ENGL7039 · English

Theory and Theology

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

This course will include works of contemporary theorists such as Lacan, Derrida, Levinas, Foucault, Nancy, Kristeva, Badiou, and Agamben that intersect with theology. We will focus on Christianity but be open to contemporary theoretical intersections with Islam and Judaism and any others we discover. A major emphasis will be the myriad ways that psychoanalytic theorists attempt to bring Christianity down to earth. In fact, all the theorists of this course propose radical forms of social and political change, condemn hierarchy, disbelieve in Heaven, and identify as atheists (testifying to Lacan's own striking assertion inThe Ethics of Psychoanalysis, Seminar VII, that there is a "certain atheistic message in Christianity itself"), and yet cling to Christianity, can't let it go.At the very beginning ofSaint Paul, Alain Badiou, insists that he draws upon Paul "without devotion," regarding Paul as neither an apostle nor a saint: "nothing sacred" is involved. Yet Badiou himself seems aware of the curious strangeness of his atheistic infatuation with such a religious figure, one who is, as Badiou himself notes, "frequently tied to Christianity's least open, most institutional aspects: the Church, moral discipline, social conservatism, suspiciousness toward Jews." Reflecting on his own puzzlement, Badiou explains that he is "irreligious by heredity, and [was] even encouraged in the desire to crush the clerical infamy by [his] four grandparents." The first words of this texts Prologue deem it a "Strange enterprise."We will observe how the theorists of this course sublate Christianity, negate it to preserve it in a new form. We will strive to understand not so much our theorists dependency on theology as their effort to reread it. Two papers will be required: a midterm essay of 8-10 pages and a final essay of 10-12 pages.