Symposium on Heidegger’s Confessions
Thursday, May 26, 4:30pm
Swift Hall, 3rd Floor Lecture Hall
Ryan Coyne (University of Chicago)

Jean-Luc Marion (University of Chicago)
Gregory Fried (Suffolk University)
*Cosponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute the Philosophy of Religions Workshop and the Theology & Religious Ethics Workshop

“Sacramental Existence and Embodied Theology in Buber’s Representation of Hasidism”
Sam Berrin Shonkoff, PhD Candidate in History of Judaism

Time: 5:00 – 6:20 PM
Location: Swift 208
*Co-sponsored with the Jewish Studies Workshop

Paper Abstract:

Martin Buber denied consistently that he was a theologian because he repudiated abstract discourse about God. However, he did affirm that intersubjective events in the world express theological truth, even if that truth cannot be possessed or professed thereafter as noetic content. In this paper I introduce a concept of “embodied theology” to elucidate this nuance in Buber’s religious thought, and I show how his Ḥasidic writings shed unique light on these matters. Through hermeneutical investigations of his Ḥasidic tales vis-à-vis the original sources, I illuminate Buber’s conviction that genuine sages convey theological meaning through the very spiritual-corporeal dynamics of their lives—or what Buber calls their “sacramental existence.”

Joshua A. Connor, PhD Candidate in Religious Ethics, will offer a response

Sam’s essay can be found here.

The Importance of Emphasis in a Both-And Approach”
An Intellectual Debate with Elena Lloyd-Sidle and Mark Lambert (PhD Students in Theology)
5:00 – 6:20 PM
Location: Swift 208

Elena and Mark will be discussing the merits of prayer and individual healing on the one hand, and healing through transformation of social systems, on the other. Elena’s dissertation research is on the conceptual interplay of the two, and how they might be understood to be co-constitutive. Elena will begin by giving a synopsis of Ellen Armour’s recent review of the first volume of Sarah Coakley’s systematic theology, which Armour puts into conversation with a work by Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza (Journal of Religion, January 2016). This specific and current discussion of the possible perils of emphasizing the spiritual over the systemic will give us an entrance into the broader discussion.

The Folly of God: A Theology of the Unconditional

A Conversation with John D. Caputo
Please join the Theology & Religious Ethics Workshop
Time: 2:30 – 3:50 PM
Location: Swift Hall Common Room

Inspired by Paul Tillich’s suggestion that atheism is not the end of theology but is instead the beginning, and working this together with Derrida’s idea of the undeconstructible, Caputo explores the idea that the real interest of theology is not God, especially not God as supreme being, but the unconditional. The Folly of God continues the radical reading of Paul’s explosive language in 1 Corinthians about the stand God makes with the nothings and nobodies of the world first introduced in The Weakness of God (2006) and The Insistence of God (2013).

John D. Caputo, is the Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Humanities Emeritus at Syracuse University and the David R. Cook Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Villanova University. Caputo specializes in continental philosophy of religion, working on approaches to religion and theology in the light of contemporary phenomenology, hermeneutics and deconstruction, and also the presence in continental philosophy of radical religious and theological motifs. He is known especially for his notions of radical hermeneutics and the weakness of God.

Sacred Violence: The Legacy of René Girard
4:30pm
Swift Hall, 3rd Floor Lecture Hall
James B. Murphy (Dartmouth College)
William Cavanaugh (DePaul University)
Jean-Luc Marion (University of Chicago)

*Cosponsored with the Lumen Christi Institute, the Theology & Religious Ethics Workshop, and the John U. Nef Committee on Social ThoughtRené Girard (1923-2015) has been described as the Darwin of the human sciences for his theories of the origin of violence and religion and the imitative character of human behavior (mimesis). His books, among them Violence and the Sacred and Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, span the fields of Literary Criticism, Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, History, Biblical Hermeneutics and Theology. While his theories have attracted many devoted disciples, Girard has also sparked controversy for his sweeping general claims, tendentious readings of canonical works, and his explicitly Christian perspective. This panel discussion will consider the significance of Girard’s thought for the human sciences.

More Information.

Dylan Belton – “Animals as Means and Ends: Taking the Teleological-Chain of Being Seriously”
2:00 – 3:20 PM
Location: Swift 208

Co-Sponsored with the Animal Studies Workshop

Abstract:
A certain narrative has become prominent within the field of human-animal ethics, namely, that the vision of reality as a teleological-chain of being is simply a non-option for us in the 21st century as we try to urgently reformulate how it is that we ought to relate to non-human animals. This essay is the beginning of an attempt to push back against this narrative, which, while not without merit, is in the end misguided. As the title hints at, our stance towards non-human animals seems to be caught in a curious “in-between” state: on the one hand, we have little choice but to use non-human animals (and other organisms) and therefore treat them as means toward human ends. On the other hand, the aversion that many feel towards, for instance, the indifferent treatment of animals in factory farms reveals that we in some way see non-human animals as beings who have genuine, intrinsic teloi, the superfluous or indifferent thwarting of which is a wrong. Any viable human-animal ethical theory has to account for this situation and offer a means for us to properly navigate the dynamic between treating other animals as both means and ends. It is my contention in this essay that the teleological-chain of being in its Christian guise is able to do just this. It offers not only a coherent and realistic account of how we are to practically relate to other animals within a wider ecological context but also offers an ontological vision that is able to ground this practical relation. The two figures whose principles are used to make this case are Augustine and Aquinas, both of whom are often accused of promoting dangerously anthropocentric accounts of human-animal relations. I conclude by showing both how the denial of this position leads to serious difficulties and how the teleological-chain of being can perhaps solve some pressing issues in the field of human-animal ethics, most important of which is the need to account for why it is that the existence of a vast multiplicity of species is a good that ought to be preserved. Concerning this latter issue, I show the strength of the perspective outlined in the paper over those of Peter Singer’s Utilitarianism and Martha Nussbaums’ Capabilities Approach to human animal ethics.

Richard Hoskins, “Reinhold Niebuhr and the Role of Ethics in the Study of International Politics”
5:00 – 6:20 PM
Location: Swift 208

Richard Hoskins is a Ph.D. student at the Divinity School. He has a B.A. from the University of Kansas in political science and a J.D. from Northwestern University Law School, where he is a Senior Lecturer.  He is also a partner in the Chicago law firm of Schiff Hardin LLP and a former Justice Department attorney, specifically Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Criminal Division.  He has taught at the University of Virginia Law School and lectured at Yale and UCLALaw Schools and has published a number of articles in law journals.

 Paper Description:
“My paper and presentation draw on my dissertation, based in theological ethics and international relations theory.  It is an analysis of Reinhold Niebuhr’s theological, ethical, and political writings regarding relations among nation-states and U.S. foreign policy.  I argue that the natural trajectory of Niebuhr’s thought (“Christian Realism”) when applied to international theory places him within what, in IR study, is called the English School of International Relations theory, one of four major schools.  The English School is, in most ways, the successor to classical realism which was pioneered by Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau and was the predominant school of IR theory from approximately the publication of Moral Man and Immoral Society in 1932 until soon after Niebuhr’s death in 1971.  At about that time, American IR was converted from a humanistic, historical, and ethical study of international politics into a value-free social science on the model of economics.  This came to be called “neorealism” or “structural realism,” in part to distinguish it from what then came to be called “classical realism.”   Significantly, neorealism abandoned ethical inquiry as a serious component of IR study, marking a sharp departure from classical realism.  It also set aside the role of human nature, which was of particular concern to Niebuhr and others in classical realism.

Thus, I focus on the role of ethical reasoning and judgment in international politics and argue for its continued importance.  More specifically, I am concerned with (a) the role that Niebuhr assigned to ethical judgment in international politics; (b) how Niebuhr’s notions of moral judgment in IR arose from his Christian and Biblical theology, as well as the significance of the fact that this was and is not shared by other classical realists (much less neorealists); and (c) why the English School, while different from Christian Realism, is its logical ally in understanding international political developments.”

Discussion with Prof. Hopkins – Teaching Global Theologies: Power and Praxis
12:00-1:15pm PM
Location: Swift 208

Join the Theology and Religious Studies Workshop and Global Christianities Tuesday, February 16, from 12:00-1:15pm in Swift 208 for a discussion with Professor Dwight Hopkins. We will be discussing the book he recently co-edited, Teaching Global Theologies: Power and Praxis. Hyein Park and Hector Varela-Rios will respond and facilitate the discussion.

Lunch will be provided!

The introduction to the book may be downloaded ahead of time here. (It’s only 7 pages and we think it will be helpful background for the conversation.)

Dissertations and Spirits with Andrew DeCort
Wednesday, February 3
5:00 – 6:20 PM
Location: Swift 406

Bonhoeffer’s Beginning: Universal Entry, “the Problem of Morality,” and the Ethics of New Beginning 

This dissertation investigates the ethics of making new beginnings after devastation and moral rupture in the thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. A full introduction can be downloaded ahead of time here.

Join us as we discuss DeCort’s project and hear about his own experience going through the dissertation process.

“History and Comparison in the Study of Religious Ethics”
with Professor David Clairmont, University of Notre Dame
12:15 – 1:20 PM
Location: Swift 106

The Theology & Religious Ethics Workshop and the Medieval Studies Workshop invite you to a joint session on Thursday, January 21st – 12:00 – 1:20 PM at Swift 208 – Lunch will be provided!

Professor David Clairmont (Tisch Family Associate Professor of Theology and Director of Master of Theological Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame) will be presenting on “History and Comparison in the Study of Religious Ethics (with additional thoughts on the challenges of writing and publishing in the field!)”. See the abstract below.

Abstract

In the genre of informal intellectual autobiography, this presentation will offer an account of the places negotiated for historical and comparative studies in religious ethics by tracing the development of one intellectual project initiated at the University of Chicago (an ecumenical divinity school with a long standing respect for the critical, comparative, academic study of religion) and completed at the University of Notre Dame (in a Roman Catholic department of theology). Among the topics examined will be (1) understanding the institutional context of the graduate student-as-scholar’s academic work, (2) thinking about intellectual continuity and scholarly audience when one’s institutional context changes with one’s first academic appointment, and (3) exploring how the elements of one’s academic formation can be either constrained or liberated, perhaps even integrated, with a change in academic environment and a guarded recognition of multiple viable academic publics. Guests are encouraged to share the genesis and transformation of their own recent academic projects, and some time will be devoted to describing the process of publishing journal articles and books.

David A.Clairmont studies comparative religious ethics, particularly the moral thought of Roman Catholicism and Theravada Buddhism, and issues of method in Catholic moral theology. He is interested in questions of moral formation, inter-cultural dialogue in the Church, and the importance of inter-religious dialogue for the future of Catholic moral theology. He is co-editor (with Don S. Browning) of American Religions and the Family: How Faith Traditions Cope with Modernization (Columbia University Press, 2007) and author of Moral Struggle and Religious Ethics: On the Person as Classic in Comparative Theological Contexts (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). His articles have appeared in the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics and the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. He is currently working on two books: first, an analysis of the shape and contemporary relevance of Bonaventure’s moral theology tentatively titled “Bonaventure’s Hope; and second, an introduction to comparative religious ethics” (with William Schweiker) tentatively titled “Religious Ethics: Meaning and Method.”