Political Theologies of the Neighbour (CT3220T)

Content

One of the key categories in contemporary theological ethics and political theology is that of the neighbour. Neighbours have figured in modernity as anything from monstrous figures of alienation, to totally other, yet intimate, figures of difference. What we will begin to see through this unit, however, is how the neighbour becomes a window into the self. Often the trouble with neighbours is really a trouble with the self into which the neighbour is incorporated.

This unit will introduce students to some of the ways theological concepts of neighbourliness have been entangled in key political and ethical struggles of the 20th and 21st century, and will go on to develop a theological ethics/politics of neighbour love.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

Prerequisite: foundational CT.

Pedagogy

Face to face delivery of lectures, with integrated online forums and activities.

Indicative Bibliography

Anidjar, Gil. Semites: Race, Religion, Literature (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).

The Jew, The Arab: A History of the Enemy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003).

Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt, 1976).

Bonhoeffer, Life Together in trans., Daniel W. Bloesch, ed., Victoria Barnett, intro., Geoffrey B. Kelly, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works: Reader’s Edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015).

Bouteldja, Houria. Whites, Jews, and Us (Cambridge: Semiotext(e), 2017).

Brown, Wendy. Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (New York: Zone Books, 2010).

Freud, Sigmund. Moses and Monotheism in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud vol XXIII (New York: Vintage, 2001).

Kafka, Franz., The Metamorphosis and Other Stories (London and New York: Penguin, 2007).

Kristeva, Julia., Trans. Leon S. Roudiez, Strangers to Ourselves (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991).

Rosenzweig, Franz. Trans. Barbara E. Galli, The Star of Redemption (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005).

Sacks, Jonathan. Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence (New York: Schocken, 2017).

Santner, Eric, Zizek, Slavoj, and Reinhard, Kenneth. The Neighbour: Three Inquiries in Political Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

Santner, Eric. The Psychotheology of Everyday Life (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001).

Schmitt, Carl. Trans. George Schwab, Political Theology (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1985).

Smith, Ted. Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015).

Assessment