Annual Meeting 2023 Program Book

This paper outlines Barth's pragmatic approach to borrowing from philosophical figures and schools and provides the underlying convictions that made such pragmatic borrowing intelligible for Barth.  In so doing, it will argue that: 1) Barth had no firm committment to a philosophical school or inordinate attention upon answering a modern epistemological question; 2) Barth's use of philosophical terminology displays a pragmatic and idiosyncratic character; 3) Barth rooted his resistance to a systematic philosophical viewpoint in a strict adherence to the freedom of God, of theology, and of its subject matter, displaying a philosophical pluralism that resists any form of philosophical hegemony, and; 4) Barth's resistance to a hegemony of a specific philosophical school or system was part of a larger rejection of ideology of any kind. In fact, I will conclude, Barth's anti-ideological conviction is one of his most valuable lessons for the work of theology in the present.

Karl Barth often remarked that he “liked to do a little bit of Hegeling” in his theology. This enigmatic remark illustrates the ambiguity surrounding the presence of philosophy in Barth’s theology. It indicates the controversy attending its influence. Taking this remark as its point of departure, this paper counters conventional interpretations of Barth’s use of philosophy as “eclectic” (Beintker), “improper” (McCormack), or “tactical” (Oakes) which minimize its influence on his theology. It  defends a constructive interpretive proposal grounded in a critical reading of Barth’s account of the relationship between philosophy and theology. On that basis, it develops a specific interpretation of Barth’s “Hegeling” and its influence on his moral theology. It argues that philosophy is more influential on Barth’s theology than he himself or his readers admit, yet less detrimental than he or they fear. Indeed, Barth’s broadly Hegelian account of “autonomy” is essential to his Reformed account of Christian freedom.

Kierkegaard’s notion of “offense” offers theological push-back on Rahner and philosophical push-back on Barth which leads to new insights about the relation between philosophy and theology. 

Linda Martín Alcoff highlighted the non-relational character of extractivist epistemologies that generates extractivist practices. In re-evaluating epistemic assumptions and counteracting extractivist epistemologies, she offers alternate epistemic norms for the disciplinary dialogue. However, I will argue that not all disciplines are willing to accept such norms, not because of the unfeasibility or impracticality of these norms but because the "inner spirit" of epistemological ideals of these disciplines is not congruent with these alternate epistemic norms. Therefore, before proceeding towards dialogue with the other epistemologies, practitioners must identify the centrality of the interpretative character of knowledge and, through this introspection, recognize the possibility of dialogue. To demonstrate these points, philosophically, I will employ Charles Sanders Peirce's understanding of "reasoning" and how knowledge is attained. Historically, I will present an example of the Translation Movement in the 8th-century Islamic world as the epistemic practice that dialogued with other ways of knowing. 

In this brief presentation, I sketch a theoretical framework and agenda for decarbonizing theology. Drawing from work in the energy humanities, the framework focuses on the cultural aspects of energy transition—the transformation of petroculture, a transition in speech, values, and practices. The agenda I propose for decarbonizing theology foregrounds three types of questions: To what degree have the study and practice of theology and ethics been “carbonized,” that is, how have they been shaped by the use of fossil fuels for heat, energy, motion, and raw material? What, if anything, is worth sustaining from carbon theology, and what should be rejected through a process of decarbonization? What might such a therapy of decarbonization involve—what practices, habits of speech, values, materials, and relationships will decarbonize theology and repair its damage? The first question is historical in nature, the second analytical and evaluative, and the third normative and constructive.

Fully appreciating the complexities of modern human engagement with energy requires an understanding and analysis of extraction. But beyond issues of resource exploitation and the labor of energy industry employees, to what degree are the scholars who study extraction also involved in extractive practices, taking the experiences of community members and transforming them into scholarly products to be consumed by academic audiences with little to no benefit for the communities under investigation? This paper argues that scholarship related to energy and extraction must critically engage its inherited methods to better understand how scholars are implicated in extractive dynamics. I point to insights from the field of Appalachian Studies to articulate a general framework for addressing the exploitative history of some academic research approaches. I conclude that research approaches guided by restorative justice can correct past harms and build more just and collaborative research futures with communities shaped by energy extraction.

This presentation proposes that examples of visual culture that portray religious sites in or near mines exhibit ambivalence between the notion that mining brings local prosperity, and that mining is a dangerous industry for workers and for the environment. After all, religious sites represent both the workers’ genuine spiritual homes and were instruments of labor discipline and oppression. The site where they offer la labor de sus cuerpos no solo de sus manos (the labor of their bodies, not just their hands, as the AAR theme suggests), is one of many contradictions.

After offering this background it focuses on photographs and self-distributed documentaries of Our Lady of the Rosary in Ouro Preto, Minas Gerais, Brazil. As I examine these images, I would invite seminar members to enter a conversation about how these examples, and others like them, may allow workers to confront their unsafe working conditions and associated environmental devastation.

From the multidisciplinary project Translatability of Oil (TOIL) (https://www.hf.uio.no/iln/english/research/projects/translatability-of-oil/index.html) based at the University of Oslo, Norway, with research examining how petroleum oil has been represented and interpreted through fiction, didactic texts, media, and religious practice over the last century, this presentation offers theological reflections on unsustainable modes of extractivism in order to help reimagine landscapes toward new ways of translating oil in the contemporary world. Drawing upon how the physical substance oil is given a spiritual meaning in religious settings, hermeneutical tools are located therein to draw upon for the work of dismantling petroleum-based cultures in ways that might reanimate sacred landscapes today, working toward a constructive theology of energy justice.

In the energy humanities, extraction is often understood to be a collection of practices that facilitate nonreciprocal acts of removal, accumulation, and domination. As a form of worldmaking, extractivism alters environments by privileging narratives of accumulation and mastery, often justifying environmentally damaging acts of extraction as necessary evils. In many ways, academic scholarship in the humanities is scaffolded onto a similar set of narratives; traditional formats for sharing knowledge such as the conference panel or the peer review journal publication fix notions of professional success, encouraging emergent scholars to view research itself in terms of individual losses and gains. In the neoliberal university, pressures around productivity and intellectual mastery dictate boundaries between value and the waste, just as they do in natural environments. In this paper, I draw from discourses of extractivism within the energy humanities and environmental media studies to consider how extractivism manifests in academic publishing and presentation. In particular, I attend to spaces of academic professionalization as involved in acts of prospecting—the constraining of how academic careers and futures are imagined.

This contribution will discuss the concept of conviviality in current migration scene in the Nordics. We claim that there is within the concept still a lack of consciousness about power and how it is enacted, particularly when those coming are coming without invitation, disregarding the fact that flight is never set in motion by invitation.

We aim to problematise the term, particularly its murkiness when used in practical and academic discourse interchangeably. Furthermore, we will discuss how it may be a useful concept, despite its challenges and pitfalls, maybe even as possible key to decolonise how the Church (of Sweden/of Norway) lives and works in hospitable dialogue.

The U.S. Mexico borderlands is known as one of the most volatile corridors of human migration in modern existence. While the geography of this region holds countless histories and memories of countless migrating communities, the number of spiritual and religious experiences are just as vast. This paper seeks to analyze and explore the historical document known as the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 as a retelling of Mexico’s first migration narrative. By exploring the migration of the Chichimec peoples through the two guiding principles of the freedom to move and the freedom to reside, I seek to provide a new dimension in the analysis of the traditional three stages of pre-migration, transit, and post-migration. Furthermore, this paper seeks to explore David Carrasco and Scott Sessions notion of “the changing-place” as a metaphor for understanding the religious dynamics of the Chichimec migration narrative, and how it can be applied for today.

An overview of Religions, Borders, and Immigration seminar and engagement with diverse scholarly perspectives under the auspices of the essay collection  

Identifying 2022 as a significant Mormon media moment, this presentation analyzes the streaming TV series The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City and LuLaRich in order to understand the current iteration of what Jodi Melamed calls “formally antiracist, liberal-capitalist modernity.” Looking at this most recent Mormon media moment, the author argues, helps to account for the central role of secularism in contemporary neoliberal multiculturalism and the co-constitutive relationships between discourses of race, gender, sexuality, nation, political-economy, and religion that are used to disseminate and normalize the rationalizations of contemporary racial capitalism.

This paper explores how ex-Mormons use TikTok as a tool to reckon with their relationship to Mormon faith and culture through physical materials. Drawing on Jennifer Sime’s (2023) theorization of YouTube material culture as a “curio cabinet,” I will argue that ex-Mormons’ visual “tours” of the relics of their former faith serve to make those material objects both intimate and strange. By repurposing, trashing, stashing, and mourning devotional objects, ex-Mormons participate in both an individual and collective reflective nostalgia whose shape is formed, in part, by the possibilities and limitations of the audiovisual TikTok platform.

In this paper I examine Mormon feminist podcasters in relation to the ramifications and promises of previous research in Digital Religion. One promising aspect of the former is its recognition of the conditioning effects of social media. How Mormon feminism depends on the medium is something that has only scarcely been assessed in previous research within the field of Mormon studies. However, research in Digital Religion frames women’s leadership online as traditionally feminine, relational, and authentic – positions which are related to Max Weber’s charismatic authority. I argue that while these characteristics may be found, they are not the only positions occupied, and must be critically assessed against a convergence of conditioning forces. I suggest that Mormon feminist podcasters may function as an important case where perspectives on women’s authority online are revaluated and that this may help break new ground in both Mormon Studies and Digital Religion.

In this paper, I will reveal Rodney Stark’s ten principles that make up his theoretical model of new religious movements. I apply this model to the Mormon Transhumanist Association (MTA). I conclude that this model is inadequate at capturing the intricacies of the MTA, and the model fails to predict the success of religious transhumanist groups more broadly. To foreshadow my arguments in this paper, here are my main objectives: first, I show that the MTA can appropriately be categorized as a new religious movement. Second, I show the ways in which the MTA (and religious transhumanism broadly) challenges traditional concepts within the scholar of religions theoretical toolkit. Third, I attempt to sketch a model that is applicable to religious transhumanists groups since there is not an adequate model that is explanatorily fruitful.

Drawing upon existing scholarship in conservation studies, genetics, and ethics, this paper argues that de-extinction reinforces an anthropocentric view of nature. Furthermore, the pursuit of de-extinction makes it more likely that extinctions caused by human activity will continue and perhaps increase, because de-extinction will be seen as a viable alternative to proactive measures to prevent extinction in the first place. Finally I will look to astrobiology and how scholars are thinking about the exploration and use of other celestial bodies in order to make recommendations regarding de-extinction on Earth as well as potential life elsewhere in the universe. The conclusion will point to how these recommendations also can contribute to discussions of gene editing, human enhancement, and transhumanism.

Growing scholarly appreciation for the literary character of the canonical gospels has called into question the paradigms undergirding the social-historical reconstructions characteristic of earlier New Testament scholarship. Following this recent trend, this paper considers the exegetical reception of the gospels might inform scholarly accounts of the evangelists’ literary aims. As a test case, I examine the early Christian exegetical reception of the gospels’ portrait of John the Baptist, a figure who has played a central role in the critical study of Christian origins. I attend especially to the treatment of John, across the four gospels, in the work of Origen of Alexandria and that of his exegetical predecessors. Ultimately, I contend that the earliest exegetes of the gospels offer invaluable insight into the gospels’ literary composition, inasmuch as their exegetical methods are informed by the Greco-Roman literary practices which shape the evangelists’ cultural milieu.

The aim of this paper is to explore Origen’s appropriation of the ancient literary concept of sequence (ἀκολουθία or εἱρμός), especially as it pertains to his allegorical readings of Scripture. Through an analysis of Origen’s use of the concept in *Princ.*, *Comm. Matt.*, and *Comm. Jo*, I will demonstrate its relevance to Origen’s exegesis. I will further argue that his use of sequence demonstrates that his allegorical exegesis is not an arbitrary exercise untethered from the letter of the text. Origen appeals to the concept of sequence to demand that allegories of discrete units of a passage be developed in a consistent way. He also appeals to sequence to demand that prophecies be understood as referring to the same figure throughout. Consequently, the letter of the scriptural text is relevant to Origen’s allegories.

Conceptualizing Origen's relationship with Philo's corpus is tricky, to say the least. On the one hand, similar interpretive impulses spawning from the Alexandrian tradition of reading Homer are present in both writers as they reach for the 'higher' sense of their sacred texts (cf. Conf. 38.190 with de Princ. 4.2.6). On the other hand, Origen repeatedly caricatures Jewish reading as the inability to ascend beyond the literal reference of a text. In this paper, I want to revisit this tension between indebtedness to Philo and characterizing Jewish reading as 'literal'. I suggest that Origen's relationship to Philo should be read through the lens of Origen's reception of Hebrews as a Pauline letter written to Jews in Palestina. Origen found in 'Paul' the same impulse in Philo, namely, an acknowledgement that all earthly, material features described in the sacred writings are really 'shadows' or 'copies' of heavenly counterparts (cf. Hebrews 8:5 and Mirg. 2.12).

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A particular epistemology of conversion imposed by the British colonial state and diverse western Christian missionaries continues to plague the Christians of South Asia, particularly Punjabi Christians in Pakistan, often referred to as Dalit Christians (having converted from communities situated outside the Hindu fold for their perceived high degrees of impurity). The prospect of salvation continues to shape knowledge about the Christians of Pakistan, now mapped, if not trapped, within a global Christian discourse of Christian persecution, particularly perpetrated by Muslims. That is, colonial approaches to conversion are being recast today to serve western neo-liberal interests that reproduce Orientalists and outright Islamophobic representations of Islam in the age of the War on Terror.

This paper is a study of the postcolonial memory and traces of shrines of the Japanese religion Shinto built in the Korean capital Seoul during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century through Japanese colonization. The emphasis is on how these former shrines were repurposed and why, and (re)imaginings of these spaces in context of the urban landscape of Seoul and the discursive construction of the postcolonial Korean nation. This project uses a combination of space-oriented ethnographic field study, photography, digital humanities inspired mapping, historiographic meta-analysis, and written sources in Japanese, Korean, and English. I argue that geographic and political centrality of place, topography, and the utilitarian and political interests of successive occupants of these spaces determined the nature and degree to which Shinto shrines in Seoul persist in physical and written memory. The fates of these religious places are erasure, near erasure, or rewriting into postcolonial nationalist narratives.

In 1836,  the Pequot Methodist minister and author, William Apess, delivered a speech marking the 160th anniversary of the conclusion of King Phillip’s war, or Metacom’s Rebellion. Scholars of Apess frequently turn to the “Eulogy on King Phillip” to demonstrate how Apess reconstructed the bloody history of that region and highlighted the continued presence of indigenous peoples in response to prevailing myths of their disappearance. Scholars have not so far noticed, however, Apess’s curious use of the term “doctrine” at two key points in the Eulogy to describe white Christians’ systematic oppression of indigenous and black peoples. In this paper, I read Apess’s Eulogy not to reconstruct his theology but to position Apess as one of the earliest indigenous theorists of the relationship between Christianity and American Indian Federal Law, and specifically as an originator of the idea “the Doctrine of Discovery” as an object of critique.

While there has been discussion on space and post/decoloniality, especially related to migration, ecology, and settler colonialism, postcolonial theory that addresses the digital space is still yet to be developed, mainly since the logic of coloniality has now expanded in the digital space. This paper examines the postcolonial perspective of the digital space to construct “digital postcolonialism,” a spatial postcolonialism that responds to digital capitalism. The argument is that since the grip of coloniality has now reached the digital space—marked by digital capitalism and data colonialism—a postcolonial theory addressing the digital space is needed.

The first part discusses the digital space through its “social production of space” using Henri Lefebvre's theory of space and Sianne Ngai’s theory of the gimmick to understand the modes of colonial production of digital capitalism. The second part discusses Ulises Ali Mejias’ “paranodal” space as a way to decolonize digital space/capitalism.

In recognition of the 40th anniversary of Cornel West’s Prophesy Deliverance!, the 30th anniversary of Race Matters, plus the near-20th anniversary of Democracy Matters and Stout’s Democracy and Tradition, I attempt to read these foundational texts together. All exploit the Pragmatist reading of Hegel as the philosopher who transcended the Cartesian/Kantian subject with a social-historical subject. All use Rorty’s 1982 Consequences of Pragmatism. All view racism, secularism and certain sorts of nationalism as persistent threats to the essential force of democratic solidarity across lines of difference. All privilege hope over knowledge and the future over the present. All turn to artists for the cultivation of these sensibilities. More recently, both thinkers have turned to theorizing grass roots organizing and social activism. Together, they reveal the rich resources that Pragmatism can provide for current thinking about democracy, religion, and art as is evident in recent work they have inspired.

In recent years there has been much handwringing about our “post-truth” condition. I argue thatwe cannot call for a simple return to truth in our democratic discourse. This would only raise further questions about what it means to center truth in our politics: what is truth? What sort of truth are we talking about? And who defines what is true? One of the things that is at stake in how we answer these questions is the place of pluralism in our democracy. Revisiting Stout’s discussion of both truth and pluralism in Democracy and Tradition, I will argue that his notion of democracy as a social practice is still very much relevant to reviving our democratic tradition. I will propose expanding it by conceiving pluralism as a social practice that can make room for diverse understandings and ways of knowing, without completely sidelining questions of truth.

This paper relates the philosophy of Charles Taylor to the work of Jeffrey Stout in Democracy and Tradition. Stout did not include Taylor among the “religious voices in a pluralist society.”  Yet, Taylor has detailed the move of western society from a default position of religious belief to a context in which religious belief is one option among many. In this context, Taylor lays out a social philosophy that requires democratic engagement and participation committed to a cultural pluralism.  Due to the very nature of our secular age, we must do religious philosophy in a space that takes seriously a new "Jamesian open space," what he calls a cross pressured position.  Taylor argues for engagement, dialogue, and pluralism in a secular society that protects and promotes equality and difference.  Yet, in Taylor’s view this secularity is not an end unto itself, but a means to the proper social end.  

This paper offers a critique of Benjamin Chicka’s Pragmatic Constructive Realism (PCR), as presented in God the Created: Pragmatic Constructive Realism in Philosophy and Theology, through a comparison with what I call transcendental pragmatism.  Transcendental pragmatism explores the necessary conditions for pragmatic understanding as such. The paper shows that Chicka himself comes very close to transcendental pragmatism in his affirmation of pluralism that rejects exclusivism.  In doing so, he is simply drawing out a necessary implication of pragmatic understanding as such; namely, a maximally inclusive community of inquiry.  Having defended the method of transcendental pragmatism, I consider two metaphysical concepts that lead me to challenge Chicka’s rejection of panpsychism and agapism.  At the same time, this inquiry aligns with Chicka’s effort to move beyond the impasse between ground of being and process theologies.  The two concepts that I consider are process and God.