“Perfectionism: Rediscovering Freedom Without Free Will”

Kalamazoo International Congress on Medieval Studies, 2021

My dissertation studies Aquinas's reception of Greek patristic and Byzantine sources for the Catena Aurea, his four-volume, continuous patristic commentary on the Gospels. One of my interests is in how Aquinas redeploys these sources in subsequent texts, especially the Summa Theologica. In this paper I build off the work of Louis-Jacques Bataillon by examining Aquinas's incorporation of the doctores in the objections and their replies in the Tertia Pars qq. 27-59, on the mysteries of Christ's life. I identify the synchronic and diachronic value in this practice: First, I argue that in addition to the articulation of sacred doctrine, Thomas is concerned with the proper interpretation of patristic authorities pertinent to the questions he raises. Then, I argue that these authorities, in turn, deepen Thomas's engagement with doctrinal questions (as is evident when one compares his Sentences commentary, which he wrote prior to the composition of the Catena Aurea, to the Tertia Pars). I will give an example of the synchronic element of patristic contribution in the Thomistic commonplace, "Christ's action is for our instruction," and I will give an example of the diachronic element by looking at his treatment of the transfiguration in the Sentences commentary and the Tertia Pars.

56th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, 2021

In XIIe and XIIIe centuries medieval French literature, animals in courtly love relationships is a topic relatively common (e.g. Petit-Crû from Tristan and Iseut, the nightingale in the lai of Marie de France or the little dog from La Châtelaine de Vergy). Animals facilitate communication between the lovers whilst ensuring the secrecy of their relationship, but also symbolize the transgression of social laws in favour of the courtly ideal. However, in some texts of the same period, animals are no longer the adjuvants of lovers, instead they are placed within the couple. This is the case of the Knight from the Lai du Bisclavret by Marie de France (twelfth century) who metamorphoses into a werewolf, and the Guivre – a dragon maiden – from the Bel Inconnu by Renaut de Beaujeu (thirteenth century). By their hybridity, these two creatures transgress the species borders. This peculiarity could allow us to consider these beasts in their “queerness” in every sense of the word. Belonging to the medieval marvel, they are what disturbs the norm. They invite us to question the boundaries between human and animal as well as they help us to understand alterity. This alterity is present through an unnatural love relationship that arises by the presence of the Guivre or the werewolf. Thenceforth, “queerness” could be understood as its most common meaning to the extent that these monsters break the canonical model of the man-woman couple. More than proposing a homoeroticism reading of these texts, we aim essentially to question heteronormativity and to point out the possibilities of varied love relationships. Finally, these two texts allow us also to interrogate masculinity through the werewolf and femininity through the Guivre, without forgetting the human partner confronted to this marvel.

56th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 10-15, 2021, Western Michigan University, Medieval Institute, Kalamazoo, 2021

This essay aims to illustrate how objects from material culture are used to characterize religious paintings giving them particular and sacral connotation. Wall paintings in Cappadocia, Turkey, between 9th and 11th century have been especially analyzed and themes including dining tables have been selected such as The last dinner or The Hospitality of Abram. With the help of previous works of scholars like Nicholas Oikonomides or Maria Parani, aspects as the shape of the table and seats, the pottery and textiles have been compared with archaeological findings and textual sources. Main results of the analysis highlight the outstanding role of contemporary material culture and social practice in inspiring and enriching the depiction, also in Cappadocia, traditionally considered a provincial territory. Luxurious and precious objects, as well from the imperial and court context, are depicted in the paintings to add a symbolic meaning to the representations implying a strong sense of authority and sacrality.

Presented on Friday, February 10, 2017, during the 13th Annual Seminary Scholarship Symposium at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary on the campus of Andrews University in Berrien Springs, MI. Many New Testament scholars have noted significant differences between the theology of the undisputed Pauline writings and that of Colossians. One of these differences is the abundance of pneumatology in the former and its apparent absence in the latter. Most scholars agree that pneumatology is a central theme for Paul, but some of them question its presence in Colossians and, therefore, challenge its claimed Pauline authorship (Col 1:1; 4:18). Other scholars see the presence of the Spirit permeating the content of the letter in a way that corresponds with typical Pauline theology. Most, however, recognize some pneumatological references, but these are seen to be few and limited. This debate raises the question: If Colossians is a Pauline epistle, where is the Spirit? This study seeks to answer this question by conducting an in-depth exegetical and intertextual analysis of pneumatological language and concepts in the undisputed Pauline writings and Colossians for the purpose of determining (1) the degree to which the Spirit is present in Colossians and (2) whether or not there is correspondence between the pneumatological content of the undisputed Pauline writings and that of Colossians. This analysis leads the study to conclude that, while pneumatology features less prominently in Colossians than in the undisputed Pauline writings, it is not altogether absent from it. Rather the Spirit is present in four explicit (Col 1:8, 9; 2:5; 3:16) and many implicit references (of which only seven are presented) that have deep linguistic and conceptual connections to the pneumatological content in the undisputed Pauline writings.

2020

Philadelphia 2020 EASTERN DIVISION MEETING

" The English word paradise derives from the Avestan word for a walled garden, pairi-daēza. In the Book of Revelation the heavenly Jerusalem is surrounded by a wall marking its exclusivity, mimicking the walls that surrounded the earthly Jerusalem in the late first century CE. This etymology is apropos to our presentations this afternoon, because if there is one theological specialization that is built upon a walled conception of its subject matter, eschatology is that concentration. My remarks today for this Theology Without Walls panel will provide an alternative dialogical framework for thinking about eschatology across religious traditions, and I will do so with the help of imaginative literature, alternately called fiction or belles lettres. I turn to literature for three reasons. Those reasons are first, the value of acknowledging subjectivity; second, freedom from the burden of canonicity; and third, the hope for a future world that imaginative literature can represent."

2009

In order to palpate how social change happens Michel Foucault deployed the term dispositif (most frequently translated into English as “apparatus”), to emphasize the power differential intrinsic in the networked relations of social actors. According to Foucault the eighteenth century Physiocrats are the exemplars to whom we must look if we are to understand how the shift from monarchy to democracy could happen. Foucault tells us that what the Physiocrats advanced was an apparatus (dispositif) for adjusting materials in response to scarcity. Who were the Physiocrats? The leading figure of the Physiocrat movement, François Quesnay saw himself—and insisted his pupils also refer to him—as “the Confucius of Europe.” The Marquis de Mirabeau even referred to Quesnay’s Tableau économique as the Physiocrat’s Yijing 易經. I am obligated to note that Foucault chose not to pursue this Sinophilia in the origin of our contemporary dispositif. Rather, he points to Louis-Paul Abeille’s Lettre d’un negociant sur la nature du commerce des grains (1763) as representative of the “pivotal position in the economic thought of that time.” We can speculate as to why Foucault chose not pursue the Sinophilic tendencies, but it is staggering to see that at precisely the moment where Foucault sees a pivotal shift in Occidental political-economic thought there was an equally important report written in China titled “A Memorial on Grain Prices, the Grain Trade, and Government-Controlled Brokerages,” (1763) written by Yang Yingju. Was it simple serendipity that Abeille and Yang wrote these reports at the same moment? Here I will present a small introduction to the Chinese philosophical roots of the development of laissez-faire capitalism. Or perhaps I should say that it is an introduction to a misreading of Chinese philosophy.