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Essays

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Just Universities – Markets and Mission: An Economist’s Perspective

Most disciplines in the university are less about workforce development and more about various forms of thinking and knowledge. The idea seems to be that if we develop individuals in a broad sense, then that will spill over into workforce skills and productivity. While I do believe that in some sense this is true, I am not sure how much this is happening or how important it actually is.

Techno-Orientalism

Asian American literary criticism’s analysis of contemporary orientalisms centered around the figuration of Asian subjectivities reminds political theologians that unconscious (white) fear and fascination with the Orient still guides political and theoretical engagement with the Asian “other.”

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Redemption as Creation in the Cosmic Empire

In casting the return from exile as a new exodus, Second Isaiah activates an ambiguity in an ancient poem in light of new political realities.

White Catholics and “Law and Order Catholicism”

This essay invites readers to consider what white Catholics reveal about the history and meaning of the term “law and order,” and what that turn of phrase reveals about twentieth century Catholicism in the United States.

The Judgment of Solomon: Can the Mission Remain Divided Without Killing the University?

The horror stories threaten to overwhelm us. But what can we do? How can we employ the Catholic mission of these institutions to slow down and reverse the corporate takeover of Catholic higher education?

CFP: Political Theology Beyond

The Brink, the blog of the journal Political Theology, invites proposals for symposia that expand conversations about political theology in the direction of the comparative, the colonial, the postcolonial, or the decolonial.

Gratuitous Violence

Signifying a critical homology between the fields of Black studies and political theology, gratuitous violence is an important keyword for interrogating how religio-political concepts can afford unique insights into issues of slavery, race, and the human which continue to inform our world today.  

The Parable of the Condescending Father

Luke 15:11-32 serves as a warning instead of model to imitate.

Who is Afraid of Allah? On Muslims Sans Muslimness

For Muslims to become worthy of any empathy and solidarity, whether in the west or in staunchly anti-Muslim India, what must first be shed is our very religiosity. Islam is to be tolerated only when reduced to culture in which the dominant-caste or white friend can joyously celebrate Muslim festivities, visit Muslim friends and restaurants for biryani in Toronto or Delhi, or post Sufi songs on their social media. Those are the parameters set around reception of a Muslim sans Islam.

Deprovincializing Political Theology

While noting earlier scholarly debates over the connection between monotheism and political theology, I pose the question of how the discourses of political theology might look different if these discourses were to become more pluralist and less focused on European and biblical traditions.