Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Beware Of Mad John: Political Theology, Psychedelics And Literature, Roger K. Green

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using the discourse of Political Theology as a mode of enquiry we can overcome a longstanding tension between aesthetics and history that characterized much of twentieth century thought. Focusing on literary and occasionally musical works from the mid twentieth century, my aim is to show how works displaying psychedelic aesthetics are important venues for political deliberation with regard to citizenship. Through affective means, psychedelic aesthetics reimagine the boundaries of liberal subjectivity through a consciousness expansion and return from that expansion. The subject who returns from a psychedelic “experience” – which can be attained in various ways – comes to ethically …

Thinking, With Heidegger, The Religion-Science-Theology Relation, David L. Carlson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work is an attempt to think the essential nature of the interrelationships among religion, science, and theology (RST) out of Heidegger's engagement with the question of Being. Three primary questions initially motivated this inquiry: First, how are the interrelations (if any) among religion, science, and theology to be understood? Second, is a relation of "dialogue," in some sense, possible among the three elements of the RST triad? And third, does theology have a rightful place in the public square dominated by the view that science serves as the "gold standard" for rationality and truth? The inquiry interweaves five threads, …

A Theological Inquiry Regarding The Practice Of The Eucharist In Cyberspace, Janice L. Duce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study looks at the Eucharist in cyberspace, beginning with a case study of a faith community who met with controversy after the group shared the ritual in cyberspace. Based on a qualitative study of the practice and its aftermath, the theoretical analysis includes the nature of the Internet itself and its capacity as a location for networked communities; its capacity to operate as a communication medium for a religious ritual; and the involvement of active users.

The users in this case were members of a religious community interested in preserving their Eucharist theological tradition. The first set of major …

Sense-Making Bodies: Feminist Materiality And Phenomenology In Constructive Body Theologies, Heike Peckruhn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Constructive body theology provides an ethical commitment to and a set of analytical principles for understanding bodily experience. If we insist upon the theological value of embodied experience, how can we give an adequate account of it? Are feminist appeals to the senses useful in developing theological truth claims based in embodied experiences? Feminist theologies which explicitly seek to overcome body/mind dualisms often reinscribe them when they neglect to attend to perception as a critical element of bodily experience. Phenomenological analyses of perception (such as suggested by Merleau-Ponty) strengthen and refine our conception of embodiment. Grounding constructive theology in experience …