Journal of the Council for Research on Religion, Aug 31, 2023
The second issue of volume four of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) c... more The second issue of volume four of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) came out of a colloquium entitled "Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Education in the Global Village of the 21st Century.
Although many will remember 2020 as the year of the pandemic, it was also the year when George Fl... more Although many will remember 2020 as the year of the pandemic, it was also the year when George Floyd, a Black man, was brutally murdered by White police officer Derek Michael Chauvin under the pretense of reasonable policing. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations in protest of the systematic racism laid bare by this murder inspired a global response: in the months following Floyd's death, millions of people from around the world held demonstrations protesting racial inequality, racialized violence, and racialized police violence specifically. In the wake of these protests have been calls for renewed vigilance in reflecting on and responding to issues related to race and the reality of racialized discrimination and violence; calls to seriously foreground these discussions and not let them slip out of public consciousness as so commonly occurs in our world of twenty-four hour news cycles. The present volume -"Religion, Resistance, and Racialization" -was inspired by these calls, and seeks to showcase research dealing with some of the ways racism and religion intersect. Our first article, "Purity Culture's Racist Fruit: Centering the Voices of Black Womanists and Feminists in the Deconstruction of Purity Culture," by Olivia Jayne Schultz, interrogates the racialized underpinnings of contemporary North American Evangelical purity culture, and highlights the need to foreground Black womanist and feminist interventions in the deconstruction of this culture. Next is Filippo Pedretti's "Race and Zen: Julius Evola, Fascism, and D. T. Suzuki," which highlights how discourse analysis can be used to problematize political narratives rooted in the intersection of racism and spirituality. Following this is "The Racialization of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa" by Brenda McCollum, a work which examines how colonial powers, and later academics, participated in constructing a
Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,”... more Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,” and Jan Slaby’s work on affect, this paper offers a critique of George Ciccariello-Maher’s (2017) formulation of Frantz Fanon’s decolonized dialectic. I argue that Ciccariello-Maher’s formulation, while excellent in most respects, nevertheless contains a significant lacuna. While he is correct to point out that Fanon’s critique of universal reconciliation forces his dialectical activity to remain firmly rooted in the present, by failing to fully draw out how the past always already weighs on the present, Ciccariello-Maher runs the risk of obscuring the affective weight of Fanon’s historical critique. This is problematic for the way it obscures the full range of ethical possibilities that stem from this particular affective experience—possibilities that Jan Slaby (2020: 189–95) makes clear via Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake.” In other words, while Ciccariello-Maher seems to frame...
Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,”... more Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,” and Jan Slaby’s work on affect, this paper offers a critique of George Ciccariello-Maher’s (2017) formulation of Frantz Fanon’s decolonized dialectic. I argue that Ciccariello-Maher’s formulation, while excellent in most respects, nevertheless contains a significant lacuna. While he is correct to point out that Fanon’s critique of universal reconciliation forces his dialectical activity to remain firmly rooted in the present, by failing to fully draw out how the past always already weighs on the present, Ciccariello-Maher runs the risk of obscuring the affective weight of Fanon’s historical critique. This is problematic for the way it obscures the full range of ethical possibilities that stem from this particular affective experience—possibilities that Jan Slaby (2020: 189–95) makes clear via Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake.” In other words, while Ciccariello-Maher seems to frame Fanon’s recourse to infinitely deferred reconciliation as a reflection of the “ethical nihilism” (2017: 62) that characterizes the system of oppression he is responding to, a reformulation of Ciccariello-Maher’s observations with respect to affectivity re-frames this infinite deferral as an “embodied ethics of being and knowing” (Slaby 2020: 189). I will ultimately argue that this reformulation helps us understand Fanon’s parting words in Black Skin White Masks—“Oh my body, always make me a man who questions!” (Fanon 2008b: 206; 1952: 188)—as a call for the type of ethics suggested by Sharpe’s notion of “the wake” (2016).
Hans-Georg Gadamer is widely recognized as one of the most influential figures in twentieth centu... more Hans-Georg Gadamer is widely recognized as one of the most influential figures in twentieth century hermeneutics. Following Heidegger, Gadamer articulates the hermeneutical problem ontologically as the problem of human understanding, and argues that understanding is an inherently dialogical process that cannot be grasped by a facile appeal to method. While Truth and Method—his magnum opus—primarily focuses on the understanding of texts, his assertions regarding the historical and dialogical nature of understanding opens his work up to different types of application. This thesis will assert that his work provides an excellent framework for making sense of some of the challenges inherent in inter-cultural/religious dialogue and understanding, and accomplish this by exploring the Quebec accommodation crisis through a Gadamerian lens.
Journal of the Council for Research on Religion, 2021
The second issue of volume two of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) ca... more The second issue of volume two of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) came out of a colloquium in honour of Professor Emeritus Douglas John Hall, entitled “Christian Theology after Christendom: Engaging the Thought of Douglas John Hall.” The event was held at McGill University in November 2019, hosted by the McGill School of Religious Studies and Emmanuel College in the University of Toronto. These articles were chosen for this issue because of their focus on themes central to the corpus of Douglas Hall’s work. While some engage his work directly, others raise interesting questions and concerns related to the theme. These articles should be considered as an accompaniment to the volume of papers published in 2021 by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic and entitled Christian Theology after Christendom: Engaging the Thought of Douglas John Hall, edited by Patricia G. Kirkpatrick and Pamela R. McCarroll.
https://creor-ejournal.library.mcgill.ca/issue/view/4
The first issue of volume two of The Journa... more https://creor-ejournal.library.mcgill.ca/issue/view/4 The first issue of volume two of The Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) goes back to a colloquium hosted at the McGill School of Religious Studies in 2019 that focused on Religion and Climate Change. Special attention was given to both modern and ancient responses to climate change and how present-day climate change effects and/or influences political and economic action as well as religious interpretations.
The colloquium took place while a crowd of 500,000 people marched in Montreal, inspired by the Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, to protest against inadequate action on climate change. The current pandemic has demonstrated how intricately connected global societies are to one another and that if we all take conscious steps towards addressing climate issues, we can make a difference.
Journal of the Council for Research on Religion, Aug 31, 2023
The second issue of volume four of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) c... more The second issue of volume four of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) came out of a colloquium entitled "Who is My Neighbour? Interfaith Dialogue and Theological Education in the Global Village of the 21st Century.
Although many will remember 2020 as the year of the pandemic, it was also the year when George Fl... more Although many will remember 2020 as the year of the pandemic, it was also the year when George Floyd, a Black man, was brutally murdered by White police officer Derek Michael Chauvin under the pretense of reasonable policing. The Black Lives Matter demonstrations in protest of the systematic racism laid bare by this murder inspired a global response: in the months following Floyd's death, millions of people from around the world held demonstrations protesting racial inequality, racialized violence, and racialized police violence specifically. In the wake of these protests have been calls for renewed vigilance in reflecting on and responding to issues related to race and the reality of racialized discrimination and violence; calls to seriously foreground these discussions and not let them slip out of public consciousness as so commonly occurs in our world of twenty-four hour news cycles. The present volume -"Religion, Resistance, and Racialization" -was inspired by these calls, and seeks to showcase research dealing with some of the ways racism and religion intersect. Our first article, "Purity Culture's Racist Fruit: Centering the Voices of Black Womanists and Feminists in the Deconstruction of Purity Culture," by Olivia Jayne Schultz, interrogates the racialized underpinnings of contemporary North American Evangelical purity culture, and highlights the need to foreground Black womanist and feminist interventions in the deconstruction of this culture. Next is Filippo Pedretti's "Race and Zen: Julius Evola, Fascism, and D. T. Suzuki," which highlights how discourse analysis can be used to problematize political narratives rooted in the intersection of racism and spirituality. Following this is "The Racialization of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa" by Brenda McCollum, a work which examines how colonial powers, and later academics, participated in constructing a
Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,”... more Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,” and Jan Slaby’s work on affect, this paper offers a critique of George Ciccariello-Maher’s (2017) formulation of Frantz Fanon’s decolonized dialectic. I argue that Ciccariello-Maher’s formulation, while excellent in most respects, nevertheless contains a significant lacuna. While he is correct to point out that Fanon’s critique of universal reconciliation forces his dialectical activity to remain firmly rooted in the present, by failing to fully draw out how the past always already weighs on the present, Ciccariello-Maher runs the risk of obscuring the affective weight of Fanon’s historical critique. This is problematic for the way it obscures the full range of ethical possibilities that stem from this particular affective experience—possibilities that Jan Slaby (2020: 189–95) makes clear via Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake.” In other words, while Ciccariello-Maher seems to frame...
Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,”... more Drawing from the critical phenomenology of Alia Al-Saji, Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake,” and Jan Slaby’s work on affect, this paper offers a critique of George Ciccariello-Maher’s (2017) formulation of Frantz Fanon’s decolonized dialectic. I argue that Ciccariello-Maher’s formulation, while excellent in most respects, nevertheless contains a significant lacuna. While he is correct to point out that Fanon’s critique of universal reconciliation forces his dialectical activity to remain firmly rooted in the present, by failing to fully draw out how the past always already weighs on the present, Ciccariello-Maher runs the risk of obscuring the affective weight of Fanon’s historical critique. This is problematic for the way it obscures the full range of ethical possibilities that stem from this particular affective experience—possibilities that Jan Slaby (2020: 189–95) makes clear via Christina Sharpe’s notion of “the wake.” In other words, while Ciccariello-Maher seems to frame Fanon’s recourse to infinitely deferred reconciliation as a reflection of the “ethical nihilism” (2017: 62) that characterizes the system of oppression he is responding to, a reformulation of Ciccariello-Maher’s observations with respect to affectivity re-frames this infinite deferral as an “embodied ethics of being and knowing” (Slaby 2020: 189). I will ultimately argue that this reformulation helps us understand Fanon’s parting words in Black Skin White Masks—“Oh my body, always make me a man who questions!” (Fanon 2008b: 206; 1952: 188)—as a call for the type of ethics suggested by Sharpe’s notion of “the wake” (2016).
Hans-Georg Gadamer is widely recognized as one of the most influential figures in twentieth centu... more Hans-Georg Gadamer is widely recognized as one of the most influential figures in twentieth century hermeneutics. Following Heidegger, Gadamer articulates the hermeneutical problem ontologically as the problem of human understanding, and argues that understanding is an inherently dialogical process that cannot be grasped by a facile appeal to method. While Truth and Method—his magnum opus—primarily focuses on the understanding of texts, his assertions regarding the historical and dialogical nature of understanding opens his work up to different types of application. This thesis will assert that his work provides an excellent framework for making sense of some of the challenges inherent in inter-cultural/religious dialogue and understanding, and accomplish this by exploring the Quebec accommodation crisis through a Gadamerian lens.
Journal of the Council for Research on Religion, 2021
The second issue of volume two of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) ca... more The second issue of volume two of the Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) came out of a colloquium in honour of Professor Emeritus Douglas John Hall, entitled “Christian Theology after Christendom: Engaging the Thought of Douglas John Hall.” The event was held at McGill University in November 2019, hosted by the McGill School of Religious Studies and Emmanuel College in the University of Toronto. These articles were chosen for this issue because of their focus on themes central to the corpus of Douglas Hall’s work. While some engage his work directly, others raise interesting questions and concerns related to the theme. These articles should be considered as an accompaniment to the volume of papers published in 2021 by Lexington Books/Fortress Academic and entitled Christian Theology after Christendom: Engaging the Thought of Douglas John Hall, edited by Patricia G. Kirkpatrick and Pamela R. McCarroll.
https://creor-ejournal.library.mcgill.ca/issue/view/4
The first issue of volume two of The Journa... more https://creor-ejournal.library.mcgill.ca/issue/view/4 The first issue of volume two of The Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) goes back to a colloquium hosted at the McGill School of Religious Studies in 2019 that focused on Religion and Climate Change. Special attention was given to both modern and ancient responses to climate change and how present-day climate change effects and/or influences political and economic action as well as religious interpretations.
The colloquium took place while a crowd of 500,000 people marched in Montreal, inspired by the Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, to protest against inadequate action on climate change. The current pandemic has demonstrated how intricately connected global societies are to one another and that if we all take conscious steps towards addressing climate issues, we can make a difference.
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Papers by Elyse MacLeod
The first issue of volume two of The Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) goes back to a colloquium hosted at the McGill School of Religious Studies in 2019 that focused on Religion and Climate Change. Special attention was given to both modern and ancient responses to climate change and how present-day climate change effects and/or influences political and economic action as well as religious interpretations.
The colloquium took place while a crowd of 500,000 people marched in Montreal, inspired by the Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, to protest against inadequate action on climate change. The current pandemic has demonstrated how intricately connected global societies are to one another and that if we all take conscious steps towards addressing climate issues, we can make a difference.
Drafts by Elyse MacLeod
The first issue of volume two of The Journal of the Council for Research on Religion (JCREOR) goes back to a colloquium hosted at the McGill School of Religious Studies in 2019 that focused on Religion and Climate Change. Special attention was given to both modern and ancient responses to climate change and how present-day climate change effects and/or influences political and economic action as well as religious interpretations.
The colloquium took place while a crowd of 500,000 people marched in Montreal, inspired by the Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, to protest against inadequate action on climate change. The current pandemic has demonstrated how intricately connected global societies are to one another and that if we all take conscious steps towards addressing climate issues, we can make a difference.