Updates

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Recent Article and Conversation

Philadelphia Police violently attack peaceful protesters on I-676 with tear gas, a weapon banned by the Geneva Convention
Photo from The Philadelphia Inquirer showing the Philadelphia Police violently attacking peaceful protesters on I-676 with tear gas, a weapon banned by the Geneva Convention.

Notre Dame’s Contending Modernities project recently published a short article I wrote on “Provincializing Theodicy” which details some thoughts in dialogue and building with the work of Sylvia Wynter and is a preview of some of the work from my current book project, To Justify the World: Theodicy as Philosophical Form.

The new journal Oraxiom: A Journal of Non-Philosophy recently published a conversation between Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca, Katerina Kolozova, John Ó Maoilearca, and myself on François Laruelle’s The Last Humanity: The New Ecological Science (originally published in French in 2015 and coming out next month in an English translation I completed for Bloomsbury Academic). Given that my first book was an attempt to think about nature in a way that brought together philosophy, theology, and scientific ecology, I was thankful for the opportunity to share what I think is powerful about Laruelle’s own engagement and where we need to continue to think more. I note that, while Laruelle is clearly concerned with racism in the book, that thinking is undetermined by not engaging more with anti-Blackness and the deracinating power of Black studies.

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New articles and audio uploaded

The Tower
The Tower card from The Fountain Tarot (www.fountaintarot.com)

I have updated a few of the pages with links to PDFs of some recent articles:

“The World Is a Prison to Believers: Naming and Worlds in Malcolm X.” Co-authored with Joel Kuhlin. Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift 1 (2020). [PDF of article.]

“Hexing the Discipline: Against the Reproduction of Continental Philosophy of Religion.”
Co-authored with Marika Rose. Palgrave Communications 4 (January 2019). [Journal page with Open Access PDF.]

“Thinking the Scream: Figures and Forms of Death in the Story of Christianity.” Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift 3 (2018). [Journal page with Open Access PDF.]

I have also uploaded the audio of my keynote lecture “Inexpressible Opacity: Theodicy, Sad Affects, and Dissimulation” from at last year’s Department for the Study of Religion’s Annual Graduate Symposium: Negativity, Pessimisms, and Sad Affects in the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. You can also download the slides I used during the lecture.

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Fall 2020 Syllabi Uploaded

On my Teaching pageBoyBookstoreBlitz you can now download PDFs of my syllabi for the Fall 2020 semester. Feel free to borrow or use any ideas you see there.

Like many other educators, I am facing a dire semester. Scheduled for face to face teaching, but tasked with designing the course to move fully online should that need arise. I assume that we will be online at some point for everyone’s safety, which does sadden me as I love working with students face to face. However, I was able to find a little joy in the challenge and new constraints of designing courses this way. I’m hopeful that we will get to do some really interesting things, find spaces of momentary freedom and joy in the midst of the end of the world.