CFP – Critical Theory for Political Theology, 2.0

What tools from critical theory are useful for scholarship in political theology, or more generally for thinking in new ways about the connections between religion and politics? While political theology is increasingly understood as an interdisciplinary field, bringing together scholars of religious traditions and scholars from across the humanities theorizing the connections between religious, political, and secular ideas and practices, the reservoir of contemporary theory and philosophy from which the field draws has often remained relatively narrow, centered on figures such as Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, and Jacques Derrida.

We invite proposals for brief essays (1500-2000 words) that introduce contemporary critical theorists and philosophers whose work is relevant to political theology. While we encourage essays that approach this task creatively, we expect each essay to include a brief introduction to the theorist, an overview of their main ideas and works, suggestions about how their insights might contribute to discussions of political theology, and challenges their work might face when confronting questions of religion. We envision essays on such figures as Adriana Cavarero, Anne Dufourmantelle, Enrique Dussel, Roberto Esposito, Silvia Federici, Byung-Chul Han, Kojin Karatani, Francois Laruelle, Catherine Malabou, Achille Mbembe, Quentin Meillasoux, Gayatri Spivak, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. We welcome other suggestions as well, especially for essays on critical theorists outside North Atlantic intellectual traditions. We anticipate future series of essays on theory from Black studies and de/post-colonial studies.

Curated by Alex Dubilet and Vincent Lloyd, essays in this series will be available open access on the Political Theology Network website. We may explore the possibility of a future print publication. Please send proposals including the theorist you would like to write about, a paragraph describing your approach, and a couple lines describing your expertise to Alex Dubilet (aleksey.dubilet@vanderbilt.edu) and Vincent Lloyd (vlloyd@villanova.edu). Please send your proposals by August 15, 2020. The brief essays will be due by December 15, 2020.