News

New article by Simone Kotva in the anthology Habit and the History of Philosophy.

Anthology abstract:

For Aristotle, habit was a fundamental aspect of human nature; and for William James, it was the “enormous flywheel” of society. In both the history of philosophy and contemporary research, it is acknowledged as a fundamental topic in ethics, moral psychology, philosophy of action, and phenomenology.

This major volume, written by a team of international contributors, is an outstanding collection that offers a thorough and diverse philosophical exploration of habit from the classical period to the modern day. Carefully edited to reflect the breadth of the subject, its 18 chapters are divided into four clear parts:

• Habit and Ancient Philosophy
• Habit and Early Modern Philosophy
• Habit and Modern Philosophy
• Contemporary Perspectives on Habit.

Key topics, debates, and figures are covered such as the emotions, perception, free will, William James, John Dewey, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, John McDowell, and Hubert Dreyfus.

Habit and the History of Philosophy is essential reading for students and researchers in the history of philosophy, ethics, phenomenology, philosophy of action, and pragmatism. It will also be extremely useful for those in related disciplines such as religion, sociology, and history.

New anthology on Bloomsbury edited by Boris Gunjevic.

The book contains seven essays on the Reformation written by world-renowned authors. As much as they are widely known in their own academic fields and communities, this is the first time that such authors have come together to reflect on the major contributions of Martin Luther’s thought at the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

Luther and Philosophies of the Reformation is a multi-disciplinary critical assessment on the Reformation discourse taking into consideration Luther’s rediscovery of the Scripture, primarily looking at readings of St. Paul with the idea of gift and participation. It also presents, compares and contrasts a literary ‘Dantean reading’ of Luther with the Reformer’s daring development of the doctrine of the Church that is relevant today.

Consequently, this book offers a strong but constructive criticism of Luther’s medieval metaphysics and of the unintended outcomes of his idea from a Hegelian and radical left point of view. The authors demonstrate throughout not only the relevance of Luther’s thought for us today but also his possible significance for the future.

Table of contents

Preface: Luther and Philosophies of the Reformation, Simon Perry, University of Cambridge, UK

1. Luther, Paul and Gift, Dr. John Barclay, Durham University, UK
2. Luther – Faithful Exegete of Paul, Morna D. Hooker, University of Cambridge, UK
3. Dante, Luther and Church, Robin Kirkpatrick, University of Cambridge, UK
4. Luther’s Redefinition of the Church, Robert Kolb, Concordia Seminary, USA
5. Reformation 500, John Milbank, University of Nottingham, UK
6. Toward A Materialist Conspiracy of Faith, Slavoj Žižek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
7. Luther and Church Revisited, Robert L. Rosin, Concordia Seminary, USA

Conclusion: Heterotopia of “Re” Boris Gunjevic

New article by Ingunn Aadland in Studia theologica.

Children’s bibles present a selection of Biblical stories, as the Bible, through text and illustrations – in the guise of fun, teaching, and moral warning. In this, they reflect the conviction that the Bible is essential, useful, and even entertaining. At the same time, cultural imagination continuously gives shape to Biblical stories. In this way, the children’s Bible is a materialisation of the valuation and cultural memory of the Bible – and in this way it makes sense to call it a cultural bible. This article examines the Danish bestseller Møllehave’s Børnebibelen (1996/2016), and two Norwegian books: Bibelfortellinger (2011) and Tidslinjen (2016) with particular regard to gendered power structures. How are women cast in the current Scandinavian cultural bible? There are common tendencies in the ways in which cultural memory casts Biblical women: Women are deemed less important than their male counterparts, they are easily associated with sexual misconduct, and they tend to be discredited in various ways. Representation relies upon cultural assumptions. Ultimately, the cultural Bible produces docile bodies. It puts the Biblical woman in her place, and she becomes a reduced other.

New article by Jeppe Bach Nikolajsen.

Within theological ethics, a central question exists: Is there a Christian ethics? One position answers this question in the affirmative, while another position rejects it. The first position was dominant in Denmark in the first half of the twentieth century, and Niels Hansen Søe was a prominent representative for it. The second position was predominant in the second half of the century, and Knud Ejler Løgstrup contributed to its dissemination. This article suggests a contemporary Lutheran ethical position that operates with a Christian ethics and which constitutes an alternative to Løgstrupʼs ethical position.

New article by Jeppe Bach Nikolajsen in Teologisk tidsskrift.

This article gives an account of the Danish theologian Knud Ejler Løgstrupʼs rejection of a Christian ethics. It then presents a critique of Løgstrupʼs position. The article argues for an understanding of Christian ethics which is rooted in the biblical scriptures, passed on in the Christian tradition, embodied by the Christian church, and expressed in a pluralistic societal situation. This understanding of Christian ethics implies a particularity to a greater extent than found in the position of Løgstrup.

Book by Mårten Björk on Bloomsbury.

The Politics of Immortality in Rosenzweig, Barth and Goldberg Theology and Resistance Between 1914-1945.

Highlighting the central importance of theological configurations of immortality and eternal life from 1914-1945, Mårten Björk explores the key writings of Franz Rosenzweig, Karl Barth and Oskar Goldberg to situate their ideas in relation to the political turmoil of the period, including the rise of social Darwinism, nationalism and fascism.

The conversations happening among Christian and Jewish theologians and philosophers on the nature of immortality and eternal life during the period constitute what Björk calls a ‘politics of immortality’. The speculative question of eternal life became a way to address the meaning of ‘a good life’ in a period when millions of lives were lost to war, camps and prisons. This book shows how theology was related to central political concepts and ideas of the era, revealing how the question of immortality pursued by Rosenzweig, Barth and Goldberg became a way to resist the reduction of life to race, blood and soil.

By situating the exact political consequences of theological and metaphysical theories of immortality and eternal life, Björk’s discussion of Rosenzweig, Barth and Goldberg confronts the perennial question on the relation between life and death and exposes the important connections between political theology and philosophical posthumanism. 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Yearning for a System: Franz Rosenzweig and the Great Paganism of Life
2. Abundance and Scarcity: Karl Barth and the Struggle for Existence
3. The Animal of the Infinite: Oskar Goldberg and the Science of Evil
4. Life Outside Life: Theology and Resistance  

Article by Joel Gillin in Studia theologica.

This article examines the place of religion and metaphysics in the agonistic political theory of Chantal Mouffe. The first section introduces Mouffe’s agonistic project and points to its normative postsecular implications. The second section presents her key engagements with religion and shows a development in her thought from a more restrictive secularist model toward a more open approach to religion in the public sphere. I suggest that an uncritical adoption of a modern view of religion is a hindrance to her account and in tension with her agonistic assumptions. In the final section I examine how Mouffe deals with the limits of pluralism and religious interventions in politics and argue that her agonistic theory has insufficiently recognized the inescapability of faith and metaphysics in political theorizing. I suggest that adopting a more postsecular agonism would promote rather than squash pluralism and increase the terrain of political contestation and democratic possibilities.

Book by Stefan Fisher-Høyrem, University of Agder, Norway.

This open access book draws on conceptual resources ranging from medieval scholasticism to postmodern theory to propose a new understanding of secular time and its mediation in nineteenth-century technological networks. Untethering the concept of secularity from questions of ‘religion’ and ‘belief’, it offers an innovative rethinking of the history of secularisation that will appeal to students, scholars, and everyone interested in secularity, Victorian culture, the history of technology, and the temporalities of modernity. 

Stefan Fisher-Høyrem (PhD) is a historian and Senior Academic Librarian at the University of Agder, Norway.

Click here to read the book (open access.)