What are you reading in general?

[Skyweir]

[Lazy Luke]

Christopher Berry-Dee
Talking with Psychopaths and Savages: A journey into the evil mind

A chilling study of the most cold-blooded, manipulative people on planet earth

[Skyweir]

oooh that sounds awful .. do write up a critique

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming by Catherine Keller




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Of course .. thats just whats missing from the narrative, a feminist view of the Apocalypse..

Dont be a selfish dude Wos .. do give us a brief precis .. this HAS to be good

I don't really write reviews (beyond the occasional one for things like culturally-significant potato chips, that is ). However, a brief description might apt, I s'pose.

Keller is primarily a Protestant (Wesleyan, I believe), progressive, feminist, constructive/process-theologian who seems to theorize from a largely Deleuzian / Whiteheadian / Poststructuralist philosophical perspective, to which she adds an appeal to a quasi-immanent Christian "Spirit" to fill the gap left by postmodernity's "vanishing subject". Her main thematics, aside from Woman, seem to be that of Process/Becoming, Apocalypse, Gender, Ecologism, Postcolonialism, and a dash of Queer-theory. Her work is poetically inflected (she being a luminary in the field of "Theopoetics") yet without lack in academic rigor. Her slightly whimsical style could be breezily deceptive to the more-casual reader.

Here's a review of Apocalypse Now and Then [In-Depth]

Catherine Keller in her book, Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996) deals with the effects of the Christian prophecy of the Apocalypse on western history and thought. Through innovative readings of the theology and philosophy, feminist and postmodern/ poststructuralist/ postcolonial theory, fiction and poetry, western history and current politics, Catherine Keller shows how the concept of the Apocalypse has affected the way the western tradition have thought about text, time, place, community and gender. Apocalypse Now and Then reveals the apocalyptic links of moments and events as diverse as colonialism, urbanization, 19th century American feminism and the current environmental crisis. Throughout the book, she constructs an imaginative 'counter-apocalypse' that includes prophetic passion for justice.

Catherine defines apocalypse as an embodied habit. It is in us and around us, constituting a "multi-dimensional, culture pervading spectrum of ideological assumptions, group identities, subjective responses and historical habits" (P. xi). According to Catherine, apocalypse does not lie outside of our subjectivities. For her, apocalypse is a disclosure of an opening. Apocalypse did not originally denote cataclysm or end. The Greek word apokalypsis means to unveil, to disclose, and to reveal. In this book, she particularly speaks of an apocalypse pattern operating in/ as western history. So she tries to re-read 'John's apocalypse' / the book of Revelation as a 'pre-text' that influenced immensely the genealogy of the western history and culture. She invites the readers of the book to a kind of discursive hermeneutical engagement with this apocalyptic script in order to have a renewed vision of their own social, sexual, ethnic locations or con-texts.

What would make this book a "feminist" guide? For Catherine, the feminist construction of gender is a "configural zone," intersecting with other zones- like time, place, community and spirit that refract through the lens of apocalypse. Apocalypse, she says, provides a kind of kaleidoscope for cultural self-consideration. (Kaleidoscope provides us a kind of multiple/ refracted view of a subject.) Catherine wanted to make this work as a theological enquiry, because; "theology may help us to locate ourselves within the mythic history of apocalypse and to seek its present meaning" (P. xiii).

[...]

[Skyweir]

Cheers Wos .. sounds simply awful

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

God and Power: Counter-Apocalyptic Journeys by Catherine Keller

[Skyweir]

mmm .. counter apocalyptic journeys wonders what they are Opposing theories of the end of days A well spring of feminist theories proposing a non patriarchal end of days

The mind boggles and explodes

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

On the Mystery: Discerning Divinity in Process by Catherine Keller

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Cloud of the Impossible: Negative Theology and Planetary Entanglement by Catherine Keller

[Linna Heartbooger]

...apocalypse is a disclosure of an opening. Apocalypse did not originally denote cataclysm or end. The Greek word apokalypsis means to unveil, to disclose, and to reveal. In this book, she particularly speaks of an apocalypse pattern operating in/ as western history.

I can think of a theology guy who would be pleased with this part of the write-up...
there is this one prof who says whenever he hears the news say "a storm of apocalyptic proportions," he always hears the "opening/revealing/unveiling" meaning and jokes that he just about wants to call the station and tell them they're using that word wrong.

So she tries to re-read 'John's apocalypse' / the book of Revelation as a 'pre-text' that influenced immensely the genealogy of the western history and culture.

So it sounds like she's talking about how the book of Revelation... and humanity's readings and mis-readings of it... affected the way society even developed through all these centuries.


Okay, now I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend a book for you, Wos.
It's "New Testament Theology," by George Caird and Lincoln Hurst.
(One began writing the book and died before he finished it; his student completed it.)
It proceeds on the premise that the author of the book organizes a (fictitious) theology conference and invites the authors of the various books of the New Testament, and have them weigh in on different questions.
(He admits that if you get to ask the questions, you sort of get to dictate the course it takes; so he admits it's not free of his own biases.)

It apparently (I admit: I haven't read it.) has lines like,
"The [people who show up in the New Testament narrative] were playing a part in a drama with a plot of such power and flexibility that not only their obedience but also their disobedience contributed to its fulfilling."
(that's def. a paraphrase, though.)

(so, it sounds like a style of experimenting with ideas that is similar to some things you read... but I know that is just one of many factors to consider.)

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

[...]

Okay, now I'm going to go out on a limb and recommend a book for you, Wos.
It's "New Testament Theology," by George Caird and Lincoln Hurst.
(One began writing the book and died before he finished it; his student completed it.)

[...]

I dunno if my study-track will ever take me in that direction, but I'll be sure to make a mental note in case it does.

Thanx for the heads-up.

[Skyweir]

Religious folk are such weirdos

Yeah .. I said it

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Intercarnations: Exercises in Theological Possibility by Catherine Keller

[Skyweir]

This Catherine Keller is quite the hoot .. shes clearly got a wicked sense of humour .. oh which I highly approve. Kinda intriguing works tbh...

Of course Im basing my comments purely on the clever cover kinda looks a tad satanicy ..

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

The Absolute in History: The Philosophy and Theology of History in Schelling's Late Philosophy by Walter Kasper

[Avatar]

Picked up and read Sharpe's Revenge over the weekend, the only Sharpe book of the original series I was missing. (Sharpe and the peace of 1814.)

Must have only read it once before, since I was amazed at how much of the story I had forgotten.

Anyway, couldn't leave it at that, so busy with Sharpe's Waterloo now.

--A

[Avatar]

Might as well finish the chronology up, so Sharpe's Devil, the last Sharpe book (chronologically).

Interestingly, I see on his site that he's considering another Sharpe book or two, which would be great.

--A

[Skyweir]

Historical fiction? or History Av?

[Avatar]

Historical fiction. Really good historical fiction.

--A

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

An Introduction to Vatican II as an Ongoing Theological Event by Matthew Levering