Chicago: a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts from the Divinity School and a Doctor of Ministry. She earned a Ph.D. from the Joint Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary/Northwestern University Program in Religious and Theological Studies.
Panelist:
Emilie M. Townes, Yale University
SUNDAY MORNING, 9:00-11:30am
Christian Systematic Theology Section and Scriptural Reasoning Group
Samuel Wells, Duke University, Presiding
Theme: Liturgy, Eucharist, and Transfiguration
This session explores the relationship between Christian doctrine and Judaism with special attention to sacramental and liturgical practice. Topics include eucharist and passover; transfiguration, religious identity, and eschatological peace; church as Israel in liturgy and ritual; eucharist, land, and liturgical gift exchange.
Matthew Myer Boulton, Harvard University A New Passover? Christian Eucharistic Doctrine
and the Jewish Passover Meal
Kevin L. Hughes, Villanova University Transfigurations: Scriptural Reasoning upon Mount Tabor
H. Peter Kang, University of Virginia Viewing the Church as Israel through Liturgy and Ritual
Thomas Burke, Boston College Breaking Open Gift-Exchange: A Dialogue with Louis-Marie Chauvet on the Liturgical Formation of Jewish and Christian Identities
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 1:00-2:30pm
Wildcard Session
Anne Murphy, University of British Columbia, Presiding
Theme: Remembering and Forgetting in the Formation of Religious Subjectivities
This wildcard panel anticipates the resubmission of an application for a related new consultation entitled Narrative, Memory, History, which will be dedicated to the consideration of the uses of narrative and the construction of memory and history in religious practices, texts, and contexts. This panel represents the kind of session that the consultation is meant to promote: cross- religious and cross-cultural inquiry around a related thematic, methodological, or theoretical concern. Here, we address the theme of memory in relation to its negation to explore the contours of memory and its limits in the formation of religious subjectivity. In keeping with the investigative nature of our session, it is designed as a hybrid of the panel and paper session formats. It is designed to promote methodological and cultural breadth, and as a result the paired themes of remembering and forgetting are explored in multiple dimensions and across religious traditions and periods.
Eliza Slavet, University of California, San Diego Remembering, Repeating, and Working-through Moses the Egyptian and the Psychoanalytic Model of Cultural Discourse
Amy Holmes, Australian National University Depicting Miracles as an Art of Memory: A Case Study of the Himalayan Buddhist Biography of Togden Shakya Shri (1853- 1919)
Jeffrey M Brackett, Ball State University The Rhetorical Guru: Remembering Samartha Ramdas Swami
Cameron David Warner, Harvard University, Middlebury College Remembering and Forgetting the Significance of Princess Wencheng: Micro-historical Challenges to the Master Narrative of Tibetan Buddhist Historiography
Kristen Rudisill, Bowling Green State University Pre-emptive Nostalgia and Displaced Tradition: A Tamil Brahmin Marriage in Washington DC
David Reinhart, DePaul University Memory and a Prayer from Ravensbrück
Responding:
Albert J. Raboteau, Princeton University
Christian Systematic Theology Section
Theme: Beyond Supersessionism
SUNDAY LATE AFTERNOON, 5:00-6:30pm
Religion and Politics Section
Theme: Religion and National Identity
MONDAY MORNING, 9:00-11:30pm
Ethics Section
Theme: Criminal Injustice and Christian Responsibility: Christianity and the Criminal Justice Systems
Religion and Politics Section and Religion and the Social Sciences Section
Mark Chaves, Duke University, Presiding
Theme: Religion, Politics, and Civic Engagement: Separating Fact from Fiction
Religion continues to shape American political and civic life. In this session, two prominent political scientists will present the latest research on the complex connections between religion and politics, and, more broadly, between religion and civic engagement. John Green is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Akron and Senior Fellow with the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. David Campbell is the John Cardinal O’Hara Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and co-author with Robert Putnam of a forthcoming book on the changing role of religion in America. Green will focus on religion and electoral politics, including the nature of this relationship in the 2008 elections. Campbell will focus on religion and civic engagement, describing both the current situation and significant trends. There will be ample time for open discussion of these important and timely subjects.
John Green, University of Akron Religion and American Elections
David H. Campbell, Phoenix Seminary Religion and American Civic Life
Business Meeting:
Barbara A. McGraw, Saint Mary’s College of California, and Andrew Murphy, Valparaiso University, Presiding
MONDAY AFTERNOON, 1:00-3:30pm
Special Topics Forum
Sponsored by the Theological Education Steering Committee
Glen Stassen, Fuller Theological Seminary, Presiding
Theme: Theology of Hope and Healing for a Divided Nation
The United States is ailing from a history of racial division, experiencing religious tensions in the wake of September 11, worried about strained international relations, and polarized by internal struggles. In the presidential campaign, we have seen indications of this hurt, but we have also seen possibilities of healing. As in previous presidential elections, religious rhetoric has played a prominent role during the primary season and in the general election. While religion scholars stand ready to offer critical analyses of public religious discourse, can engaged scholars and learned religious leaders offer constructive proposals that can offer hope for the public life of this pluralistic nation? Can we understand such offerings as contributions to the public understanding of religion? How might reflective religious leaders and scholars offer theologies of healing for an ailing nation? We invite our distinguished speakers to offer just such theologies on the eve of the election.
Panelists:
Glen Stassen, Fuller Theological Seminary
Michael Lerner, Tikkun Magazine; Rabbi, Beyt Tikkun Synagogue
Obery M. Hendricks, New York Theological Seminary
Bonhoeffer: Theology and Social Analysis Group
Theme: Race, Power, and Prayer: US Influences on Bonhoeffer’s Theology
MONDAY LATE AFTERNOON, 4:00-6:30pm
Theology and Religious Reflection Section
Theme: Theology, Economics, and the Person
Theology and Continental Philosophy Group
Theme: Theology, Practice, and the Political
Death, Dying, and Beyond Consultation
Theme: Death, Popular Culture, and Technology
It looks like some smart people are back and steering AAR. The Christian Century is reporting that AAR and SBL may be getting back together:
The annual pre-Thanksgiving joint meeting of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature had a record registration in 2006 of over 11,000, and last year’s meeting in San Diego drew about 10,200 scholars, students and publishers.
But the 2007 meeting was to be the last concurrent one for the two organizations except for 2011 in San Francisco. The AAR board had concluded that the meetings were getting too big and were limiting program innovation. Besides, some said, most AAR academicians teach about all kinds of religions, whereas the SBL, with its mixture of seminary scholars and professors at secular universities, focuses on biblical research.
However, acknowledging that the separation was a “contentious subject,” the AAR board in April decided that the organization should return to the old arrangement. A major factor was its internal survey of AAR members last year showing that between 70 and 75 percent, depending on the question, wanted to meet with the SBL.
…If the SBL is agreeable, the AAR board said, it would welcome back the jointly sponsored book exhibits, a common employment interview center and the freedom to attend each other’s sessions, programs and receptions, according to Jack Fitzmier, AAR executive director.
