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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
[Introduction To] On Agamben, Arendt, Christianity, And The Dark Arts Of Civilization, Peter I. Kaufman
[Introduction To] On Agamben, Arendt, Christianity, And The Dark Arts Of Civilization, Peter I. Kaufman
Bookshelf
Many progressives have found passages in Augustine's work that suggest he entertained hopes for meaningful political melioration in his time. They also propose that his “political theology” could be an especially valuable resource for “an ethics of democratic citizenship” or for “hopeful citizenship” in our times. Peter Kaufman argues that Augustine's “political theology” offers a compelling, radical alternative to progressive politics. He chronicles Augustine's experiments with alternative polities, and pairs Augustine's criticisms of political culture with those of Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt.
This book argues that the perspectives of pilgrims (Augustine), refugees (Agamben), and pariahs (Arendt) are better staging …
How To Be A Good Believer: A Multifaceted Defense Of Christian Belief, Cameron Bonsell
How To Be A Good Believer: A Multifaceted Defense Of Christian Belief, Cameron Bonsell
Honors Theses
In this paper I will argue that holding Christian beliefs is consistent with intellectual virtues. I must first clarify that holding Christian beliefs does not consist only in the affirmation of certain propositions like “God exists”. This is not to say that affirming certain doctrine is not essential to Christian belief, but this is only part of what it encompasses. When I refer to Christianity and Christian beliefs in this paper, I mean affirming basic religious propositions like “Jesus was the son of God”, but I also take certain practices to be part of Christian belief. For example, spiritual disciplines …
Reading Dostoevsky In Turin: The Antichrist's Accelerationism, Gary Shapiro
Reading Dostoevsky In Turin: The Antichrist's Accelerationism, Gary Shapiro
Philosophy Faculty Publications
Nietzsche aimed at splitting time into two great parts, before and after himself (EH Destiny 8). Just after finishing The Antichrist, he says that this happens through uncovering the truth of Christian morality "an event without parallel." During his last two years of frantic writing, Nietzsche was avidly reading Dostoevsky. One of the Russian novelist's most "philosophical" characters and psychological studies is Kirillov, who plans a suicide that will divide history into two parts: "From the gorilla to the destruction of God, and from the destruction of God to...the physical changing of the earth and man" (Dostoevsky 1995 115). …
(Dis)Owning Constantinian Christianity, Peter Iver Kaufman
(Dis)Owning Constantinian Christianity, Peter Iver Kaufman
Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications
From 1970 until he took leave of the terrestrial city over forty years later, Robert Markus informed and enlivened our discussions of Constantinian Christianity. His impressive erudition still does. He was especially and insightfully concerned with the period “during which Christian Romans came slowly to identify themselves with traditional Roman values, culture, practices, and established institutions.” And he identified the world in which that assimilation “slowly” occurred as “the secular.” His readers were used to that assimilation in their time--our time--having heard references to civil religion, so Markus could well have been considered to be politically correct, and a number …
Augustine's Dystopia, Peter Iver Kaufman
Augustine's Dystopia, Peter Iver Kaufman
Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications
By discussing several of the issues that complicated the Christian's cohabitation and political participation in "this wicked world," as Augustine saw them, the remainder of this contribution will garrison the ground we have gained collecting the bad news he conveyed in his city. We shall inquire whether the assorted "consolations" he enumerated compensated for the corruption. And we shall consider one reason he might have had for composing his tome as a massive disorienting device. Of course, certainty about authorial intent is impossible to pocket, yet one can make the case that Augustine dropped City of God into the post-410 …
Augustine And Corruption, Peter Iver Kaufman
Augustine And Corruption, Peter Iver Kaufman
Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications
Augustine's political thought or, as it is often called, political theology is a matter of considerable dispute. 'Augustine and Corruption' approaches that dispute by examining the evidence that Ramsay MacMullen presented to substantiate his observation that Augustine 'approved of' corruption. I read that evidence differently and use Augustine's remarks about bribes paid to court clerks, schemes to defraud philanthropists, and tax evasion to support what has been aptly called 'a minimalist' interpretation of his political expectations.
A Question Of Plain Dealing: Josiah Cotton, Native Christians, And The Quest For Security In Eighteenth-Century Plymouth County, Douglas L. Winiarski
A Question Of Plain Dealing: Josiah Cotton, Native Christians, And The Quest For Security In Eighteenth-Century Plymouth County, Douglas L. Winiarski
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
In the wake of King Philip's War (1675-76), Wampanoags throughout the "Old Colony" - Plymouth, Bristol, and Barnstable Counties in southeastern Massachusetts - struggled to pick up the pieces of a culture shattered by violence and warfare, riven with internal dissension, and plagued by economic exploitation and English racism. As several revisionist studies have shown, Indians like Ned turned to Christianity to combat the social and economic challenges confronting their communities during the first half of the eighteenth century, but they did so in complex and at times contradictory ways. The tenant families at Plain Dealing, for example, consigned their …
Patience And/Or Politics: Augustine And The Crisis At Calama, 408-409, Peter Iver Kaufman
Patience And/Or Politics: Augustine And The Crisis At Calama, 408-409, Peter Iver Kaufman
Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications
Few scholars would quarrel with Ernst Dassman's observation that early Christian "reserve" toward the political cultures of antiquity--a mixture of difference and indifference, which only occasionally gave way to hostility--turned Christians' outcast status into something of a virtue.Still fewer are likely to dispute the assertion that influential fourth-century Christians unreservedly welcomed the changes that came with Constantine and anticipated the "Christianization" of imperial, if not also local, politics. But evaluations of Augustine's enthusiasm later that century and early the next never fail now to elicit disagreement
War And Its Discontents: Pacifism And Quietism In The Abrahamic Traditions (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
War And Its Discontents: Pacifism And Quietism In The Abrahamic Traditions (Book Review), G. Scott Davis
Religious Studies Faculty Publications
Review of the book, War and Its Discontents: Pacifism and Quietism in the Abrahamic Traditions, edited by J. Patout Burns. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996.
Community Adaptation In The Judeo-Christian Tradition, John K. Overton
Community Adaptation In The Judeo-Christian Tradition, John K. Overton
Honors Theses
Pesach represents the pivotal event in Jewish history to many, but its historical development bristles even more intensely and significantly than is often acknowledged. Its origins reach behind the Exodus event into pastoral cultures, behind the values of modern Jewry, behind the sensibilities of ancient Yahwism. Its understanding has been creatively synthesized, assimilated, digested and shaped within the culture of the Hebrews and then within the culture of the Jews, but this is all based on a historical victory. Cultural assimilation, military rebellion, and a consolidating expression after rebellion are all present.