Faith, Neoliberalism, and the End of the World (AR9025Z)

Postgraduate, 24.0 points

Content

Religion has a great deal to say about the end of the world, with a rich apocalyptic tradition featured prominently in the Abrahamic faiths. However, people of faith – and everyone else – must now reckon with late modernity, an epoch where (to paraphrase Fredric Jameson) the demise of capitalism seems less imaginable than the end of the world. In the neoliberal imaginary, where markets reign and the future is reconfigured as a continuation of an endless present – w(h)ither faith?

Unit code: AR9025Z

Unit status: Approved (New unit)

Points: 24.0

Unit level: Postgraduate Elective

Unit discipline: Religious Studies

Proposing College: Wollaston Theological College

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Learning outcomes

1.

Critically analyse the emergence, evolution, and present shape(s) of neoliberalism.
2.

Identify and discuss the apocalyptic/eschatological tenets of at least one religious tradition, including evolutions and adaptions of the tradition in response to the conditions of late modernity.
3.

Critically assess the role religion has played in shaping present conditions and how it may continue to do so in the future.

Unit sequence

No prerequisites

Pedagogy

Lectures/seminars and tutorials

Indicative Bibliography

  • Al-Bagdadi, Nadia, David Marno, and Matthias Riedl, eds. Apocalyptic Complex: Perspectives, Histories, Persistence. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2018.
  • Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. New York, NY: Zone Books, 2015.
  • Dreher, Sabine, and Peter J. Smith, eds. Religious Activism in the Global Economy: Promoting, Reforming, or Resisting Neoliberal Globalization? London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
  • Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France 1978–79. Translated by G. Burchell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008..
  • Han, Byung-Chul. Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power. Translated by E. Butler. London: Verso, 2017.
  • Mirowski, Philip. Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown. London: Verso, 2013.
  • Polyani, Karl. The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001.
  • Possamai, Adam. The i-zation of Society, Religion, and Neoliberal Post-secularism. Singapore: Springer, 2018.
  • Tanner, Kathryn. Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.
  • Weber, Max. Economy and Society. Translated by K. Tribe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019.

Assessment

Type Description Word count Weight (%)
Forum 1000 15.0
Critical Review 1000 15.0
Essay 3500 40.0
Written Examination 2000 30.0
Approvals

Unit approved for the University of Divinity by Prof Albert Haddad on 12 Sep, 2023

Unit record last updated: 2023-09-12 13:33:39 +1000